Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Cello Concerto in A-Minor, Op.129
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky
Soloist: Mstislav Rostropovich
Deutsche Grammophon Recording, printed in Germany
Cello Concerto in A-Minor
1st movement: Pas trop vite
2nd movement: Lentement
3rd movement: Très animé
In case you missed last week’s missive, I had a great all-purpose chat with Michael Mori, the AD of Tapestry Orchestra, for the REMOTE podcast. Please check it out on Spotify, and pass it on to all the opera folks you know. And here’s the weekly shameless plug of my other little digital baby, smART Magazine at www.smartbylighthouse.com. We’re putting together Issue #2 at the moment and the guest line-up is looking very good—can’t wait to share it with you on December 4th—please and thank you for checking out Issue #1 in the meantime.
I’ve been spared the Schumann bug for the most part, though I don’t know of enough Schumannizers to have caught it one myself. I’m still waiting for the epiphany in regards to his music, but it just might be that his music will always be too subtle for my guts—no shame in that—or that I’ve just always had him paired with works and composers with a bit more blood in their cheeks. The flash of his lifespan can’t exactly be blamed for his relatively lukewarm posthumous celebrity: he was born the same year as Chopin and survived him by seven more, but the difference between their aftermaths is night and day. Nevertheless the slice of his white-male piece of the classical canon persists, perhaps as a salt lick for those who aren’t entirely for the scholastic air of the Bruckners, but the vivacity of Chopin and the rest of the Romantics proper has lost its appeal.
It took him three attempts to find a publisher, and Schumann was also unsuccessful in persuading cellists to play the concerto. So he made an arrangement for violin, and sent it to Joseph Joachim. This version suffered the same fate as the later Violin Concerto: Joachim never played it, and it was only rediscovered in the 1980s. “” Robert Philip, The Classical Music Lover’s Companion.
So throughout this cello concerto I searched in vain for a reason why one would bother with traffic, to sit, masked, through an evening at the concert hall for the thirty or so minutes of this work’s lecture on the cello’s timbres. (A fruitless search save for the brief cadenza of slow movement that felt more relevant to what I’ve read about Schumann’s taciturn and less than spectacular character.) That said, I am coming off quite the contrast in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No.1 from last week—a full blooded affair whereby the first notes are also the most addictive and rewarding—no need to delay gratification.
Like Shostakovich’s, this concerto also begins in the hands of the soloist, but instead of the sugar-sweet page-turner of a main theme, Schumann’s launches directly into an elaborate passage—nothing wrong with starting a play off with a soliloquy, it just has to be the best damn soliloquy you’ve ever written. If all that can be said about why everyone else should or shouldn’t subscribe to a piece has by now been said, then it seems the only useful commentary left in regards to the stalwarts of the canon is why you like it.
Perhaps years from now I’ll be writing about this piece, palm to face, regretting this lack of enthusiasm—perhaps sharing the enthusiasm of cellists the like of Pablo Casals, when they made it their mission to resurrect this work in the 80’s. In the meantime, I’ll stick with my crude metric whereby the effect of a stretch of music is by its ability to, above all academic finesse, enthral the listener.
But, despite his musical expertise, Schumann did not really have the right personality to be a successful conductor. He was withdrawn, conducting with his head in the score, and undiplomatic in his dealings with musicians and administrators. “” Robert Philip, The Classical Music Lover’s Companion.
I’ll withhold the preaching, but surely something has to be said about the patriarchal domination of the genre being responsible for Schumann’s persisting career ex post facto; and for the fact that the name Schumann—a popular sighting during dollar-bin dives—is not instead a more frequent reference to Clara Wieck, who was far more interesting, and altogether more industrious of an artist.
At any rate, please come back here next week for a special guest on the nascent Blue Riband Podcast, whose much more qualified commentary on Stravinsky’s Rites will be truly worth your time—she’s about the biggest fan of Stravinsky I know.
SONG OF THE WEEK: ‘Last Leaves of Autumn’ — Beth Orton
All they need is believing, no reason will do
I'm hanging on like the last leaves of autumn
But I'm coming through like the first shoots of spring
Lily - Mono Park, November 2020
I listened to Sugaring Season for the first time last November, and was more too the spell of songs like ‘Call Me The Breeze’ to really notice ‘Last Leaves of Autumn’—the eight song on the Beth Orton album. What a remarkable range Orton’s musicality covers. I’m currently listening to her Kidsticks, released four years after Sugaring Season—and entirely not for me—but nevertheless baffled by how one artist is responsible for both.
I’m glad I delayed the gratification on ‘Last Leaves of Autumn’ till this November. This autumn feels more like a sugaring season, and I feel the accumulated weight of the sap that’s been trickling for years now.
I’m preparing now to write the MCAT next year; terrifying and exciting to, with one attempt, throw a lance at the bulbous perhaps of what the future could bring.
Elsewhere, I’ve made it my business to get more first-hand experience of just how beautiful Ontario is.
Throwback to: YR3, WEEK15 YR2, WEEK15
Click here for the full 2020/2021 roster of selected recordings