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Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Symphony No.2 in C major Op.61 (1845-46) [35:21]
Overture to ‘Scenes from Goethe’s Faust’ (1853) [7:38] Julius Caesar, Overture Op.128 (1851) [8:25]
Symphony No.4 in D minor Op.120 (original version, 1841)
[23:40]
Swedish
Chamber Orchestra/Thomas Dausgaard
rec. March 2005 (Symphony No.2); March 2006, Örebro Concert
Hall, Sweden. BIS SACD-1519 [75:54]
This is the first of an attractive-looking new project
from BIS, a five CD series called ‘Opening Doors’. Thomas Dausgaard,
who has been associated with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra
for the last ten years, will “explore a wide range of romantic
symphonic music”. The booklet notes reveal that works by
Dvořák and Schubert are in the pipeline, as well as
the rest of the Schumann symphonies. Dausgaard wants to ‘open
the doors into the possibility of hearing this music in a
different way.’ The idea of performing these Schumann works
with a chamber orchestra is not entirely new, although there
seem to be few such versions in the current catalogue. Dausgaard
says that “all the difficulties of balance … with a full
sized orchestra disappeared”, so perhaps all of those moans
about Schumann’s weaknesses in orchestration can be thrown
out with these new recordings.
Indeed, there is a lightness and manoeuvrability about these
performances which is bright and attractive. The Swedish
Chamber orchestra play on modern instruments, but have adapted
timpani and trumpets to a more contemporary style. The stylistic
application of non-vibrato strings where appropriate lends
an ‘authentic’ or period feel. I unearthed my Collins Classics
CD of The Authentic Orchestra (on period instruments) conducted
by Derek Solomons to compare, and found the effect to be
fairly similar. There are different colours from the instruments,
but with the lighter sound of gut strings the balance seems
to concur with the reduced forces of the SCO.
The recordings are to the usual high standard from BIS. With
first and second strings set at left and right on the soundstage
there is plenty of information about the sometimes antiphonal
writing in Symphony No. 2, written while Schumann was immersed
in studies of J.S. Bach. This follows the seating plan of
the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1839 and has been accepted
as convention by many orchestras in this repertoire. Technically
the orchestra is largely on top of the demands made of them,
but reducing the strings always increases the risk of exposing
any weaknesses in some of those insanely difficult passages.
I’m not overly keen on the second violins’ management of
their answering passages in the second Scherzo movement,
30 seconds in and later – they seem fractionally late and
never quite able to catch up. This is something which the
SACD recording seems almost to emphasise, with the seconds
out on something of a limb, even listening in stereo. I do
love the orchestral sound in the darting sections of the
central sections in this movement – like a kitten playing
with scrunched up paper, it’s filled with ‘aaaww’ and unexpectedness
at the same time. The Adagio espressivo is heartrending
in its subtly simple sensitivity. Dausgaard brings everything
possible out of the well-shaped notes, lovely solos and long
lyrical arches in this movement. The strings are once again
put to the test in the chasing scales near the beginning
of the Allegro molto vivace and seem to shrink back
into the mix, hiding behind the winds during the worst parts
of the musical storm breaking over them. The drama is convincingly
portrayed however, with some chunky bass lines and wide contrasts
in dynamic and articulation.
The rousing end of the Symphony No. 2 is balanced by the angst-ridden
opening of the Julius Caesar overture. Both of the
overtures in this programme are late Schumann, and Dausgaard,
in the interview style booklet notes, suggests that the perceived
weaknesses in these works are due to misunderstanding of
their content. “They are strange, unique pieces; and it’s
absurd to compare them with so-called ‘normality’”. With
the dark nature of their origins thus acknowledged, Dausgaard
gives us performances which revel in the worlds they create.
Dramatic but sometimes disjointed passages and strangely
inchoate melodic lines are given full fervour and expressive
value, and we are taken along into the ‘workings of a hypersensitive
mind’, but one which is on an inevitable collision course
with distressing dissolution.
Schumann’s Symphony No.4 was in fact his second in this form.
The premiere was something of a disaster however, with Mendelssohn
withdrawing as conductor at the last minute. Schumann kept
the work hidden for over ten years, returning to it for revisions
in 1851. Even Brahms noted that the work had gained nothing
by having been messed around with however. With the original
1841 version Dausgaard felt the experience, especially with
a chamber orchestra, to be a revelation. Schumann’s later
doublings and alterations to the links between the movements
don’t add materially to the message in the music, but listening
to Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s recording of the later version
put into direct competition with the original on his Archiv
set, you can hear how convincing it can be in the
right hands. Dausgaard is lighter than most as you might
expect, but can still create gestures on the grand scale
which Schumann had in mind. The main advantage is in the
chamber-music like passages, which gain in intimacy, and
therefore in contrast with the full tutti sound of the orchestra.
What Dausgaard and his players do manage to put across is
the sheer joy of life and creativity which Schumann put into
this symphony, and if their Allegro vivace in the
finale leaves you without a secret inner smile and a spring
in your step, then you’ve missed out somewhere along the
line.
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