minor major Archive

“Schumann’s Enigma” = SCHUMANN: Sonata for V. and P. No. 1 in a; Sonata for V. and P. in d ‒ Svetlana Tsivinskaya, v. / Natalia Tokar, p, ‒ Blue Griffin

by Audiophile Audition | Feb 23, 2017 | Classical CD Reviews

“Schumann’s Enigma” = SCHUMANN: Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in a, Op. 105; Sonata for Violin and Piano in d, Op. 121 ‒ Svetlana Tsivinskaya, v. / Natalia Tokar, p, ‒ Blue Griffin BGR 391, 48:10 [Distr. by Albany] **1/2: Sadly, the chief enigma here is why anyone would choose to invest in this recording. The enigma of the album title refers to Robert Schumann’s lifelong fascination with puzzles and ciphers, which crops up, for example, as the cryptic little “Sphinxes” section in Carnaval and the musical cryptograms that appear throughout the composer’s work. The most interesting aspect of the current release is the very informative notes; they describe in detail Schumann’s cryptographic encoding in the Grand Sonata in D Minor, Op. 121. Noting the musical equivalents in Italian and English notation of D minor (Re minor), E minor (Mi minor), B minor (Si minor), and G major (Sol major), the note-writers (apparently Yelena Franklin and Stefan Koch) explain that with these four musical notes Schumann had the necessary musical “characters” to spell out, in shorthand at least, his own name in his compositions. Thus the first movement of the sonata is dominated by Re minor (Robert) “with […]