MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW
Plain text for smartphones
and printers


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Support us financially by purchasing this disc from:

Georg SCHUMANN (1866-1952)
Symphony in B minor Prize-Winning Symphony (1887) [43:40]
A Serenade Op. 34 (1902) [29:46]
Münchner Rundfunkorchester/Christoph Gedschold
rec. 10-13 March 2009, Munchen BR Studio 1
CPO 777 464 2 [73:32]

Experience Classicsonline


 
At some point it will no longer be necessary to say that long-lived Georg Schumann was unrelated to Robert Schumann; not yet though. That said, he is the elder brother of Camillo Schumann, whose cello works featured on a Naxos CD. Georg’s works have already had some recording attention. The Piano Trios 1 and 2, opp. 25 and 62 have been recorded by the Münchner Klaviertrio on CPO 777 712 2. His choral music can be sampled on Guild. The latter was preceded by a complementary Georg Schumann anthology from the Purcell Singers on ASV CD DCA1091. The connection with singing is unsurprising given his lifelong involvement with and leadership of the Berlin Sing-Akademie.
 
He was born in Saxony into a musical family. Having been taught violin and piano he quickly attained high standards. His musical alma mater was the Leipzig Conservatory. There he perfected his craft. His orchestration in particular, at least as represented on this disc, was highly skilled. While Gottfried Eberle’s lucidly flowing notes make some play of the Mendelssohnian style I thought much more often, in the Symphony, of Brahms and especially the Brahms of the first two symphonies. This Symphony in four movements is deeply satisfying. It is in the German romantic centre-stream originating from the Hamburg master and further suckled from Schumann and Mendelssohn. There’s a flowingly aureate Adagio, a quirky penultimate Allegro and a splendidly stirring, happy and finally imperious finale - Allegro. In fact the first movement is an Allegro also. Crudely put, you can think of this 45-minute symphony as being in the character of Brahms 2 and Schumann 3. There was to be at least one more symphony from him, written circa 1905 and in F minor. The F minor is said to win the listener over by virtue of its strong sense of unity.
 
The present Prize-Winning Symphony - it is Prize not Price so you can ignore the booklet and insert typos – made 21-year-old Georg’s name throughout the Germanic states.
 
Two decades onwards and the Serenade shows a more variegated mood palette. There’s a vivid imagination engaged here yet within the style of the times. Winged Mendelssohnian elfin-macabre is at play among the first two movements: sprites and spooks revel or drowse as they go about their fairy business. Eberhard Knobloch’s caressingly relished clarinet solo is at the centre of a most adroitly paced Ständchen. The brilliant finale has a Walpurgisnacht air – a nicely contrasting corrective to the other four movements. This work makes a good companion to the orchestral serenades of Salomon Jadassohn (1831-1902) and Ignaz Brüll (1846-1907) which I have been getting to know through David Kent-Watson’s Cameo Classics CDs – also well worth seeking out (review in hand).
 
I hope that after this substantial orchestral prelude to the Georg Schumann revival there will be later instalments. These vigorous, dedicated and dramatically informed performances and fine recordings by Gedschold, his Munich orchestra and CPO need to lead on to further Schumann revivals. I hope they will take us to the F minor symphony, the oratorio Ruth, his First World War tone poem Struggle for an Ideal and an unpublished Violin Concerto.
 
No masterpieces on this disc but works of the real accomplishment and satisfaction and, in the case of the mature Serenade, of virile romantic imagination.
 
Rob Barnett

Support us financially by purchasing this disc from:


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Error processing SSI file