Schumann's The Kreisleriana

[Tarantella]

Absolutely agree about the flexibility and bodily agility needed for playing the piano. And I, too, detest the ceiling addicts who roll about the piano stool in quasi-ecstatic, facially contorted melodramatics!! In your wildest imagination, could you envision Jorge Bolet doing that!!??

I'm listening right now to Horowitz (Studio Recordings, NY, 1985) playing Kreisleriana. I note the tempo markings and one of my favourite sections is No. 6, simply marked "sehr langsam" (very slowly) Lento assai. I don't think Horowitz is observing this to the letter, from what I can hear. At this stage of his musical life, whatever Vladimir lacked in technical 'facility' is more than compensated for by subtlety and insight.

I note the opening of the piece is marked "Agitatissimo" - what a wide range of possibilities that offers!! No. 7 is quite wonderful, too, with its Molto Presto marking. Heavy lashings of pedal in this recording, but drama and colour in spades!! Light and shade, thoughtful and subdued left hand accompaniment before the rhythmic section arrives in No. 8. (It's probably not 'dotted' but it sounds like it. I love Schumann's cross-rhythms!!) The restless right hand complementing that beautiful melody line in the left.

In summation, 'Kreisleriana' is musical narrative at its core. Drama and 'characterisation' and, yes, programmatic in the sense that it is representative of extra-musical ideas. After all, most music is narrative across the barline!!! This last section in No. 8 builds to a tumultuous climax which is at once terrifying and exquisitely moving and touching.

Love the ending, with just two notes on the cadence!! The 'boy' had class!!

[Felix]

I was informed today by the internet that there was another private letter from you but have killed myself trying to find it without success. The last one appeared in my inbox. Maybe you should instruct me about dealing with the private mail. My e-mail address is felixdevilliers21@gmail.com. Maybe I shouldn't publicise this and might get a lot of hate mail. I am too impatient with the PC preambulations. The instructions should be made more clear.

You say your recording by Horovitz was made in 1985. The recording I found of him paìlaying Kreisleriana dates back to 1969. I'm sure he matured in his playing. I have heard him playing pieces wonderfully more recently with the utmost musicality. I really dislike bulldozing inot a friends enthusiasm - I'd so much like to share it -but this 1969 recording is simply dreadful and I tried but can't listen to it all the way through. The piano has an awfu shrilll, clattery touch and he plays accordingly.

No doubt that is a magificent recording. He likes drawing very strong lines which are often superimposed on the music you want to hear. No.6 is marked 'pianissimo throughout' and H. kind of bangs out the melody and after the brief climax in the next section Schumann goes back to pianissimo also for the melody in the bass. The third contrasting section is also marked pianissimo and developed into piano. 5th piece he does non of the shadings that Argerich does. I distinguish between Pianists with a capital P and poets of the piano, which she was.

She makes me think of Clara Schumann saying that the pupil who best represented her idea of piano playing was her pupil Emilia Brandes, a Dutch woman. But, she added, Emilia was still young and didn't yet throw a veil of fantasy over her playing as she did. Well, I think Argerich does. I have chosen two Urls of her playing. You may not like them but they is definitely no scombobulation in them. In no. 5 she makes real sense of the contrasting episodes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsnUK...eature=related

These are the last two pieces but the one I wanted you to hear is the last one, no.8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuLJ-...ture=endscreen

I have listened to performances on the CDs I possess by Schiff and Radu Lupu - they are magnificent - but no one comes near Argerich for her imaginative affinity with Schumann.

A digression on programme music. I have never paid much attention to this notion, but maybe we have different conceptions of it. I prefer to think of illustrative music, as in operas and Schumann's songs, which belong on another thread. We can listen to the whole of the Berlioz Fantastique and get everything from its purely musical narrative without knowing anything about the story behind it. I am unable to think of Chopin as a composer of programme music - or, in the end, all music is programme music: Bach's chorales, chorale preludes, even his inventions and fugues are dialogues and with the Preludes have as much character as the Kreisleriana. Much more to write about this and maybe we should start a new thread, but very few people pay much attention, and we are the only two who are writing about Schumann and Kreisleriana.

Yours,
Felix

[Tarantella]

I will pay very close attention to those U-tube links you've provided. (It's very late here and the tennis is still going.) Thanks for the email address and I shouldn't worry: not too many people visit classical music sites and then write hate mail.

Program music: yes, another thread. I don't say that 'program' means a verbal/written inspiration: the music, as you suggest with Berlioz, can sound out a narrative all by itself. Chopin? I would say its very 'romantic' and 'sentimental' qualities imbue the 'program' label - I mean, I just can't hear it as 'absolute' in the sense that the Art of Fugue is. But, we must discuss this elsewhere.

I'll be back after I've listened carefully.

[Tarantella]

Well, I've listened to them both. No. 5 I don't like so much - finding it a bit rushed - but that is not to say there aren't some wonderfully delicate and nuanced sections.

But No. 8 is just wonderful!! That gorgeous, light and subtle left hand accompanying the 'menacing' lines of the melody. This is insightful playing. The 'second subject' - that sweeping and tumultous melody - really builds a narrative here and leads to a kind of high drama which is at once strangely melancholic but also 'inevitable', if you understand what I mean. So, this means that tempo is but ONE consideration and she certainly moves it along.

Would be good to have some other comparisons posted here, eg. Schiff whom you mention, and who is an outstanding pianist (whom I heard twice last year in Vienna) IMO. Here's Radu Lupu, whom you also mention. There doesn't seem to be one by Schiff available on U-Tube. The Lupu seems lush and very romantic - I'm not sure I'm happy about this, but have only heard a fragment so this probably isn't fair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwBtv63Kqa4

Here's another - just the first movement - from Yevgeny Kissin (I saw this pianist last year and he's really matured into a fine artist):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aG26...eature=related

[Tarantella]

BTW, Felix, I adore Schumann's "Symphonic Etudes" and have a magnificent recording by Murray Perahia. What do you think of this work?

[Felix]

Tarantella, I have started writing a partial interpretation of the Kreisleriana, but have to continue it.

Kissin's rendering of the first piece, a miracle of beauty. But I also like it a bit crazy as Argerich plays it.

Yes I love the Symphonic Etudes, but don't like the new habit of pianists to insert the posthumous pieces, lovely as they are. The Etudes loose their coherence. I would play them separately, perhaps in the same programme, before the break.

Yours in a hurry,
Felix

[Herzeleide]

Originally Posted by Felix

My e-mail address is felixdevilliers21@gmail.com. Maybe I shouldn't publicise this and might get a lot of hate mail.

You have a dry sense of humour.

[Tarantella]

Originally Posted by Felix

Tarantella, I have started writing a partial interpretation of the Kreisleriana, but have to continue it.

Kissin's rendering of the first piece, a miracle of beauty. But I also like it a bit crazy as Argerich plays it.

Yes I love the Symphonic Etudes, but don't like the new habit of pianists to insert the posthumous pieces, lovely as they are. The Etudes loose their coherence. I would play them separately, perhaps in the same programme, before the break.

Yours in a hurry,
Felix

I don't know anything about these posthumous pieces. Can you elaborate?

[Despina41]

I'm going to make a round of the Game with the Fantasie, op. 17. Stay tuned

[Felix]

When Schumann composed his cycles he wrote a lot of pieces and then chose a few of them. The Kinderscenen are 12 out of 30. He turned the final choice into a a coherent symphonic entity with attention to key relationships and motivic ones. He did the same with the Etudes but did not destroy the manuscripts of the pieces that did not really fit in with the style of the final version.

Nowadays the posthumous Etudes are published as an appendix to the others. They are utterly charming beyond words and I added two of them to my personal repertoire. Brahms was responsile for publishing them - separately - and had one of his fights with Clara about this, as again about the publication of the first orchestration of the 4th Symphony, which he much preferred, and of the Andante and variations with horns and cellos. He would write suggesting that these works should be published and as Clara didn't say 'no,' he went ahead. She was furious and the friendship almost went to pieces. In the end Clara relented and let Brahms publish a supplement to Schumann's works with all the unpublished pieces he liked, including songs by a Schumann aged 18 when he was still immature musically compared with Mendelssohn, Chopin and Clara Wieck.

A young man who studied composition with Brahms wrote that he was working hard with Brahms, when the latter suddenly got up, opened a drawer, pulled out one of these early songs, An Anna, and played it with tears streaming down his cheeks. What he meant was, "This is something I can't teach you."

The only thing that irritates me about the posthumous Variations, is that very good pianists are beginning to intersperse them among the 'real' Etudes. Imagine if someone found the other 18 pieces composed as studies for the Kinderscenen and inserted them, This would destroy the symphonic unity of conception. After the wonderfull, slightly mock serious opening theme of the Etudes, the ensuing Variations are of a sturdy type, almost like someone fighting with a wall which is perfectly released in the last Variation. The addition of the posthumous variations destroys this and makes the concentrated work too long. If I were a pianist, I'd play a the posth. variations just before the interval and then start the second half immediately with the 'real' Etudes. Then there would be some continuity.

The Kreisleriana are all of a piece and if I remember rightly, Sch. said he composed them in four days. These four day wonders are not to be entirely trusted, as I have seen examples of final touvhes of genius being added during revisions of the pieces.

Back to the Kreisleriana on Word, for better and worse!
Yours,
Felix