Hints and tips:
...But with the arrival of conductor Marios Papadopoulos for Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, they lost some confidence....
...Out come the poster girls: Clara Schumann and Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn). If we’re really going to town, they’re joined by Elizabeth Maconchy, Ethel Smyth, maybe even Amy Beach....
...No, what he lacked was Jansons’ colouristic variety, a problem that came to the fore in his encore, Schumann’s Arabesque....
...“I did recently have a listen to a Schumann symphony, but it was like listening to a different person. There is so much more to that first movement than what I put into it....
...His reading of Webern stood out for its luminosity, if not colouristic range, and his interpretation of Schumann avoided ruffling any feathers....
...The victim of this approach was Schumann’s elegant phrasing. The gain was a mesmerising performance that underlined the sonata’s turbulence, while highlighting the influence of Schumann on Webern....
...Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music, by Anna Beer, Oneworld, RRP£14.99/$22.99, 384 pages Hannah Nepil is an FT music critic...
...Tuesday’s Wigmore Hall recital made the point succinctly through the works of Schubert and Schumann....
...So it was hard to identify with the anguish of Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, Schumann’s final solo vocal songs, focused on the plight of the ill-fated Scottish queen....
...But in the context of Sunday’s Schumann and Beethoven programme, they made perfect sense....
...But Alsop’s understated approach worked less well in the “Alto Rhapsody”, Brahms’s despairing bridal song for Clara Schumann’s daughter Julie....
...The orchestra hung on to every note, but Pires’s encore was even more memorable: the impressionistic The Prophet Bird from Schumann’s Waldszenen, Op 82, each note descending like a raindrop on a still pond...
...The Schumann felt as though it had been chucked in for good measure....
...There’s nothing like a juicy back story to lend a work some spice, as in the case of Schumann’s Op. 25 song cycle, Myrthen....
...They grabbed it wholeheartedly, and then seemed reluctant to let go: three encores followed, namely a Brahms scherzo, a Schumann sonata movement and an arrangement of a dance from Stravinsky’s Petrushka....
...This was Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat, Op 44, which, after a menu of entirely new and recent works, went down like sushi in an Italian restaurant: refreshing, but out of place....
...But the most propulsive playing came in Schumann’s highly Beethovenian Fantasy in C....
...The ONL programme, on August 27, will feature Berlioz’s Rêverie et Caprice alongside works by Mendelssohn and Schumann....
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