Schumann: Violin Concerto in D minor WoO 1. Piano Trio No. 3 in G minor Op. 110. Isabelle Faust, violin. Jean-Guihen-Queyras, cello. Alexander Melnikov, piano. Freiburger Barockorchester/Pablo Heras-Casado. Harmonia Mundi HMC 90296 1 CD (Total Time: 61:37) and 1 DVD
Many years ago, I had the pleasure of conducting a performance of Schumann’s Violin Concerto, with Steven Staryk as soloist. Staryk was a great champion of the work and played magnificently, but at the time I was puzzled by the piece and am still. It is one of Schumann’s last works, written in 1853, merely three years before he died. Like so much of Schumann’s music from this period of his life, it is often deemed inferior to what had come before, and this falling off in compositional quality is usually attributed to his failing physical and mental health.
Violinist Joseph Joachim (1831-1903) had encouraged Schumann to write the concerto, but when he saw it, he was clearly disappointed and declined to play it. Schumann’s beloved Clara was also disappointed. Neither Clara nor Joachim would allow the work to be published as part of the Schumann complete edition. The manuscript became a part of Joachim’s estate and it was not until 1937 that Joachim’s heirs gave permission for the work to be performed. Although Yehudi Menuhin recorded it the following year, the work has remained essentially unloved by the wider public.
This Violin Concerto does have problems; for example, several beautiful melodies are repeated ad nauseam, to the point where the overwhelming impression often left by a performance is one of hopeless repetition. Another oft-mentioned flaw is the paucity of brilliant passages for the solo violin, which, given the workmanlike figures written for it, is never allowed to soar as it does in the finest concertos. To make things worse, the solo violin is nearly always playing in its lowest register, and so is easily covered, no matter how softly the orchestra plays.
That said, this new Harmonia Mundi release, part one of a project that will eventually include all three Schumann concertos and his piano trios played on period instruments, takes a fresh approach to the piece and goes a long way toward making a convincing case for it.
Isabelle Faust, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Alexander Melnikov conceived the project and they are featured in both the chamber music performances and in the concertos. In this first recording of the series, Faust plays on a 1704 Stradivarius with gut strings, Queyras plays a 1696 Giofredo Cappa cello – also with gut strings – and Melnikov, an 1847 Streicher piano. In the violin concerto, Faust is joined by the 39-member Freiburger Barockorchester, also playing on period instruments. This is historically-informed Schumann with artists who obviously love the music and who are dedicated to getting it right.
Another unusual feature of this release is that it includes both a CD and a DVD. The CD contains the concerto and the trio in studio performances, while the DVD includes only the concerto in a live performance from the Philharmonie in Berlin. I am not sure why Harmonia Mundi is giving us this audio/video package, but I am not complaining. The DVD offers a unique opportunity to not only hear the historic instruments, but also to see them. We can also see how restrained conductor Pablo Heras-Casado is in his gestures while conveying maximum intensity.
There is even more to learn from seeing the performance; for example, the configuration of the three doubles basses in the orchestra is unique in my experience. Two of them are at the rear of the orchestra on the right, while the third is behind the cellos on the left. I am not sure who made this decision or why, but the sound of the orchestra is excellent with plenty of bass, superbly played.
So what about the performance of the Violin Concerto? Faust is a seasoned soloist and has made a number of fine recordings, especially with Abbado in the Beethoven and Berg concertos (Harmonia Mundi HMC902105), and Andris Nelsons in the Berg concerto as part of the Abbado Memorial Concert (Accentus Music ACC 10319). Here, she produces a consistently beautiful tone with her gut strings and sings the Schumann melodies with warmth and emotion. In accordance with what she takes to be period performance practice, she uses little vibrato and that can be grating at times. She overcomes the repetitive nature of the piece by frequent variations of tempi and phrasing with as much rubato as the music will bear. This strategy can only succeed, of course, with a conductor and an orchestra both sympathetic enough and capable enough to synchronize with her. It also helps to have plenty of rehearsal time.
While Faust and the Freiburg musicians do their utmost to overcome Schumann’s miscalculation in writing so much of the violin part in the lower range of the instrument, there are still – surprising for a recording – passages where the soloist is almost totally covered by the orchestra. Even with an orchestra as small as this one, the famous violin passage in the last movement, where Schumann quotes from the slow movement, is all but inaudible.
In any case, while they did not convince me that the Schumann Violin Concerto is a masterpiece, Faust and her colleagues took me on a journey through the piece that was both stimulating and enjoyable.
The Trio Op. 110 is a beautiful piece with an absolutely charming last movement. The tempo marking for this movement is unusual: Kräftig, mit Humor (powerful, with humour). The word “humour” doesn’t readily come to mind when discussing Schumann’s often oppressively serious late works.
I must confess that this performance on period instruments left me somewhat unsatisfied. While the spirit of the performance is just right, Faust’s playing seems at times too soft – the gut strings are likely to blame – to compete with the piano and the cello, and at others, she seems to give undue prominence to long notes without vibrato. The effect is one of disjointed phrasing – surely not what Schumann intended.
These reservations notwithstanding, I await volumes two and three in this Schumann series with keen anticipation; these fine performers may not have solved all the problems in this music, but they are making a valiant attempt.
#LUDWIGVAN
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