Schumann Complete Symphonies Nos 1-4
A survey that retains the sweetness while keeping the calories down
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Label: CPO
Magazine Review Date: 12/2010
Media Format: Hybrid SACD
Media Runtime: 0
Catalogue Number: CPO777 536-2
Author: Rob Cowan
The high-point of Beermann’s Second is the Scherzo, where the excitingly fast tempi never sound hard-driven and where the Trios are well integrated, tempo-wise, into the rest of the movement. The first movement is relatively unaffected, unlike on a fascinating recent Hänssler version (a coupling of the Second and Third Symphonies) with Michael Gielen conducting. There, dynamics are dramatically underlined…the Hänssler booklet-note admits that Gielen has “changed” the odd detail in the interests of greater clarity. Likewise at the centre of the Third’s first movement, at the point where the horns announce a broadened version of the principal theme’s opening, Gielen has them play with mutes, and his finale follows on from the Feierlich fourth movement with uncommon delicacy. Beermann’s manner is more self-effacing, at times equally gentle (ie at the start of the Third’s Scherzo), though I like the muscular emphasis he places on the penultimate episode in the finale (at around 8'31") before firing off at top speed for the closing pages.
As to recent comparisons, I retain a fondness for Fabio Luisi’s Vienna Symphony set, which is personal in a way that I feel Schumann interpretation needs to be, while on the vintage front no self-respecting collector should forget the poetic Rafael Kubelík (either in Berlin for DG or in Munich for Sony) or the bracing Wolfgang Sawallisch in Dresden.
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