We're still targeting Radu Lupu's Schumann Humoreske, but first we're going to detour through some miniatures: kiddie keyboard goodies and a whirlwind of a song

dba: "Radu Lupu (1945-2022) [4]"

Here are a couple of pretty nice performances
(and yes, one of them is Lupu's!):

Artur Schnabel, piano. EMI, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 3, London, June 3, 1947

Radu Lupu, piano. Decca, recorded in the Salle de Châtonneyre, Corseaux, Vaud (Switzerland), January 1993
[NOTE: We're going to be hearing more, and then still more, of the Schnabel and Lupu performances. -- Ed.]

And here are a clutch of performances by top-notch pianists -- from the SC archive -- which I find problematic (yes, even the Kempff!):

Wilhelm Kempff, piano. DG, recorded in the Beethovensaal, Hannover (Germany), February 1973

Claudio Arrau, piano. Philips, recorded in Amsterdam, March 1974

Nelson Freire, piano. Decca, recorded in Emil Berliner Studios, Berlin, Dec. 18-22, 2002

Martha Argerich, piano. DG, recorded in the Plenar-Saal of the Akademie für Wissenschaften, in the Residenz, Munich, April 1983
[NOTE: So what's the problem? Rhythmic chaos. We'll get to it in time. -- Ed.]

NOW FOR THE PROMISED "WHIRLWIND OF A SONG"

SCHUMANN: Myrthen, Op. 25: i. "Widmung" ("Dedication": "Du meine Seele, du mein Herz," "You my soul, you my heart")

You my soul, you my heart,
you my joy, o you my pain,
you my world in which I live,
my heaven you in which I soar,
o you my grave in which
I have buried my sorrows forever.

You are rest; you are peace;
you were destined for me by heaven.
That you love me makes me feel worthy;
your glance has transfigured me;
you lift me, loving, above myself --
my good spirit, my better "I"!

You my soul, you my heart,
you my joy, o you my pain,
you my world, in which I live,
my heaven you, in which I soar --
my good spirit, my better "I"!

-- German text by Friedrich Rückert

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Jörg Demus, piano. DG, recorded c1960

Jorma Hynninen, baritone; Ralf Gothóni, piano. Tactus Oy, recorded in Helsinki (I think!-- Ed.), c1978

Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone; Imogen Cooper, piano. Philips, recorded in the Jugendstiltheater, Vienna, Dec. 17-21, 1998

Elly Ameling, soprano; Dalton Baldwin, piano. Philips, recorded c1976
[NOTE: There are performance notes below. We'll get to them too. -- Ed.]

[AFTERTHOUGHT: I finally mustered enough mental leisure to do some clip-listening, and could I just say, this is some display of pianistic grace! Four quite different but really terrific pianists performing heroic feats in service to both Schumann's brilliant accompaniment and the needs of their gloriously diverse singing partners, none better than that one-of-a-kind piano partner Dalton Baldwin supporting the, er, least flamboyant of our singers, Elly Ameling. But JD, RG, and IC as well -- what a treat! This may be something we should talk about sometime. -- K.]

by Ken

I admit it, I'm being deferentially cautious about diving into the creative ocean that is Schumann's body of large-scale solo-piano writing. In earlier installments of this Radu Lupu remembrance series we had -- going into last week's post ("Radu Lupu (1945-2022) [3]: We are going to hear more Lupu, but I'm afraid we're sticking awhile longer with the 'opening sections' of Schumann's Humoreske") -- polished off four of the five suggested listenings offered by The Guardian's Andrew Clements ("Radu Lupu: Five key performances"), and last week we ventured partway into the remaining one, Schumann's Humoreske, Op. 20.

Now I admit as well that the Humoreske isn't representative of the largest-scale of Schumann's "large-scale solo-piano writing." It does, however, share some of the large issues, such as complexities of structure and manner of musical argumentation, multiplicities of identities and points of view, and technical challenge. And so I thought we might slip back into it via a detour through some pleasingly more manageable Schumann miniatures, starting with the beloved little piano suite Kinderszenen (Scenes of Childhood). A side benefit is that we get to hear a Lupu recording that, as suggested above, I can really get behind.

All the same, the seemingly unrelated song "Widmung" may be more directly on our path back to the "Humoreske" than its keyboard cousin, the Kinderszenen.


HOW ABOUT ANOTHER SONG TO HELP EXPLAIN THIS ONE?
(Like Jack Point & Elsie Maynard's "I have a song to sing, O!"?)

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: The Yeomen of the Guard: Act I, Duet, Jack Point and Elsie Maynard, "I have a song to sing, O!"

Strolling players Elsie Maynard (Laureen Livingstone) and
Jack Point (Tommy Steele) had a song to sing, O! in 1978.

JACK POINT: I have a song to sing, O!
ELSIE MAYNARD: Sing me your song, O!
JACK: It is sung to the moon
by a love-lorn loon,
who fled from the mocking throng, O!
It's a song of a merryman, moping mum,
whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum,
who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb,
as he sighed for the love of a ladye.
Heighdy! heighdy!
Misery me -- lack-a-day-dee!
He sipped no sup, and he craved no crumb,
as he sighed for the love of a ladye!

ELSIE: I have a song to sing, O!
JACK: What is your song, O?
ELSIE: It is sung with the ring
of the songs maids sing
who love with a love life-long, O!
It's the song of a merrymaid, peerly proud,
who loved a lord, and who laughed aloud
at the moan of the merryman, moping mum,
whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum,
who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb,
as he sighed for the love of a ladye!
Heighdy! heighdy!
Misery me -- lack-a-day-dee!
He sipped no sup, and he craved no crumb,
as he sighed for the love of a ladye!

JACK: I have a song to sing, O!
ELSIE: Sing me your song, O!
JACK: It is sung to the knell
of a churchyard bell,
and a doleful dirge, ding dong, O!
It's a song of a popinjay, bravely born,
who turned up his noble nose with scorn
at the humble merrymaid, peerly proud,
who loved a lord, and who laughed aloud
at the moan of the merryman, moping mum,
whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum,
who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb,
as he sighed for the love of a ladye!
Heighdy! heighdy!
Misery me -- lack-a-day-dee!
He sipped no sup, and he craved no crumb,
as he sighed for the love of a ladye!

ELSIE: I have a song to sing, O!
JACK: Sing me your song, O!
ELSIE: It is sung with a sigh
and a tear in the eye,
for it tells of a righted wrong, O!
It's a song of the merrymaid, once so gay,
who turned on her heel and tripped away
from the peacock popinjay, bravely born,
who turned up his noble nose with scorn
at the humble heart that he did not prize:
So she begged on her knees, with downcast eyes,
for the love of the merryman, moping mum,
whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum,
who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb,
as he sighed for the love of a ladye!
BOTH: Heighdy! heighdy!
Misery me -- lack-a-day-dee!
His pains were o'er, and he sighed no more,
for he lived in the love of a ladye!
Heighdy! heighdy!
Misery me -- lack-a-day-dee!
His pains were o'er, and he sighed no more,
for he lived in the love of a ladye!

Geraint Evans (b), Jack Point; Elsie Morison (s), Elsie Maynard; Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 1, London, Dec. 10-14, 1957

Thomas Allen (b), Jack Point; Sylvia McNair (s), Elsie Maynard; Academy and Chorus of St. Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Marriner, cond. Philips, recorded in St. John's Smith Square, London, May 1992

John Reed (b), Jack Point; Elizabeth Harwood (s), Elsie Maynard; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. Decca, recorded in Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London, Apr. 5-11, 1964

Martyn Green (b), Jack Point; Muriel Harding (s), Elsie Maynard; D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus, New Promenade Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded July 18, 1950


A PROJECT FOR TODAY: TO THINK OF SCHUMANN (IN ANY
MUSICAL MEDIUM) AS SOMEONE WITH "A SONG TO SING, O!"

And in 1840, the year in which he expected finally -- after protracted resistance from his hoped-for father-in-law -- to marry his beloved Clara Wieck, did Schumann ever sing a song, O! The total number of songs he produced during his famous "Year of Song" is well over 120, and it seems reasonable to me to think of the cycle of 25 songs gathered under the title Myrthen (Myrtles, as in the shrub*), Op. 25, as the cornerstone of the Year of Song. And No. 1 of the 25 songs is none other than "Widmung."

*The "true myrtle," per Google, is "a fragrant, evergreen shrub with small, glossy green leaves and white, star-shaped flowers with long stamens, and, after their blooming, purple-black berries," which "is native to Mediterranean Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Turkey."

There may be some really long-time Sunday Classics readers who smell a rat, suspecting that I may merely have pounced on an opportunity to trot out "Widmung," vaguely recalling that I have a thing for it. As indeed I do, especially in the c1960 DG recording with pianist Jörg Demus that found baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau at the height of his vocal powers -- and of his can-do courage, sweeping through the song with mind-exploding ebullience and seemingly limitless vigor, a performance for which the word "breathless" pops to mind -- not for the singer, who seems somehow to have at his disposal all the breath required for this challenge, but for the listener. I would be hard put to think of a comparably overwhelming two minutes of singing on records. I can't think why we shouldn't hear it again. I've been known to listen to it four or five times in a row, maybe more.

SCHUMANN: Myrthen, Op. 25: i. "Widmung" ("Dedication")


Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Jörg Demus, piano. DG, recorded c1960
[ADDED THOUGHT ('cause I couldn't think of anyplace else to stick this): The life-long Schumannizing of Jörg Demus (1928-2019) included a 1972-76 recording of the complete piano works that later filled 13CDs.]

As you can hear from the surface noise in the audio clip, it was made from my copy of this all-Schumann LP. (As you can also see, I still haven't found more exact discographic infomation!) I've traced the clip back at least as far as a November 2011 post, appropriately titled "And then came 'Widmung'," where the headlong account by Fischer-Dieskau and Demus was accompanied by a rousing one from the still-in-his-late-30s Jorma Hynninen, when his voice seemed to be of the "I can do anything" sort, and his performance might have sounded pretty vigorous in its own right if it wasn't heard up against the force-of-nature Fischer-Dieskau one; plus an enduringly satisfying one by the team of baritone Wolfgang Holzmair and pianist Imogen Cooper, whom we've heard in a range of songs; and finally, for a female perspective, a performance by Elly Ameling and Dalton Baldwin which is as sweetly charming as we would expect from our Elly, from whom headlongness and force-of-nature-ness would have been most unexpected qualities.

(For the record, in that same 2011 post, in addition to a 1974 Fischer-Dieskau "Widmung" (predictably, not nearly as good), we heard not just Liszt's famous solo-piano rendering of the song, played by Yevgeny Kissin and Arthur Rubinstein (I see we've also heard recordings by Earl Wild and Van Cliburn), but also a Leopold Auer violin-and-piano arrangement recorded by Jascha Heifetz in 1919. I see)

As we listen to Schumann's Kinderszenen, I think it's helpful to think of the composer, much like the wandering minstrels Jack Point and Elsie Maynard, as someone with a generous supply of songs to sing, and stories to tell.


"TRÄUMEREI" IS THE LITERAL CENTERPIECE --
AND THE LONGEST PIECE -- OF KINDERSZENEN

Strictly speaking, these Scenes of Childhood aren't either from or for children, though I don't doubt that the pieces, significantly less complicated structurally than Schumann's larger-scale solo-piano creations, are eminently accessible to the younger set. But what they are is remembrances of childhood, with all the richness, evocativeness, and possibly evasiveness of memory. (Memory figures in many of Schumann's piano suites, though often the memories are more obviously imagined, and usually a lot more complicated.) The scenes themselves are often quite brief -- many of them last under a minute. And at a comparatively luxurious 2½-3 minutes, "Träumerei" is both the centerpiece and also the suite's longest piece.

To get a feel for how Kinderszenen is put together, with the kind of constant mix of moods and tones and textures which in simpler form is also characteristic of Schumann's larger-scale piano works, let's listen to "Träumerei" in context: surrounded by the pieces that precede and follow it.

SCHUMANN: Kinderszenen (Scenes of Childhood), Op. 15:
vi. "Wichtige Begebenheit" ("Important occurrence")
vii. "Träumerei" ("Daydreaming")
viii. "Am Kamin" ("By the fireside")

[vi. at 0:01; vii. at 0:55; viii. at 3:38] Artur Schnabel, piano. EMI, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 3, London, June 3, 1947

[vi. at 0:01; vii. at 0:46; viii. at 3:13] Radu Lupu, piano. Decca, recorded in the Salle de Châtonneyre, Corseaux, Vaud (Switzerland), January 1993

[vi. at 0:01; vii. at 0:49; viii. at 3:44] Vladimir Horowitz, piano. CBS-Sony, recorded in Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York City, Nov.-Dec. 1962

HOROWITZ & "TRÄUMEREI": A LOVE STORY?

Note that we've slid Vladimir Horowitz in here alongside Schnabel and Lupu, for the different, more starkly Schumannesque, qualities he brings to the music, which as it happens he quite loved -- both the whole of Kinderszenen and "Truaumerei" in particular, which was one of his favorite encores. I think the official count of the number of Horowitz performances of "Träumerei" in circulation, both live and studio, must be running close to a zillion. I'm not sure the music was such a great fit for him, though, either Kinderszenen whole or "Träumerei" specifically. Honest simplicity of utterance didn't come easily to him. It has seemed to me that his rhythmic waywardness was more extreme in stand-alone encore performances, and the following, wholly unscientific sampling.

(1) From complete Kinderszenen, studio, 1962 --
Vladimir Horowitz, piano. CBS-Sony, recorded in Columbia 30th Street Studio, Nov.-Dec. 1962
(2) and (3) As an encore, live, 1965 and 1975:

Vladimir Horowitz, piano. CBS-Sony, final encore from the Carnegie Hall "Return" recital of May 9, 1965

Vladimir Horowitz, piano. RCA, encore from the Carnegie Hall recital of Nov. 16, 1975
(4) Complete Kinderszenen again, but live, 1987

Vladimir Horowitz, piano. DG, from Horowitz in Hamburg: The Last Concert, in the Musikhalle of the Laeiszhalle, Hamburg, June 21, 1987

Doesn't the stretching and squooshing of rhythms see more exaggerated, leading to outright shapelessness and spastic lurching,in the encore performances? We better talk about this.

PROBABLY THE TEASING AND TORTURING OF "TRÄUMEREI"
DOESN'T RISE TO THE LEVEL OF A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

But for me it's an [expletive deleted] horror. Of course it's not just in "Träumerei"; a lot of Kinderszenen is fair game, and so are a lot of other Schumann works. Just recently I was complaining about this in connection with Chopin, where the problem is epidemic, as pianists seem compelled to prove they've earned their rubato merit badges. Rubato, the "stealing" of time for expressive purposes is supposed to be a subtle art, to my mind nothihg more than an acknowledgment that in music of the Romantic age in particular the performer needn't feel metronomically bound to the specified note values, but should subtly shape phrases so they reflect the human pulses that drive them.

What rubato is not (and here imagine a string of, say, 63,000 "not"s) is a mandate, or even license, to stretch and compress notes utterly at will or whim, according to any freakish impulse, or rather chain of freakish impulses, that buzzes in the performer's feeble brain, so that notes can be strung together without regard for their indicated values or regard for the sense of movement implied by those note values.

Presumably this is done in the name of showing off the performer's deep sensivity and feelings. Right, feelings. Hey, man, I'm like the feelingfullest feelinger in the feeled history of feelings." Well, they're full of something, but I don't think it's feelings. And all I can wonder is, don't these people ever listen to what they do? don't they have any critical faculties? Any regard for the music they're mutilating? I can't help thinking of the feelingful fiddler who's charmed his way into the feelingful heart of the feelingful young woman who shares her happy-feeling story with us in Hugo Wolf's Italian Songbook.

WOLF: Italian Songbook: No. 11, "Wie lange schon war immer mein Verlangen" ("How long already was it always my desire")

Irmgard Seefried (1919-1988) had whine in her voice for "Wie lange schon."

How long already was it always my desire:
Ah, if only a musician were to like me!
Now the Lord has allowed me to have my desire,
and sends me one, all milk and blood.
There he comes now with a gentle look,
and bows his head, and plays the violin.

-- German text by Paul Heyse

Irmgard Seefried, soprano; Erik Werba, piano. Orfeo, live recording in the Grosser Saal of the Salzburg Mozarteum, Aug. 26, 1958

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, soprano; Gerald Moore, piano. EMI, recorded in the Evangelisches Gemeindehaus, Berlin-Zehlendorf, 1965-67

Ruth Ziesak, soprano; Ulrich Eisenlohr or Rudolf Jansen, piano. RCA, recorded in the Kleiner Sendesaal of Sender Freies Berlin, Sept. 24-28, 1990

Barbara Bonney, soprano; Geoffrey Parsons, piano. Teldec, recorded in Teldec Studios, Berlin, 1992

It's a fun song for the singer (you did listen to the piano postlude, right?), and all our sopranos have a good time. It's an even more fun song for the pianist (ditto the piano postlude), and if you'd like to to know who Ruth Ziesak's partner is, so would I. BMG issued this CD without indicating: (a) who (the soprano or baritone) sings which songs (even if we assume that it's "standard distribution," there are 46 songs; how many of us remember? and it's hardly uncommon for Italian Songbook solo teams to swap some songs), and (b) which pianist plays which songs. Even if we assume that each singer worked with his/her one of the pianists, how do we know which? If by chance the first-listed singer sings with the first-listed pianist, then Ziesak's guy is Ulrich Eisenlohr.

"Wie lange schon" is a perfect song for Irmgard Seefried, whose oddly hued soprano always contained a bit of a whine, and even for Schwarzkopf non-enthusiasts it's a good song for Elisabeth S, a seasoned Wolfian who no doubt gets the joke. Both Ruth Ziesak and Barbara Bonney have real singing voices, which you'd think might be a liability for this particular song, but they don't miss their opportunity here.


WHEW! OKAY, LET'S GET BACK TO KINDERSZENEN

In the end we're left with two pianists standing, the same pair who faced off when we heard the two sets of Schubert Impromptus (Radu Lupu (1945-2022) [2]), Artur Schnabel and Radu Lupu. My feeling in the Schubert was that in most of the impromptus the Schnabel performance was a sort of corrective to the Lupu: Instead of striving for pleasing abstract sound patterns, Schnabel used his rich musical imagination to try to ground the musical unfolding, so that each note, each musical gesture, flowed logically and inevitably from what came before.

On my scorecard the Kinderszenen tally is more balanced. As I said earlier, I really enjoy Lupu here. To me he sounds more grounded in the music, which generally has quite a pleasing sense of movement. Oh, there are times when Lupu is caught mindlessly executing or repeating a choice that comes from habit rather than immediate musical need, but on the whole the playing is full and lovely, and the sound is less swimmy, more focused. Less pedal? Better acoustical environment? (The Decca producer here, by the way, is not Michael Haas. By this time the assignment had fallen to Michael Woolcock.

Of course I would still choose Schnabel, despite the 1947 sound, over Lupu -- when you hear a peformer bringing such unflagging creative energy to the job, isn't it only natural to want to hear what he's going to do next? I certainly don't feel cheated withthe Lupu performance. (I should add that, Kinderszenen being so much less challenging pianistically than nearly all the other major Schumann solo-piano works, there are a fair number of worthy recordings -- and the piece has real traps, which can lead a performer to bloat or kitsch -- or both. (Worth a listen on YouTube is Maria João Pires's forthright and assured 1984 Erato recording.)

I SHOULD NOTE that, since I still haven't posted this, I haven't had a chance to listen to the audio files except by calling up individual ones, and if I can bounce back from a really draining time with this, I don't know what I may be able to garner from some comparative (and relaxed!) listening.


AT THIS POINT, THE THING TO DO PROBABLY IS
TO GIVE A LISTEN TO THE COMPLETE KINDERSZENEN

SCHUMANN: Kinderszenen (Scenes of Childhood), Op. 15:
i. "Von fremden Ländern und Menschen" ("Of foreign lands and people")
ii. "Kuriose Geschichte" ("Curious story")
iii. "Hasche-Mann" ("'Come and get me' man")
iv. "Bittendes Kind" ("Pleading child")
v. "Glückes genug" ("Happy enough")
vi. "Wichtige Begebenheit" ("Important occurrence")
vii. "Träumerei" ("Daydreaming")
viii. "Am Kamin" ("By the fireside")
ix. "Ritter vom Steckenpferd" ("Knight of the hobbyhorse")
x. "Fast zu Ernst" ("Almost too serious")
xi. "Fürchtenmachen" ("Making fearful")
xii. "Kind im Einschlummern" ("Child dozing off")
xiii. "Der Dichter spricht" ("The poet speaks")

[i. 0:01; ii. 1:12; iii. 2:15; iv. 2:46; v. 3:32; vi. 4:48; vii. 5:42; viii. 8:25; ix. 9:17; x. 10:01; xi. 11:33; xii. 12:46; xiii. 14:44] Artur Schnabel, piano. EMI, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 3, London, June 3, 1947

[i. 0:01; ii. 1:28; iii. 2:32; iv. 3:01; v. 3:52; vi. 4:55; vii. 5:41; viii. 8:08; ix. 8:57; x. 9:32; xi. 11:13; xii. 12:45; xiii. 14:28] Radu Lupu, piano. Decca, recorded in the Salle de Châtonneyre, Corseaux, Vaud (Switzerland), January 1993


NEXT UP: We finish up with Schumann's Humoreske

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