Sunday 15 June 2008

Hopefully Robert Schumann wrote better for the piano than he did for the violin. Listening to 60 minutes of his music for violin and piano, I am all too conscious of the fact that he rarely writes for the violin above "C" on the stave. It's music for the violin's G, D and A strings only.

The saving grace of this new CD is the violin playing of Stéphanie-Marie Degand, plus the excellent sound of the newly restored 1883 Steinway piano, plus the demonstration recorded sound and the balance between violin and piano (Olivier Peyrbrune plays the Steinway). The first sonata is its usual welcome self; the three Op 94 Romances are mildly enjoyable. The second sonata never inspires me, mainly because of its vast and nondescript first movement (over 13 minutes in length). But bravo Stéphanie-Marie -- she is one of the very few violinists who is equally convincing as a "baroque" violinist or a modern one -- and bravo the recording company (Ligia). Most unfair that the French currently have so many very fine violinists, pianists and cellists.

2 comments:

oisfetz said...

Agree,Harry. Schumann's chamber bored
me, exception his SQ. His v.c.is hard to stand. piano and cello concerto
and solo piano music are his best IMHO. But solo piano with reservations. I can't stand the "novelettes", and don't like the first and third sonatas.

Harry Collier said...

I can enjoy Schumann's Lieder. I find the piano music a bit muddy -- the symphonies as well. The piano concerto is OK. The violin concerto should never have been discovered; if it were not signed "Robert Schumann" it would have been allowed to languish in obscurity where it belongs.