Robert Schumann: Klavierwerke "Fantasies" on 3 Super Audio CDs

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Klavierwerke "Fantasies"

Burkard Schliessmann

3 Super Audio CDs

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Kreisleriana op. 16; Fantasie C-Dur op. 17; Arabeske op. 18 (in zwei Einspielungen); Fantasiestücke op. 12 (Nr. 1 "Des Abends" in zwei Einspielungen);
Nachtstücke op. 23; 3 Fantasiestücke op. 111; Gesänge der Frühe op. 133

Sound Format:: stereo/multichannel (Hybrid)
Artists:: Burkard Schliessmann (Klavier)
Label:: Divine Art
Year of recording ca.:: 2023
UPC/EAN:: 0809730575327
Release date:: 15.3.2024

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3 LPs, (180g / Gold-Vinyl)	EUR 57.99*

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Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Klavierwerke "Fantasies"

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Ratings and reviews since 17.03.2024

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5,0

(4)

Booklet:: 5,0 of 5 (3)
Overall impression:: 5,0 of 5 (3)
Sound:: 5,0 of 5 (3)
Artistic quality:: 5,0 of 5 (3)
Repertoire value:: 5,0 of 5 (3)

3 of 3 (100%) would recommend this product.

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James Harrington

Nov 9, 2024

Booklet:: 5 of 5
Overall impression:: 5 of 5
Sound:: 5 of 5
Artistic quality:: 5 of 5
Repertoire value:: 5 of 5

A revelation

Robert Schumann, in his all too short and troubled life, managed to compose a significant amount of truly great piano music. Most of it is comprised of collections of short pieces. Some of these are thematically related, others were composed together, and nearly all had either titles or creative tempo markings. A good example of his creative process can be found in a letter to Clara, where he wrote “I’ve finished another whole notebook of new pieces. I intend to call it Kreisleriana. You and one of your ideas play the main role in it.” Subtitled Fantasien für Piano-Forte, they serve as the opening work in this huge program from Burkard Schliessmann. He gives the program a simple title of Fantasies and includes almost every major opus by Schumann that uses or is related to the term “Fantasy.” They were written in two timeframes: the early works in 1836–39 and the later ones in 1851–53.

All of these works here require a quite advanced level of pianism. Schumann started his musical life with the goal of becoming a virtuoso and his early pieces especially are quite difficult. Due to problems with his hand, he abandoned his own concert career and seemed quite satisfied that Clara Wieck would champion his music and was likely a better pianist, even before they got married in 1840. She would outlive him by 40 years and edited, published, and frequently performed his entire oeuvre. She is probably the one most responsible for his music being appreciated today as a foundation of the piano repertoire.

Most of the music here has been an integral part of Schliessmann’s repertoire for the better part of his career, and he has recorded a few pieces like Kreisleriana and the Fantasie before. Clearly he has much more to say about Schumann. He even gives us two different performances of the Arabeske and a second one of Des Abends, the first of the op. 12 Fantasiestücke. As with his other recordings, Schliessmann contributes an extensive, thought-provoking essay. He makes considerable references to poetry and Schumann’s songs as they relate to his piano music, as well as each of the specific pieces here.

Without hesitation I recommend this recording, not only for those who value great and probing performances of Romantic piano music, but also for anyone with a love for great music from any era or instrumentation. The Fantasie, op. 17 is the largest work on the program and arguably Schumann’s greatest piano piece. Its difficulties are renowned, especially the middle movement. This performance is, in general, more lyrical and passionate than most. There is no sense of showing off in the big contrary-motion leaps, but of shaping and phrasing the top melody over a firm bass line. A high point of the three CDs is the bass line in the final movement. I have never heard it as both the foundation and a beautiful melodic line. It is a revelation. There are many, many moments all through these pieces that repay careful listenings. This will certainly be my reference recording for all of the works here.

Divine Arts gives us its expected state-of-the-art recording: SACDs in customarily excellent recorded piano sound. Producer Julian Schwenkner and engineer Jupp Wegner worked with Schliessmann, employing 14 microphones for a Dolby Atmos experience. Every nuance of the performances is captured with a clarity that could only be matched by being present in the recording studio.

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Counterpoint

Nov 9, 2024

Booklet:: 5 of 5
Overall impression:: 5 of 5
Sound:: 5 of 5
Artistic quality:: 5 of 5
Repertoire value:: 5 of 5

Artistic perfection on highest range

In 47:4, I reviewed a Divine Art set (25755) from Burkard Schliessmann, performing a mix of works by composers near and dear to him: Bach, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. At the time, I was not aware that a new three-disc set from Schliessmann was in the offing, one devoted exclusively to Schumann. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, for Schliessmann’s love of Schumann’s music has been a lifelong one that runs deep.

Since the previously cited set already included selections by Schumann, my first order of business was to determine if there were any duplications between the two releases. The short answer is a qualified “yes.” Both the earlier album and the new one at hand contain the complete Fantasie in C, op. 17, which is generally regarded as one of, if not the, most important and technically challenging of the composer’s works for solo piano. They are not, however, the same performance. The earlier recording was captured “live” in March of 2023, while the present recording, as attested to by Schliessmann in his album note, is a studio production made five months later in August of 2023.

There is also one other minor overlap in programming, but it doesn’t really count because it’s just an excerpt, an outtake if you will, from a much larger work. In the “live” recording, Schliessmann treated us to what amounted to an “encore” with the inclusion of the third number, “Warum?” from the composer’s Fantasiestücke, op. 12. Here he gives us the Fantasiestücke in full.

True to its title, Robert Schumann Fantasies, the new set under review, addresses itself to the composer’s catalog of “fantasy” and related-type pieces. So, I suppose the place to start is with a definition of the genre or typology. Britannica.com succinctly defines a musical fantasy—with all of its linguistic variants based on country of origin and musical period—as “a composition free in form and inspiration, usually for an instrumental soloist.” Not very helpful, as that could apply to almost anything. By that definition, Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun could be a fantasy.

Wikipedia refines it a bit further for us, stating that a “fantasy is a musical composition with roots in improvisation, and that like the impromptu, it seldom follows the textbook rules of any strict musical form.”

The fantasy, as practiced by Schumann and other 19th-century composers, is a construct of the Romantic period, but conceptually and contextually the language of musical fantasy extends back to the late 16th- and early 17th centuries, manifesting itself in the organ and keyboard works of Sweelinck and Frescobaldi, and a bit later in the fantasias of Bach.

The difference between those fantasies and the ones we find in Schumann and the musical Romantic in general is that the later period examples are often, if not invariably, associated with descriptive imagery, poetic verse, and/or story-telling. In other words, the 19th-century fantasy is a subset of program music. For Bach, a fantasia was about the improvisatory style of the music, its textural contrasts, surprising harmonies and progressions, and displays of technical virtuosity. It’s doubtful that Bach had any extra-musical motives in mind.

So, let’s pursue the model of the Romantic fantasy stated above and see if it applies—or doesn’t—to some or all of Schumann’s works in Schliesssmann’s collection.

In Kreisleriana, op. 16—composed originally in 1838 and revised in 1850—Schumann asks the listener to imagine in the eight numbers that make up the piece, the deteriorating sanity of the musical genius, Johannes Kreisler, the fictional Kapellmeister invented by the early Romantic author, E. T. A. Hoffmann. Did Schumann foresee his own descent into madness when he wrote the piece? That’s a question for another day. Here we’re confronted with an early example of Schumann’s dueling personalities, as expressed by the music’s sudden and violent swings between storm and calm, fear and euphoria. We meet these characters again in other of Schumann’s works in the guise of the composer’s ego and alter-ego, Florestan and Eusebius.

Can Kreisleriana be listened to as abstract music, without prior knowledge of Hoffmann’s creation of the imaginary musical genius who loses his marbles? Probably, because music does not communicate to us on a higher cognitive level. Its means of communication is more primitive and more powerful, going directly to the “lizard” part of the brain that holds sway over our emotional responses.

But the point here is what Kreisleriana meant to Schumann and what he hoped it would mean to us. It’s music about love, passionate and manic. The wild mood swings in the piece mirror the composer’s daydreaming about finally being with his beloved Clara and his fits of pique over her father trying to keep his daughter and her young suitor apart.

Fantasiestücke, op. 12, preceded Kreisleriana, but only by a matter of a few months. Composed in 1837, it too originally drew inspiration from a short story by E. T. A. Hoffmann that appeared in the same collection of the author’s novellas in which Kreisleriana was published.

Like its Kreisleriana companion, Schumann’s op. 12—with the musical content and contrasts of its eight numbers and the poetic titles he gave them—also expresses his fever fantasies about Clara and his impatience at not being with her. The layout, however, of op. 12 is a bit different. The eight pieces are divided into two books of four numbers each. Schumann omitted a planned ninth piece, originally intended for the Fantasiestücke, from the final draft. It’s untitled and wasn’t published until 1935, when it was logged in the composer’s catalog as RSW:op12:Anh (H/K WoO 28).

Schliessmann does not play the orphaned piece, but he does do something interesting. At the end of disc two, he repeats the first number of op. 12, Des Abends. The pianist explains in a paragraph of the album note that “the recording features two different interpretations of some works, such as the Arabeske and Des Abends from the Fantasiestücke, op.12, by exchanging the keyboards. This demonstrated the influence of the instrument and acoustics on interpretation. The second SACD includes a unique rendition of Des Abends, creating a transition to the darkness of the Nachtstücke, op. 23, introducing the late pieces by Schumann.”

Stepping back another year to 1836, we come to the Fantasie in C, op. 17, the most ambitious and largest in scope of the composer’s clutch of early fantasy works for solo piano. This is regarded, and arguably so, as Schumann’s greatest work for the instrument. As works of this genre go, however, it seems to have lost its original motivation as yet another expression of the composer’s loins longing for Clara when work on the composition became entangled in a project to raise funds for a memorial statue of Beethoven to be erected in Bonn. Schumann’s contribution to the enterprise would be the money to come from the first 100 copies of the Fantasie sold.

But it didn’t work out quite as planned. Schumann’s Fantasie was so…well…fantastical and so difficult that no publisher it was offered to would touch it. Schumann finally dedicated the finished work to Liszt, Breitkopf & Härtel took a risk on it, and the rest is history. As noted earlier, this is the one work duplicated in full between Schliessmann’s earlier “live” recording and this one, so, further on, it will be interesting to compare the two performances.

Now, Kreisleriana, the Fantasiestücke, and the Fantasie in C are three of the “biggies” among Schumann’s early fantasy-type works. Schliessmann of course, does not include all of the composer’s works in the genre. Missing from this compilation are works as such Carnaval (1834–35), Kinderszenen (1838), Novelletten (1838), Faschingsschwank aus Wien (1839), and Waldszenen (1848–49), to name five. It all goes back, of course, to how one defines or categorizes “fantasy.” However, there are other works to choose from, some not as often heard, and from among them, the pianist gives us Arabeske, op. 18 (1839), Nachtstücke, op. 23 (1839), 3 Fantasy Pieces, op. 111 (1851), and Gesänge der Frühe, op. 133 (1853).

In the category of 19th century fantasy, and especially in the works of Schumann, lines blur. “Fantasy” encompasses and is encompassed by a number of related genres: character pieces, tone paintings, mood enhancers, and even compositions with no extra-musical intent, designed solely for the purpose of virtuosic display and technical one-upmanship. An example of the latter is Schumann’s Toccata in C, op. 7 (1830, revised 1833), still regarded to this day as “one of the most ferociously difficult pieces in the piano repertoire” [Richard E. Rodda].

As noted earlier, there is a duplication between the earlier “live” recording version of the Fantasie in C, op. 17, and this new studio recording of the piece. In execution, interpretation, and timings, Schliessmann’s readings of the first two movements are uncannily similar. Only in the concluding movement, does one hear a significant variance. Here the pianist is more mindful of Schumann’s langsam getragen (borne more slowly).

Live version: 12:45 8:09 8:18

New version: 12:50 8:11 9:03

There is, however, another difference which, to my ear, seems to cast a more nuanced textural and coloristic effect on the music in the new performance, one which goes beyond the more elaborate recording setup employed for the studio recording. That difference, I think, relates to the instruments used. For the earlier “live” performance, Schliessmann played a Fazioli F278 concert grand. For the current studio performance, he played a Steinway D274 concert grand. In past reviews, I’ve been very impressed by the sound of Fazioli pianos, but in this case, it’s the Steinway that seems to lend greater clarity or precision to Schumann’s unique keyboard manner and to give stronger expression to his flights of fantasy.

Mentioned earlier, too, was that for the Arabeske and the repeat of Des Abends from the Fantasiestücke, Burkard exchanges keyboards. On first reading that, I thought it an odd way to say that he switched to a different piano. But a deeper dive into the album notes revealed the reason that the word “keyboards” was used here. The keyboards are two but the piano is one, having been fitted with a second keyboard, much like a two-manual harpsichord I imagine. I quote from the note: “There were two different keyboards in use, different in voicing and intonation, provided by a flying case.”

The recording itself, it should be noted, is very high-tech, above and beyond most high-tech, state-of-the-art SACD recordings. Fourteen microphones were employed to capture Schliessmann in Dolby Atmos, “a revolutionary spatial audio technology for the most immersive sound experience.”

Burkard’s pianism is, as always, a thing of beauty to behold, at once limpid and limned, while always equally as constant in attention to the demands and details of the score as to the emotions and expressive gestures the written notes imply. The fusion of technical mastery and musical insight to this degree combine to produce artistry of the highest caliber.

In my experience, Burkard Schliessmann’s Schumann may be equaled by two or three pianists past—Richter, Horowitz, and especially Arrau—but he is not surpassed by any of them.

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Colin Clarke

Nov 4, 2024

Booklet:: 5 of 5
Overall impression:: 5 of 5
Sound:: 5 of 5
Artistic quality:: 5 of 5
Repertoire value:: 5 of 5

Burkard Schliessmann, in his finest offering yet, offers a homage to Schumann for the ages

Ever the seeker, pianist Burkard Schliessmann revisits the magical, mystical world of Robert Schumann in this latest release. Captured in superlative sound (and in Dolby Atmos via 14 microphones at Teldex Studios, Berlin), his Steinway instrument is caught magnificently by producer Julian Schwenkner and engineer Jupp Wegner. A pianist in the tradition of the greats, Schliessmann mixes a real appreciation and respect for tradition before him with exemplary insight into Schumann’s music, all wrapped in the latest technology. He used a piano (Steinway D-612236) with two keyboards, each with complete mechanics and hammers. One was brighter sounding, one darker.

Here, Schliessmann presents an exploration of the more phantasmagoric aspect of Schumann’s output. His playing is characterized by complete linear clarity married to a 360-degree harmonic understanding (from immediate detail through to large-scale structure). So it is that Schliessmann can characterise each and every element of Kreisleriana. Many of the traits identified by Peter J. Rabinowitz in his review of Schliessmann’s MSR Kreisleriana (Fanfare 34:3) are present here: crystalline clarity, and a fierce intellectualism combined with the most refined expression. Listen to Schliessmann’s “Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch” (track 2). The legato is perfect, but so is the definition of each note of the upper line, while each element of the inner voices and bass is itself heard as a perfectly judged independent entity heard in heavenly accord. Schumann’s achievements here are magnificent; and so is Schliessmann’s realization.
Schliessmann’s Schumann is far from that of an eager young pup; “Intermezzo I” of Kreisleriana is impulsive yet superbly articulated. The music flows. At times one hears references to orchestral sounds: sequences of intervals that might imply a pair of horns, for example, all invoked the myriad colors at Schliessmann’s disposal. This, coupled with his understanding of process is what makes this performance. There are inevitable points of contact with the earlier MSR recording, but this is deeper; plus, the Divine Art sound is markedly superior. Audophiles will doubtless concentrate on the sonic excellence, therefore, but musicians can revel in the far deeper rewards offered by Schliessmann. He takes risks in the sixth movement, allowing the music to ever so slowly unfurl, and how they pay off. This is Schumann at his most profound. Schliessmann is just as exciting in the seventh movement (“Sehr Rasch”) as in the earlier MSR, but his articulation is clearer (aided of course by that recording: one can really hear the difference in this movement particularly). The finale is, in line with the present release’s core ethos, properly fantastical, the displaced bass creepily stalkerish to the jittery upper line. How gloriously rich, to, the bass Fine though the MSR’s finale was, here on Divine Art, Schliessmann truly honors the fantastical, adding a hint of grotesquerie.

I reviewed a previous Fantasie by Schliessmann as recently as Fanfare 45:4 (May/June 2022: At the Heart of the Piano). There, the Fantasie was heard in the context of Liszt’s B-Minor Sonata, so comparisons between the works were apt. Here, it is heard within Schumann’s universe only, and so one tends to concentrate on the composer alone. With an expert ear (and foot) for pedalling, Schliessmann reveals both inner lines and significant bass shifts with total confidence and zero unnecessary blurring. In this most recent version, power meets a core of iron. Schliessmann is unafraid of eschewing the sustaining pedal where others cling as if drowning pianists to a piece of flotsam, and the results are often revelatory. The supremely analytical recording does document the odd pianist’s sniff, but that’s part of the feel of performance here. Far more impressive is the almost organ-like sound at times; the processional of the second movement “Mäßig” is full of majesty, as if Schliessmann relates a fairy tale. Narration is a key aspect to Schumann’s output (whether tethered to a specific premise or not), and Schliessmann is a natural story-teller. This is a marriage made in heaven. In the work’s final panel, the pianist takes more time than previously, allowing the lines to uncurl, supported by a glorious legato. With local melody and crepuscular harmony, the effect is truly magical; and how the piano’s upper register sparkles like starlight.

The second disc opens with Schumann’s Arabeske, a piece that encapsulates in miniature all that makes Schumann’s piano music special: the intimacy, the sense of rightness, the deft counterpoint. Schliessmann presents it delicately, as the Fantaisie’s whispered after-thought. It is in the realm of the miniature and the shorter movements that Schumann shines, of course, and such is then case here, each movement of op. 12 expertly imagined by Schliessmann. The second, “Aufschwung” certainly has power, but again the ear is led to felicities of counterpoint and inter-voice dialog. Rubao is often a problem in “Warum?,” and yet here it is as natural as can me. It was “Warum?” that appeared on Schliessmann’s Live & Encores release (Fanfare 47:4) which leads me to speculate Schliessmann has a soft spot for this movement. It certainly sounds like it: the “zart” (tender) element is certainly there, and how that contrasts with “Grillen,” which here sounds more experimental than any other performance i know, pointing way forward to the late works. The second book of op. 12 begins with a stormy “In der Nacht,”; a controlled tempest of the heart perhaps, with sudden crescendos implying stabs of emotion. There are risks galore here, and they all pay off. Contrasts in “Fabel” are marked, more so than any other performance I know, and of course that juxtaposition is so perfect for Schumann. The trickiest movement in. a technical sense is surely “Traumes Wirren,” and Schliessmann creates some wonderful textural contrasts (between pedalled and clean sonorities). The final “Ende vom Lied” exudes contained nobility.
There are two performances of the Arabeske and of “Des Abends” from Fantasiestücke, op. 12, one on each keyboard. The second Arabeske is warmer, its lyrical, contrasting sections perhaps more inviting. The first “Des Abends” is part of the complete set and is beautifully voiced, pure as spring water. The second again inevitably mellower; but what is interesting his how Schliessmann in the second instance finds just as much clarity of melody as with the first. Both shine, perhaps the first like a white pearl and the second like its black counterpart.

For all of the interpretative and technical victories of the first two discs, it is the final one that is really special, and truly elevates this set above the rest. Schliessmann performs the op. 23 Nachtstücke with an impeccable sense of rightness. Schumann exhibits a real sense of exploration in his op. 23. These four E. T. A. Hoffmann-inspired movements exhibit a whole world, from caprice to dream, all elevated not just by Schliessmann’s playing but by the tremendous presence of the recording (try the richness of the bass at the opening of the third). The flowing final panel stands in high contrast to the Urschrei that opens the first of the op. 111 Fantasiestücke. Penned in 1851, this late set of pieces was written just a few short months after the composer's appointment at Düsseldorf. Schliessmann gives a tremendous performance of all three, muscular in the first, almost hymnic in the second, a prayer-like meditation with a fearless exploration of the darker crannies of the psyche, casting a shadow over the final ”Kräftig und sehr markiert”.
Finally, Schumann’s criminally neglected Gesänge der Frühe, the last work Schumann himself prepared for publication. In his notes, Schliessmann posits a link between this piece and Hölderlin's Diotima; either way, his performance is extraordinary, eclipsing my previous top recommendation (Piotr Anderszewski on Erato). It is Schliessmann who captures the elusive and entirely individual world of late Schumann to perfection. If I have one wish for this set, it is that Schliessmann’s performance brings Schumann’s op. 133 to a wider public. There is a sort of satisfying symmetry to the indication of the fifth and final movement, “Im Anfang ruhiges” (op. 133/1 is marked, “Im ruhiges Tempo”). Under Schliessmann’s fingers, the music seems to strive for an unknown other, and yet the search emanates from a heart at peace. A truly satisfying reading.

In his booklet notes, Schliessmann posits that the key to understanding Schumann's phatasmagoria is via his vocal music, and Schliessmann specifically cites the composer’s setting of Heine in the op. 24 Liederkreis, (No. 3, “Ich wandelte unter den Bäumen”; late, he writes on the relationship between Eichendorff and Schumann (via “Zwielicht” from the op. 29 Liederkreis). The booklet indeed makes for fascinating reading, but it is the music itself that matters. Burkard Schliessmann, in his finest offering yet, offers a homage to Schumann for the ages.

Robert Schumann: Klavierwerke "Fantasies" on 3 Super Audio CDs

Klavierwerke "Fantasies"

Other releases of Klavierwerke "Fantasies"

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Disk 1 von 3 (SACD)

Kreisleriana op. 16 (8 Fantasien für Klavier)

Fantasie C-Dur op. 17

Disk 2 von 3 (SACD)

Fantasiestücke op. 12 Nr. 1-8 (In Callots Manier)

Fantasiestücke op. 12 Nr. 1-8 (In Callots Manier) (Auszug)

Disk 3 von 3 (SACD)

Nachtstücke op. 23 Nr. 1-4 (Vier Stücke für Klavier)

Fantasiestücke op. 111 Nr. 1-3

Gesänge der Frühe op. 133 (5 Stücke für Klavier)

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