Before
receiving ECM’s new disc of the three Schumann Violin Sonatas,
I’d almost forgotten how wonderful these works are. Violinist
Carolin Widmann - sister to the clarinetist/ composer Jörg
Widmann - reminds me vividly and
energetically of that fact. There is no dearth of recordings,
but no glut, either. For one, you really want a complete
set of them - including the Third Sonata, (new Grove says
WoO27, the Bärenreiter and Schott
Urtext scores
say WoO2), not just opp. 105 and 121. The last work Schumann
composed before he decomposed three years later, it’s a
sonata spotted with inspired,
echt-Schumann moments.
It took its final shape when Schumann added two more movements
to the two (second and fourth movement) that he had already
contributed to the “FAE-Sonata”. The latter was the sonata
that he, Brahms (third movement), and Albert Dietrich (first
movement) co-wrote for the birthday of Joseph Joachim.
Widmann
and pianist Dénes Várjon are not household names, although
collectors of Hungaroton releases might be familiar with
the latter as part of the
Takács
Piano Trio and piano partner of
Miklós Perényi. This recording shows Widmann and Várjon
as fabulous musicians who are — particularly important in this
repertoire — very well matched. Fleet and spunky, finding
a good balance between assertive and lyrical, without overdoing
either, Carolin Widmann navigates through sonatas every
bit as securely as colleagues Marwood, Kremer, Faust & Co.
Gidon
Kremer, who recorded the first two sonatas with Martha
Argerich (DG), floats above the music, his slightly
abbreviated phrases and beautifully contained violin sound
seemingly unconcerned by gravity. Underneath him - sonically,
though not interpretively - Argerich is her tempestuous
best, bursting out at the seams, eager and independent-minded.
The sonatas become two stories, Kremer’s and Argerich’s,
and it’s ever titillating. Tempos change from one second
to another, and movements like the third of op.105 (“Lively”)
run along like mice on tip-toes. It’s a terrific way to
interpret Schumann and even “incomplete” that disc should
be on every well-stocked Schumann shelf.
Isabelle
Faust and Silke Avenhaus on CPO (read Colin Clarke’s review
here) offer all three sonatas and excellent
performances, making it ECM’s primary competition. Like
Kremer, Faust has a tendency towards clipped phrases, but
her touch is not as soft as Kremer’s which gives her consistently
fast readings a trace of aggression and restlessness. No
one plays the second movement of op.121 so fast, though
Widmann and Várjon come close and are even more rhythmically
incisive. The dry acoustic allows for all details to come
out. The balance between the instruments is perfectly even.
Compared
to those accounts, Maria Egelhof and Mathias Weber (Thorofon) sound merely competent and
sometimes even flatfooted (better in op.121 than op.105).
On the other hand so do Alban Beikircher and Benedikt Koehlen
(Arte Nova), who delight with a stunning
slow movement in op.121. The closely recorded pizzicato
beginning is particularly delightful.
Widmann/Várjon
meanwhile are a more cohesive unit than any of the couples
above. They are the most flexible with tempos, allowing
themselves time to indulge (third movement of op.105 or
first movement of op.121) and really stepping on it, too
(second movement of op.121, Scherzo of WoO2). Widmann’s
tone is particularly soft, her touch more supple even than
Kremer’s. When fortissimo is asked for, she remains sonorous
with no hint of screeching. And for the gorgeous third
movement of op.121, they have something truly special in
store. It begins with Carolin Widmann’s pizzicato that
barely sounds like pizzicato and more like a
spiccato
sulla tastiera. It’s the most gentle way you’ll ever
hear this movement opened — slow, but melodious and with
forward movement that gracelessly plucked notes could never
muster. According to Widmann, who is particularly fond
of exploring new ways of treating pizzicatos lovingly,
that movement started out as a casual after-dinner jam
session. It was surreptitiously recorded by Manfred Eicher
who sensed that something beautiful was going on. It was,
said Widmann, a moment of music-making that comes very
rarely; it doesn’t get any better that. She was talking
about the moment itself, but the same could be said of
the result.
Coincidentally
it’s also the movement that works best in the resonant,
not to say cavernous, Auditorio Radio Svizzera in Lugano.
The acoustic is delightful, bordering lush to these ears — for
the most part. Friends of a dry acoustic, though, might
find the natural reverb of the ECM recording to be testing
their limits. Both instruments come to the ears from a
little further back than the closer recorded recordings
of Kremer and Faust.
It’s
my favorite recording of these works now, but it’s not
perfect. What I find somewhat objectionable is the soft
rumble in the bass that’s caused by every stomped foot,
heavily pressed pedal, and every soundly rung low note
on the piano. These low, ambient sounds feel as if someone
upstairs is running about barefoot. On headphones that’s
not a problem, nor at low levels, but with bass-rich speakers
at neighbor-unfriendly levels it can be rather distracting.
Fortunately that’s but a small caveat in light of all the
goodness on this disc.
Jens F. Laurson
Carolin Widmann (violin), Dénes
Várjon (piano) 
