Robert Schumann, The Complete Works for Piano Trio – Christian Tetzlaff, violin; Tanja Tetzlaff, cello; Leif Ove Andsnes, piano, on EMI Classics

Robert Schumann, 1850

Robert Schumann, The Complete Works for Piano Trio
Christian Tetzlaff, violin
Tanja Tetzlaff, cello
Leif Ove Andsnes, piano
EMI Classics
John Fraser, producer
Arne Akselberg, balance engineer

Disc 1:
Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op.63
Piano Trio No. 2 in F Major, Op.80
Sechs Stücke in kanonischer Form, Op.56 arr. for Piano Trio

Disc 2:
Piano Trio No. 3 in G Minor, Op.110
Fantasiestücke für klavier, Violine and Violoncello, Op.88
I. Romanze. Nicht schnell, mit innigem Ausdruck
II. Humoreske. Lebhaft
III. Duett. Langsam und mit Ausdruck
IV. Finale. Im Marsch-Tempo

A close look at the notes for this 2-disc set will give one some insight into the splendeurs et misères of the contemporary classical recording industry. A grant from Fond for lyd og bilde, the Norwegian arts organization, and Leif Ove Andsnes' Gilmore Artist Award funded this recording, making it possible for a major commercial label, EMI, to release a recording of comparatively little-known music by a great composer, played by internationally renowned musicians. Mr. Andsnes owns the copyright and has licensed the recording to EMI. Presumably the recording company didn't think that the famous names sufficed to counterbalance the obscurity and dubious reputation of the music, for unfortunately the trios, especially the second and third, were lumped in with the rest of what the older literature considered "bad Schumann," commonly disparaged as unmelodic, difficult, and confused. The rediscovery of these fascinating and very beautiful works has been one of the great pleasures of the past twenty years, once musicians learned how to play them and audiences, still slowly and partially, have learned how to listen to them.

Mr. Andsnes and the Tetzlaffs, brother and sister, have played some of the Schumann trios in their concert programs and decided to formalize their views on the repertoire in a comprehensive recording, which includes not only the three trios, but also the four Fantasiestücke Op. 88 and the six Études in Canonic Form Op. 56, which Schumann originally wrote for pedal piano in 1845. A friend of the Schumanns, Theodor Kirchner, made the arrangement played here. The work is most often played on the organ today, when it is played, and both Bizet and Debussy made piano duet versions. It stems from one of the early passions in the Schumanns' marriage, when both were voraciously studying counterpoint and Bach. The Fantasiestücke were written late in 1842, as a sort of last gasp in his "chamber music year." He published them with revisions in 1850. Both the first of the trios, Op. 63 in D Minor and the second, Op. 80 in F Major, date from 1847-8, when Schumann was finishing the Second Symphony and was beginning a project in which he put great hopes, an opera, Genoveva. He wrote the third, in G Minor, Op 110, in 1851, when he was working on his Third Symphony and revising the 1841 symphony, best known in its revised form as his Fourth. That chamber music should imitate the grand gestures of the symphony was anathema to Schumann, but the rich textures and counterpoint of these works hint at the larger concepts that were occupying him simultaneously. None of them could be considered late works, since they were written within the period in which he produced music which came into the repertory relatively early and have remained there.