SCHUMANN: Violin Concerto in D Minor; Phantasie for Violin and Orchestra in C Major, Op. 131; Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 129 (arr. from Cello Con.) – Anthony Marwood, violin/ BBC Scottish Sym. Orch./ Douglas Boyd – Hyperion CDA67847, 69:29 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] ****:
Recorded in Glasgow 10-11 November 2011, this album consolidates Schumann’s late compositions for violin and orchestra, composed 1853. The gloomy, one-affect Violin Concerto in D Minor, despite its championship by Yehudi Menuhin and Henryk Szeryng, remains a virtual baroque exercise in through-composition, its martial theme taking on more serene aspects in the Langsam second movement and the form of a polonaise in the third movement. Joseph Joachim had refused to perform the music in public due its obsessive repetitions. The suppressed manuscript unearthed from the Prussian State Library in 1933, the work found “redemption” by Nazi propaganda agents, who refused Menuhin the German premier, which they bequeathed to Georg Kulenkampff, who later recorded it with Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt.
Marwood and conductor Boyd make as fine a case for Schumann’s late romanticism as they can, especially given the sweet tone of Marwood’s 1736 Bergonzi instrument. The delicate filigree between violin and orchestra in the second movement enjoys a rich tapestry, as well as a full complement of repeats. The concluding polonaise chugs at a moderate pace, rife with roulades and that ineffable nostalgia of which Schumann remains the master. When we recall the Menuhin recorded the work once, in 1938, Szeryng some thirty years after, and Kremer (1994) some twenty years beyond, we might well concede that the time is ripe for Marwood to inscribe a modern classic rendition, especially in this re-edited score from the 1980s.
The arrangement of the Cello Concerto of 1850 as a Violin Concerto came about due to Schumann’s inability to program the original score in Duesseldorf. Cellists of the period pronounced the work too difficult. The Cello Concerto itself did not appear in public until 1860. A fair copy of the arrangement appeared amongst Schumann’s papers in 1987. Schumann recast the orchestral part to support the higher register of the violin, but substantively the lines remain intact. Marwood plays conscientiously, but long familiarity with the work as a deep-voiced cello work enervates the effect of the violin version, despite the innate lyricism of the scoring. When Marwood double-stops on the slow movement, he genuinely captures the more resonant textures of the cello sound. The wonderfully clean lines of the BBC Scottish Symphony come through, poignant and brilliant, courtesy of recording engineers Simon Eadon and Dave Rowell.
The most successful work, musically, turns out to be the 1853 Phantasie, a one-movement consolidation of A Minor and C Major that has already had a fine recording by the late Ruggiero Ricci with Kurt Masur. The writing has an operatic character, perhaps influenced by the example of Spohr. At several points, the orchestral harmony reminds us of Schumann’s Overture, Scherzo, and Finale. The solo part projects a exquisite, militant melancholy whose figures echo the D Minor Violin Concerto, though the cadenza proves more free-wheeling. Marwood’s execution of ricochet bowing certainly competes with older masters’ efforts, and he makes clear that technique’s equal attraction for Mendelssohn and Saint-Saens.
—Gary Lemco
1933 Les chefs proscrits – Ernst Viebig, Conductor – Forgotten Records
A fine conductor, unfortunately suppressed by the vicious political climate of the ’30s
