During his short life
Robert Schumann composed an enormous
amount of music in most genres. He did
this in spite of long periods of inactivity,
not least caused by the mental instability
which also caused his premature death.
Moreover he passionately wrote musical
criticism and edited his own musical
journal. Also, as Stellan Sagvik points
out in the booklet, was a prolific writer
of letters: he wrote 2500 and received
about twice as many. He was a workaholic;
witnessed his creative periods including
the ‘song year’ 1840 when music literally
flowed out of his pen. His solo songs
are well known, his duets much less
so.
On this disc we have
eighteen duets, described in the booklet
as "Duets for two sopranos and
piano"; in many cases they are
intended for different voices. The first
three, are extracted from the song cycle
Spanisches Liederspiel, set for
four voices: soprano, contralto, tenor
and bass. All in all there are nine
songs: two quartets, two solo songs
and five duets, three of which are for
soprano and contralto. Performed like
that we get a much ampler sound while
the use of two high voices makes it
all thinner, more frail. Moreover, the
variety Schumann certainly strived for,
and which we get when the song cycle
is performed complete, is lost when
we are only served the duets. Hearing
this many duets in a row, after a while,
becomes a monotonous experience. There
is also a sameness of mood through much
of the program. The texts are mainly
nature poetry and so there is a predominant
pastoral feeling. It would have been
a better idea to present the duets in
groups of three or four and interspersed
them with piano music instead of having
that as an appendix. In this case it
probably wouldn’t have worked anyway,
since the duets and the piano pieces
were recorded in different venues with
very different acoustics.
What about the execution
of the music? The two singers - who
actually are twins, which is rare enough
in the musical world – have had a solid
education and work in a variety of fields
in the Gothenburg region of Sweden.
Lilian, who has also translated all
the texts into Swedish, has also had
a sports career. In 1999, the same year
as this disc was recorded, she became
Swedish Champion in Racketlon (table
tennis, squash, badminton and tennis)
and she has also been internationally
successful, especially in badminton.
They both have light, lyrical voices,
which blend well - who else should blend
better than twins? - and they articulate
the texts well. That said, there is
very little variety in tone colour and
this contributes to the sameness I mentioned
earlier. Worse than that, I am sorry
to say, is a constant widening of vibrato
in one of the voices as soon as it is
under pressure, which it is very often
above mezzo-forte. The result gives
the impression that both singers are
out of tune. It might have something
to do with the generous bathroom acoustics
of Fristad Church. This also affects
the piano. It sounds as if the pianist
is using the sustaining pedal all the
time.
The piano music is
played in drier but still generous acoustics
and I believe the duets could have worked
better in the TV studio too. Lars Hägglund
is a good pianist, a notch over-emphatic
at times but he gives a very credible
account of Vogel als Prophet
with some delicate touches. A bit on
the slow side, perhaps, but that is
nothing compared with Träumerei,
the single piece by Schumann that "everybody"
knows. At least I thought I did until
Hägglund started to play it. At
first I thought it was a misprint, then
I recognised the tune but so slow it
was that I wondered if something was
wrong with my CD-player. Then I got
out the piece from my admittedly meagre
collection of sheet-music and found
Schumann’s metronome marking "crotchet
= 100". I don’t know if Schumann
wrote it or if some latter day editor
has added it, but that’s the tempo you
normally hear. Hägglund’s metronome
was set on approx. 40! Actually the
whole performance is so slow that it
is practically immobile. Just consider:
most performers take 3:30, Hägglund
takes 8:15. Of course it is always interesting
to try new approaches, to bend rules,
to test where the limits are, but ...
I am afraid I haven’t
sounded too enthusiastic in this review.
However much I admire the boldness and
the ambitions I think this enterprise
should have been restricted to a more
local market. The notes and comments
are in Swedish only. But collectors
of curios might snap it up for the sake
of Träumerei.
Göran Forsling
Anneli and Lilian Druve (sopranos), Lars Hägglund
(piano) 
