Schumann's Shoebox

[Brahmsian]

Zinman / Tonhalle

I second this recommendation.

[Jo498]

I think Sawallisch is about as good as it gets for a "traditional" recording (a case where a "standard recommendation" of many decades is really justified).

The Gardiner could be a good addition because of the alternative version of #4, the Zwickauer fragment and that horn concertino.

For a bit over the top romanticism with some slowish tempi, Bernstein/DG

[Florestan]

The Gardiner could be a good addition because of the alternative version of #4, the Zwickauer fragment and that horn concertino.

In this respect an even better option is this:

[amw]

I have the Gardiner recordings which seem to be highly regarded.

yes, Gardiner and Holliger would be my top recommendations—this way you get possibly the best exemplar of each school of performance: traditional big band (Sawallisch), historically informed on period instruments (Gardiner), "modern" "HIP-influenced" big band (Holliger). Although if you're really curious you can also check out Chailly's recording of Mahler's re-orchestrations of the symphonies.

[Maestro267]

Wound up with a lot of Schumann recently which I'm slowly working my way through. A lot of chamber music including the piano trios, 2 of the string quartets, the Piano Quartet and Quintet. I listened to the Piano Trio in D minor earlier and like a lot of his music I really picked up on how full of LIFE it is! Magnificent first movement and finale, and an utterly beautiful slow movement too! Also hearing the Piano Quintet which solidified the form for the Romantic era was a treat too! Schumann already was a favourite of mine just from the symphonies but it'll be great to dive further into his music. Other things I've got now are the Piano Concerto and Scenes from Goethe's Faust.

[amw]

Schumann's chamber and orchestral music is the most traditional and possibly the most easy-to-like of his output. His genius (and also his fundamental weirdness) comes through mostly in the early piano pieces and the songs. There's also a reason these are not as well liked by everyone: something like Papillons, for example, may be one of the earliest and most remarkable examples of musical collage, a collection of tiny 15- to 30-second dances strung together that somehow works as a whole. The Piano Sonata No. 1 (one of my favourites to play or listen to) is so obsessive-compulsive that it borders on early minimalism; pieces like the Humoreske and Kreisleriana and the Novelletten are practically open-ended, turning additive ternary/rondo forms into almost arbitrary sequences of events. The song cycles reject pretty much any attempt at unification narratives and instead demand to be listened to as purely psychological narratives—even the texts can be ignored half the time (Schumann does so himself in the Kerner-Lieder, reusing the music of one song for the next, and simply instructing that it be sung "even more quietly and gently".) For the performer, there are melodies in the score that are not supposed to be played (Humoreske) or sections of music that are unplayable as written (Fantaisie) etc.

These characteristics are in evidence in some of his other works as well, though. The Konzertstück for 4 Horns, for example, has the infamous high As in the solo parts which were probably unplayable at the time (nowadays a good player can just about manage, but the valve horn has also become easier to play). The 6 Pieces in Canonic Form for pedal piano, the Andante & Variations for two pianos, two cellos and horn, the Piano Concerto, the early version of the Fourth Symphony, etc., all share similar qualities. And he could just as easily write crowd-pleasers when he wanted to, from the Drei Romanzen op. 28 to the Drei Romanzen op. 94 (in both cases no. 2 of each set is the one that's become practically essential at Grade 5 recitals) and of course the Kinderszenen, which just barely manage to avoid being playable by actual children (too many octaves).

It's an interesting journey if one is up for it, I suppose.

Schumann comes very close to being the most important composer for me. He thinks very much like me, both as a musician and as a person; his weaknesses are (mostly) ones I share, and we have similar strengths, although mine are obviously not as strong or I'd be a famous composer too. I can fundamentally understand his music because he writes the way I do, in short and extremely productive bursts of activity separated by long periods of depression, and with a similar sense of time and a similar difficulty disengaging from any one idea in order to provide a transition to the next one, not to mention a similar tendency to attribute compositions of varying character/style to different imaginary personas.

[Florestan]

Schumann's chamber and orchestral music is the most traditional and possibly the most easy-to-like of his output. His genius (and also his fundamental weirdness) comes through mostly in the early piano pieces and the songs. There's also a reason these are not as well liked by everyone: something like Papillons, for example, may be one of the earliest and most remarkable examples of musical collage, a collection of tiny 15- to 30-second dances strung together that somehow works as a whole. The Piano Sonata No. 1 (one of my favourites to play or listen to) is so obsessive-compulsive that it borders on early minimalism; pieces like the Humoreske and Kreisleriana and the Novelletten are practically open-ended, turning additive ternary/rondo forms into almost arbitrary sequences of events. The song cycles reject pretty much any attempt at unification narratives and instead demand to be listened to as purely psychological narratives—even the texts can be ignored half the time (Schumann does so himself in the Kerner-Lieder, reusing the music of one song for the next, and simply instructing that it be sung "even more quietly and gently".) For the performer, there are melodies in the score that are not supposed to be played (Humoreske) or sections of music that are unplayable as written (Fantaisie) etc.

These characteristics are in evidence in some of his other works as well, though. The Konzertstück for 4 Horns, for example, has the infamous high As in the solo parts which were probably unplayable at the time (nowadays a good player can just about manage, but the valve horn has also become easier to play). The 6 Pieces in Canonic Form for pedal piano, the Andante & Variations for two pianos, two cellos and horn, the Piano Concerto, the early version of the Fourth Symphony, etc., all share similar qualities. And he could just as easily write crowd-pleasers when he wanted to, from the Drei Romanzen op. 28 to the Drei Romanzen op. 94 (in both cases no. 2 of each set is the one that's become practically essential at Grade 5 recitals) and of course the Kinderszenen, which just barely manage to avoid being playable by actual children (too many octaves).

It's an interesting journey if one is up for it, I suppose.

Schumann comes very close to being the most important composer for me. He thinks very much like me, both as a musician and as a person; his weaknesses are (mostly) ones I share, and we have similar strengths, although mine are obviously not as strong or I'd be a famous composer too. I can fundamentally understand his music because he writes the way I do, in short and extremely productive bursts of activity separated by long periods of depression, and with a similar sense of time and a similar difficulty disengaging from any one idea in order to provide a transition to the next one, not to mention a similar tendency to attribute compositions of varying character/style to different imaginary personas.

A very interesting, thought-provoking post.

FWIW, I am the very opposite of Schumann personally: balanced, happy-go-lucky, cheerful, devil-may-care. Yet I love his music deeply and unreservedly.

[kyjo]

Wound up with a lot of Schumann recently which I'm slowly working my way through. A lot of chamber music including the piano trios, 2 of the string quartets, the Piano Quartet and Quintet. I listened to the Piano Trio in D minor earlier and like a lot of his music I really picked up on how full of LIFE it is! Magnificent first movement and finale, and an utterly beautiful slow movement too! Also hearing the Piano Quintet which solidified the form for the Romantic era was a treat too! Schumann already was a favourite of mine just from the symphonies but it'll be great to dive further into his music. Other things I've got now are the Piano Concerto and Scenes from Goethe's Faust.

Oh yes, I LOVE Schumann's chamber music! It's my favorite area of his output. The D minor Piano Trio is indeed a masterpiece, with a remarkably spare and haunting slow movement and a gloriously life-affirming finale for contrast. I also love his other two piano trios, Piano Quintet, Piano Quartet, string quartets, violin sonatas, 5 Pieces in Folk Style for cello and piano....I could go on! Schumann is a composer who I used to be rather ambivalent towards, but who has recently become a firm favorite of mine, mainly due to my in-depth exploration of his chamber output.

[Iota]

A very interesting, thought-provoking post.

+1

Schumann is very possibly the composer that's most important to me too, which came about after many years of liking/playing him without feeling particularly close. Listening one day to Davidsbündlertänze changed all that, I suddenly perceived a truth in the music I'd never heard anywhere else, and with the exception of some late Beethoven and a few other Schumann piano pieces, I still haven't. I find 'truth' in all sorts of music, but Schumann and Beethoven find their way to a place where it seems exposed more nakedly.
I think Schumann couldn't help speaking truth, it just kind of spilled out child-like from him. Beethoven's expression of it was perhaps more of a struggle and harder achieved, summed up well by the oft-quoted lines from Little Gidding*, but I feel both were compulsively driven and could not have hidden it, even had they wished.

One of the outcomes of this personality trait in Schumann was the radical structures seen in some of the piano pieces, described articulately above by amw. He makes (and breaks) his own rules of coherence as he goes, and ends up creating a new kind of poetry. And Beethoven's structural revolutions are well-known.

*"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."

[DavidW]

Wound up with a lot of Schumann recently which I'm slowly working my way through. A lot of chamber music including the piano trios, 2 of the string quartets, the Piano Quartet and Quintet. I listened to the Piano Trio in D minor earlier and like a lot of his music I really picked up on how full of LIFE it is! Magnificent first movement and finale, and an utterly beautiful slow movement too! Also hearing the Piano Quintet which solidified the form for the Romantic era was a treat too! Schumann already was a favourite of mine just from the symphonies but it'll be great to dive further into his music. Other things I've got now are the Piano Concerto and Scenes from Goethe's Faust.

I usually listen to Schumann's chamber music and solo piano music.  IMHO his piano quintet is one of the finest chamber works of the Romantic era.

[Herman]

Schumann's chamber and orchestral music is the most traditional and possibly the most easy-to-like of his output. His genius (and also his fundamental weirdness) comes through mostly in the early piano pieces and the songs. There's also a reason these are not as well liked by everyone: something like Papillons, for example, may be one of the earliest and most remarkable examples of musical collage, a collection of tiny 15- to 30-second dances strung together that somehow works as a whole. The Piano Sonata No. 1 (one of my favourites to play or listen to) is so obsessive-compulsive that it borders on early minimalism; pieces like the Humoreske and Kreisleriana and the Novelletten are practically open-ended, turning additive ternary/rondo forms into almost arbitrary sequences of events.

Really? I would say the early piano opuses are the most popular and oft-performed Schumann works, after, obviously, the piano concerto.

Schumann's string quartets and symphonies are very low on the repertoire ladder.

[San Antone]

I usually listen to Schumann's chamber music and solo piano music.  IMHO his piano quintet is one of the finest chamber works of the Romantic era.

I was going to post a similar thing. 

His chamber music is made up of exquisite works, including his string quartets which are represented with a number of good recordings.  Also, Schumann's solo piano literature is among the most performed works among this repertory. 

I am disappointed when people equate "Classical music" with orchestral music.

[Jo498]

The piano quintet is probably by far the most popular and frequently performed chamber piece; I'd guess followed by the first trio, the piano quartet and the shorter pieces for oboe and clarinet, and maybe the late "Märchenbilder" etc. (i.e. the pieces for instruments with smallish repertoire). The second violn sonata also has some fans
Of course the piano concerto is far more popular than the other two and also than the symphonies; however, I do not have the impression that the symphonies are neglected and the violin concerto (a piece that, I fear, deserves some of the bad reputation it had for a century) seems to have made a comeback. At least on the internet and with some recordings I have the impression that after the old mantra "late Schumann mad and bad" people now tend to err in the opposite direction, making a big fuzz about the violin concerto, "Gesänge der Frühe" and "Geistervariationen".
Two really neglected pieces (IMO far superior to the violin concerto) are the concert pieces for piano and orchestra. Sure, they don't reach the real concerto but they are really nice poetic pieces.

[Florestan]

I am disappointed when people equate "Classical music" with orchestral music.

+ 1.

This equivalence, though, is far less common on GMG than in the world at large.

[amw]

Really? I would say the early piano opuses are the most popular and oft-performed Schumann works, after, obviously, the piano concerto.

I didn't mean to imply that they weren't! But they are also the reason a lot of people think they don't like Schumann. (Barring a few perennially popular works like the Kinderszenen and whatever.) A common reaction you get to pieces like Kreisleriana or the Fantasy or the Davidsbündlertänze is that they don't make sense on some fundamental level, aren't coherent, are too repetitive, are endless and rambling, etc. These people usually don't feel the same way about the Piano Quintet (or whatever else). Musicians obviously try to introduce people to Schumann's more radical works because many musicians love them, but their radicalism will always turn off a percentage of listeners, and for those who hear them often, they may conclude that Schumann's music is of limited value.

This is also one reason for the rediscovery of the late works mentioned by Jo498. The late works are, again, much easier to like, much more "accessible." Something like Davidsbündlertänze is not "accessible" and if you're just listening to it to hear a succession of pretty tunes you'll be disappointed by the apparent lack of structure. (And this is without even getting into the Humoreske and the Novelletten and the Sonata No. 1, etc.)

[Madiel]

The structure of some of those early piano works can definitely be a challenge. In a couple of cases I've needed some sort of guidance so that I could better understand what was happening. They are certainly are not formless, but they have an approach to form that is not traditional.

[Jo498]

As long as pieces are sufficiently engaging or picturesque or attractive in some way, I don't think it matters too much that Schumann had this slightly crazy cycles. The first classical music I was very fond of as a teenager and read some popular/introductory stuff about was mostly "sonata form" and I hardly listened to anything else. I came to Schumann's piano music several years later (I didn't much like any solo piano except Beethoven for quite a while) but I didn't have a huge problem with listening to "character pieces" like Carnaval (or Chopin preludes) as I didn't expect them to have a similar form. The Fantasy is actually more confusing because it has vaguely similar external shape to sonatas.
It's probably not accidental that several of the most popular ones are those obviously brilliant or picturesque (Carnaval, Kinderszenen, maybe Fantasiestücke op.12 and Kreisleriana) or comparably strict/classical, like the symphonic Etudes. And the strangest ones like Humoreske are the least popular.

[Mandryka]

Musical fantasy -- free inspiration, almost like notated improvisation -- has been a central concept since Francesco Da Milano and probably before. It is possibly the most important idea in recent music, underlying idea anyway, even if not explicitly articulated. The romantic trope of creative genius makes fantasy central -- Schumann's just doing what 19th century geniuses were expected to do, like Liszt.

[vers la flamme]

I've never heard Schumann's cello concerto. What's a good recording of it?

[Florestan]

As long as pieces are sufficiently engaging or picturesque or attractive in some way, I don't think it matters too much that Schumann had this slightly crazy cycles.

This.

In this respect, Schumann most closely resembles... Mozart! Yes, Mozart, who wrote to his father that in his (Wolfgang's, that is) music there's something for everyone, be they laymen or connoisseurs.