Mendelssohn vs. Schumann

[Todd]

No contest: Schumann.

[DavidW]

Interesting, David.  Schumann's Piano Trios are currently my absolute favourites in that genre.

Really?  Brahms and Beethoven for me.  Give me the Ghost Trio, Archduke and Brahms PTs and I'm happy as a pig in slop.

[Brahmsian]

Really?  Brahms and Beethoven for me.  Give me the Ghost Trio, Archduke and Brahms PTs and I'm happy as a pig in slop.

Don't get me wrong, I love Brahms' and Beethoven's PTs.  There is just something really special that I particularly love and find in the Schumann PTs.

[DavidW]

My fav chamber work of Schumann's is the piano quintet.

But we should have a piano trio marathon day, that would be cool.  I would listen to Beethoven's Ghost, Schubert's PT #2, all of the Brahms, some late Haydn, Dvorak's Dumsky and Shostakovich's PT #2.

What would you choose for such a marathon Ray?

[Karl Henning]

My fav chamber work of Schumann's is the piano quintet.

+ 1

Although . . . the Violin Sonatas are apt to set this favorite status at risk . . . .

[Mandryka]

Well, this isn't a totally fair poll from my perspective. Schumann's music is very important to me—I'm thinking particularly of the piano music from Opus 1 to (roughly) 22, the songs, and the chamber music. I relate very strongly to his compositional concerns and ways of writing, the constant undercurrent streak of darkness, the fear of madness and so on and so forth. I flatter myself by thinking he is the kind of composer I might have become had I been born in his time period/social class/gender/etc—the "mirror" whose music always seems to reflect

At the same time, of all living composers, Mendelssohn was probably the one Schumann held in highest esteem, even to the point of toning down the more consciously experimental aspects of his style later in life and turning from piano music and lieder to choral, chamber and orchestral music to imitate him. Mendelssohn's music has been out of fashion for quite a while, so it is more difficult to appreciate objectively with the weight of so many years of criticism hanging over it, but I imagine developing an understanding of Mendelssohn is key to unlocking greater appreciation of Schumann's later music (which has often been dismissed as weaker by commentators). I suspect I'm further behind on this than many people, since I'm still not familiar with most of Mendelssohn's mature work (indeed sometimes it seems I rarely listen to anything Mendelssohn wrote after the age of eighteen), but the string quartet in F minor is probably a good place to start.

Can you say a bit more about this? Which late Schumann pieces do you have in mind?

I've never been able to get into the mass. I've never heard the requiem. I don't enjoy the cello concerto much. Are these unexperimental and mendelssohnian.

[Brahmsian]

My fav chamber work of Schumann's is the piano quintet.

But we should have a piano trio marathon day, that would be cool.  I would listen to Beethoven's Ghost, Schubert's PT #2, all of the Brahms, some late Haydn, Dvorak's Dumsky and Shostakovich's PT #2.

What would you choose for such a marathon Ray?

3 Schumann's, 3 Brahms, Beethoven (both Op. 70's), Rimsky-Korsakov's, Taneyev's, Tchaikovsky. I could add more of course. 

[Brahmsian]

+ 1

Although . . . the Violin Sonatas are apt to set this favorite status at risk . . . .

I have yet to hear a note of these, Karl.     At least, I still have several Schumann works yet to discover.

[kyjo]

Interesting, David.  Schumann's Piano Trios are currently my absolute favourites in that genre.

Indeed, Ray. I've really grown to love Schumann's chamber works over the years. Mendelssohn's chamber music is overall less consistent in quality, but I love his Octet and piano trios quite a bit.

[Mandryka]

Did anyone here Rzewsky's performance of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words?  I mention it because the fact  that someone of his stature is such a passionate champion of Mendelssohn makes me wonder if there's more to the piano music than I may have thought, whether the music has been just too often treated to superficial performances. However he never performed Mendelssohn in Europe as far as I know, and I've never come across a recording of any of the concerts he gave in the US.

Another reason I'm a bit unwilling to dismiss Mendelssohn's piano music is Maria Grinberg's extraordinary CD, which makes it sound pretty deep stuff.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Not even a close one for me.  I prefer Schumann.

+1

[Sergeant Rock]

Since Saul isn't here, I voted for Bartholdy, just to give him a voice 

Sarge

[amw]

Can you say a bit more about this? Which late Schumann pieces do you have in mind?

The Violin Concerto and Sonatas are often brought up, as are a couple of the piano trios, some of the late piano music (Gesänge die Fruhe is a good mind-changer for those who haven't really liked Schumann's later music much), plus yes the Requiem and the various other choral stuff which was modeled at least in part (I believe) after Mendelssohn's (then immensely popular) oratorios, sacred choral works etc. It can also be instructive to compare the original versions of Schumann's early piano works with some revisions he made much later in the 1850s (after he had come to identify much more with the conservative wing of German musical politics), of which the most radical is the new version of the Impromptus on a Theme of Clara Wieck, Op. 5.

Re Mendelssohn's piano music, the Songs without Words have tended to be considered minor works by Mendelssohn scholars of which I'm aware, with their popularity mostly due to their suitability for not very advanced pianists, sentimental melodies and generally safe, conservative (therefore "neutral" through the many changes of style in the intervening decades) idiom. I haven't explored the rest of his piano works very much though (recommendations?) and there are several of them (i.e. the Songs without Words) of which I'm quite fond. The piano sonatas are much more experimental, reflecting some influence of late Beethoven, and in turn looking forward to the developments of Schumann and co. later on, but they're not as characteristic or fully formed dating as they do from the age of 13-17.

[Mandryka]

Here's  Rzewski's notes on the Songs without words

   

The 'Songs Without Words' are usually seen as trivial salon pieces, a
mixed dish to be offered as light refreshment in an otherwise serious
program. I see them rather as a single unified work: a systematically
constructed secular oratorio for piano, a musical Bildungsroman,
painting a ranibow of life's changing patterns and emotions within an
unchanging structure of repetitive cycles.
   If there is a single dominant theme, it is water: the naturalistic
evocation of babbling brooks in spring that opens each cycle, or the
splashing of oars that ends it. But other unifying links recur
constantly: the descending fourth or tritone, for example, or the
anapestic phrase structure that reappears everywhere: two short
repetitions followed by a longer answer.
   In order to make the larger form perceptible, I choose fast tempi.
(The duration might vary from 90 to 100 minutes.) I see Mendelssohn as a
radical: a revolutionary romantic, but also firmly anchored in classical
rationality. He always returns to the chorale, somehow a symbol of
Reason in a time of social upheaval.
   Why call it "songs without words?"  Does that mean there are words?
Schumann thought so, maybe. Could it have something to do with the
Hasidic _niggun_? Apparently not. If there were words, they were
deliberately suppressed. Why? Is it about a secret? Is the Duetto at the
end of the third cycle a simple love song, or a mystical allegory? These
are all questions I cannot answer; but I try to ask them in my playing.
     

I'm interested in  the op 5 impromptus, they were championed and recorded by Eduard Erdmann, who's one of my favourite pianists. I don't know if he plays the original or the revision.  Is there a recording of both? I'd be quite curious to check it out.

By the way, any suggestions about good books on Schumann, especially his aesthetics,  would be appreciated!

[Florestan]

If I were to vote --- which I refuse to do --- my vote would go to Schumann... but...

...Anytime I see Mendelssohn dismissed as "not deep enough", "safe" and "conservative" I tend to go Saul-esque (Dzorelashvili, not St. Paul...)

Felix (what an appropriate name, BTW!) was born in a rich family, grew up in a safe and committed intellectual / artistic environment and his whole personality was, as a result, very balanced. His music (at least until the death of his sister Fanny) is sunny, joyous and uplifting, with occasional angry outbursts --- but then again so is Mozart's. Schumann's music is "personal"; yes, because of Schumann's personality; Mendelssohn's music is every bit as personal as Schumann's, because that was his personality: sunny, joyous and uplifting. Is there any rule that music should be all angst and despair and it should disturb the listener? I've never ever understood why joy and happiness are somehow less human than sorrow and despair and why art based on the latter feelings is somehow superior to art based on the former feelings. 

IIRC, shortly after Mendelssohn's death, Clara Wieck-Schumann managed to have his husband agree to invite Liszt for dinner: an attempt to have the two of them make peace at last. Liszt comes, Schumann welcomes, the dinner and talk goes on rather peacefully, until Liszt makes a dismissive comment about Mendelssohn's music --- at which point Schumann bursts out in outrage and the Clara-envisaged truce turns into a debacle. 

[mc ukrneal]

If I were to vote --- which I refuse to do --- my vote would go to Schumann... but...

...Anytime I see Mendelssohn dismissed as "not deep enough", "safe" and "conservative" I tend to go Saul-esque (Dzorelashvili, not St. Paul...)

Felix (what an appropriate name, BTW!) was born in a rich family, grew up in a safe and committed intellectual / artistic environment and his whole personality was, as a result, very balanced. His music (at least until the death of his sister Fanny) is sunny, joyous and uplifting, with occasional angry outbursts --- but then again so is Mozart's. Schumann's music is "personal"; yes, because of Schumann's personality; Mendelssohn's music is every bit as personal as Schumann's, because that was his personality: sunny, joyous and uplifting. Is there any rule that music should be all angst and despair and it should disturb the listener? I've never ever understood why joy and happiness are somehow less human than sorrow and despair and why art based on the latter feelings is somehow superior to art based on the former feelings. 

Well said.

[The new erato]

They're both personal; it's just that one personality is far more interesting than the other.

[71 dB]

Voted for Mendelssohn, because he is the underdog here and I really enjoy he's string symphonies and octet.

I haven't explored that deep either of these composers thou...

[milk]

I voted Schumann. There's that madness and despair in Schumann... But I do love Mendelssohn's piano trios. Also, Brautigam's recent PI recording of Songs without Words (books 1-4) is a fine one. I guess they'll be another installment - hopefully soon. I'm looking forward to it. I have a lot of PI recordings of Schumann but I notice there's still some major piano works of Schumann's that I haven't found on fortepiano (Davidsbündlertänze/Kreisleriana).

[springrite]

Schumann by a mile.

No, by 26.2 miles (a marathon length).