Robert Schumann: Top 20 Recordings
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Twenty great Schumann recordings, featuring Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Leif Ove Andsnes, Mitsuko Uchida, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and more
Robert Schumann is a key figure in the Romantic movement; none investigated the Romantic’s obsession with feeling and passion quite so thoroughly as him. Here are 20 outstanding recordings of Schumann's music, complete with links to the original Gramophone reviews.
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See also: Top 10 Romantic composers
Symphonies Nos 1-4
Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Yannick Nézet-Séguin (DG)
‘Schumann-lite this may be; but it now becomes a heavyweight contender in a far from uncrowded corner of the market.’
Symphony No 2
WDR SO Cologne / Heinz Holliger (Audite)
‘Schumann has long been central to Heinz Holliger’s creative thinking. His Cologne account – part of the most inclusive overview of Schumann’s orchestral works to date – fuses chamberlike clarity, authenticstyle astringency and full-orchestral immediacy for astounding results.’
Gramophone Collection – Top Choice
Symphony No 3, ‘Rhenish’
Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Nikolaus Harnoncourt
‘This is the one that confirms your love of the music ‘so much that it hurts’. Harnoncourt understands every nuance and inner voice and has communicated this awareness to each and every one of his hand-picked band, who then play with chamber-like intuition.’
Gramophone Collection – Top Choice
Piano Concerto
Leif Ove Andsnes pf Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Mariss Jansons (Warner Classics)
‘Andsnes is firmly supported by Jansons and the Berlin Philharmonic, with playing not just refined but dramatic too in fiercely exciting tuttis. Schumann’s cello melodies are gloriously warm, with textures in both works admirably clear, and Andsnes fully responds to Schumann’s espressivo and ritardando requests.’
Alle Lieder
Christian Gerhaher bar Gerold Huber pf
‘This set taken as a whole is a wonderful achievement and a marvel of sustained artistry: subtle, intelligent performances, impeccably prepared and movingly executed. In every bar Gerhaher and Huber display their rapport, an almost hypnotic closeness and singlemindedness forged over several decades.’
The Songs of Robert Schumann, Vol 1
Christine Schäfer, Graham Johnson (Hyperion)
‘Imaginatively supported by Johnson, Christine Schafer illuminates each of these songs with her pure, lucent timbre, her grace and breadth of phrase and her unselfconscious feeling for verbal meaning and nuance.’
Dichterliebe & other Heine settings
Gerald Finley bar Julius Drake pf (Hyperion)
‘In close collusion with the ever-sentient Julius Drake, Gerald Finley gives one of the most beautifully sung and intensely experienced performances on disc of Schumann’s cycle of rapture, disillusion and tender regret.’
Dichterliebe
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau bar Christoph Eschenbach pf (DG)
‘By a whisker, my favourite F-D version. A performance of shocking, neurotic intensity that veers disturbingly between rapt self-absorption and self-lacerating – and authentically Heine-esque – bitterness. Not for the faint-hearted, perhaps, but for me the Dichterliebe that haunts the imagination above all others.’
Gramophone Collection – Top Choice
Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op 44
Leif Ove Andsnes pf Artemis Quartet (Erato)
‘Leif Ove Andsnes has an uncanny knack of revealing the inner truth of the music he plays without recourse to excessive gimmickry. He also has exquisite taste when it comes to choosing his chamber music collaborators, as this pairing of the two cornerstones of the piano quintet repertoire demonstrates.’
String Quartets Nos 1 & 3
Zehetmair Quartet (ECM New Series)
‘These are not comfortable performances. They pass on cosmetic appeal and would rather grate and rail than pander to surface ‘gloss’. So be warned. But they are profoundly beautiful in their truthful appropriation of music that can be both poignant and aggressive.’
String Quartets Nos 1-3
Doric String Quartet (Chandos)
‘Throughout, they relish the work’s Beethovenian shifts of mood, playing up Schumann’s unique combination of whimsy and fervour. And their ending of the quartet is a superbly adrenalin-pumped affair. These are performances that make you fall in love with the music all over again.’
Works for cello and piano
Steven Isserlis vc Dénes Várjon pf (Hyperion)
‘For all that Isserlis has made many wonderful recordings, not least his seminal Bach Suites, I think this might just be his finest yet, with warmly detailed sound (Isserlis’s usual dream team of Simon Eadon and Andrew Keener).’
Waldszenen. Piano Sonata No 2. Gesänge der Frühe
Mitsuko Uchida pf (Decca)
‘Uchida and Schumann are a wonderful match: she conveys his febrile qualities with such naturalness, as was vividly demonstrated in her previous disc, of Davidsbündlertänze and the C major Fantasie (12/10). What’s striking about this new one, which is if anything even finer, is how shockingly modern she makes Schumann sound.’
Waldszenen
Arcadi Volodos pf (Sony Classical)
‘Waldszenen is perhaps the finest jewel here, with Volodos bringing his story-telling genius to every piece. Its outwardly unassuming nature is deceptive, as the many great pianists who’ve been drawn to it have shown. But Volodos is absolutely up there with the best of them, Richter and Pires included.’
Fantasie in C major
Murray Perahia (CBS)
‘My former colleague, the late Christopher Headington would no doubt question my decision to close with Murray Perahia's CBS recording instead of Pollini's, but if I have to defend my decision it would be on account of the humanity, communication and sheer beauty of sound that he brings to this work - yes, in all other matters he is as superlative as those pianists mentioned above, but for winning new friends the Fantasie could do no better than through Perahia's recording.’
Gramophone Collection – Top Choice
Kreisleriana
Benjamin Grosvenor (Decca)
‘For sheer bravura: just listen to the stunning clarity of the fugal material in the seventh movement. There are plenty of worthy Kreislerianas out there, from Argerich’s to Vogt’s. Grosvenor’s can hold its own against any of them.’
Fantasie in C major. Faschingsschwank aus Wien. Papillons
Sviatoslav Richter pf (Warner Classics)
‘His superiority is apparent throughout. The recording is magnificent for its date. Classic performances which no pianophile should be without.’
Complete Piano Trios
Leif Ove Andsnes pf Christian Tetzlaff vn Tanja Tetzlaff vc (Warner Classics)
‘There’s a fine line between discipline and freedom in much of Schumann’s later music – his propensity for wide-slung, technically awkward melodies can be a challenge for performers – but here the effect is unfailingly effortless.’
Piano Trios Nos 1 & 2
The Florestan Trio (Hyperion)
‘Competition is strongest in the vintage field, but I would unhesitatingly place the Florestan ahead of their digital rivals.’
Das Paradies und die Peri
Dorothea Röschmann, Bernarda Fink, Werner Güra & Christian Gerhaher; Bavarian Radio Symphony Chorus and Orchestra / Nikolaus Harnoncourt (RCA Red Seal)
‘Harnoncourt’s Bavarian RSO sound warm, though period awareness on the conductor’s part ensures sonorities that are light and pointedly attenuated.’
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