Looking through my collection, I hardly have anything by Robert Schumann. Any suggestions for the 'must-have' recordings. I have hardly anything apart from a few miscellaneous piano pieces and Dichterliebe with Fisher-Dieskau. I'm particularly interested in suggestions for the piano works.
David
Posted on: 15 September 2002 by herm
I'm digging up this ole thread, after I saw an hour-long French documentary about Martha Argerich on TV.
It's a great documentary, with footage from Buenos Aeres, and London, where she lives, lots of material where she's playing chamber music at home with young friends, and a rehearsal of the Schumann concerto in Germany (with a fairly lousy orchestra).
It's interesting to see her play this concerto blind, mostly talking to the orchestra over the shoulder of the conductor (Jorge Faerber, who seems pathically clueless) her hands going by themselves when they're not busy rearranging her massive mane.
However, at some point she's at home talking about Schumann, in this semi-deep, semi-girlish way she has. Her teacher, Friedrich Gulda, had told her not to worry, it was OK she was Argentine and still felt so close to a German composer like Schumann.
She smiled, and said she didn't want to psychologize these matters but she knew she understood Schumann better than anyone, and he really loved her, too.
Wonderful moment. It was almost as if she said Clara had been second best.
Herman
Posted on: 16 September 2002 by DJH
No-one has mentioned the ongoing Graham Johnson Schumann song cycle on Hyperion. Does this rank alongside his superb Schubert song cycle? If so, which volumes are recommended?
