Schumann: Symphonies No. 3 “Rhenish” & No. 4 (SACD review)

Lawrence Foster, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Pentatone PTC-5186 327.

By John J. Puccio

A few months before listening to this disc, I reviewed Maestro Lawrence Foster’s recording of the Schumann First and Second Symphonies, which he made for Pentatone around the same time he recorded these Third and Fourth Symphonies. I thought of the performances on that first set as sturdy but not particularly noteworthy. Meaning that given today’s competitive recording market, Foster’s album wouldn’t probably be at the top of most people’s list of first choices. I think it’s fair to say the same of the present disc.

Whatever, German composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856) wrote his Symphony No. 3 in E major, Op. 97, known as the “Rhenish” Symphony, in 1850, and it would be his final symphony. (He actually wrote his numbered Fourth Symphony almost ten years earlier, but because audiences didn’t care for it at its premiere, he withdrew it, revised it, and published it after he had written No. 3. So forget about the numbering; Schumann actually wrote No. 3 after he had written most of No. 4.

An enjoyable trip to the Rhineland (an area of western Germany along the Rhine River) with his wife Clara inspired him to write the five-movement Third Symphony, with much of the music describing the scenery they saw and the experiences they encountered. Here, Foster takes the heroic opening theme so leisurely that it lacks much of the boldness it should exhibit. There is little that is grand or eloquent about it. Foster approach to the second-movement Scherzo can seem positively sluggish at first, but it does convey a properly cozy tone. The third movement (marked Nicht schnell, not fast) is more up Foster’s alley and comes off as charmingly rustic and pastoral. The final movements create contrasting solemn, then uplifting moods, which Foster manages fairly well, although I would liked to have heard more joy in the closing.

As I mentioned, Schumann originally wrote his Symphony No. 4 n D minor, Op. 120 earlier than this Third, in 1841, withdrew it, and then extensively revised it for its 1851 publication. Apparently, Brahms so loved the first version of the score, however, that he republished it in 1891. What’s more, a lot of critics agreed, noting that the earlier version was lighter and more transparent than the revised version; nevertheless, Clara Schumann insisted she liked the later, published version best, and it’s that 1851 music that we usually hear and which Maestro Foster provides. However, I doubt it would make much difference in this recording with Foster. Not only does the sound come across as rather dull and distant, so does the performance. It’s not a matter of slow tempos, either, because Otto Klemperer (EMI/Warner) takes the music as slowly but makes it come more alive. Wolfgang Sawallisch (also EMI/Warner) creates the best of all worlds here, with George Szell (Sony) a close choice.

Now, if it sounds like I’m being overly hard on Foster, understand that it not because I think he is an inferior conductor. In fact, he accompanied Itzhak Perlman on one of my favorite recordings of Paganini’s First Violin Concerto, and he has been the conductor of numerous fine ensembles, including the San Francisco Ballet, the Houston Symphony, the Ojai Music Festival, the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and the Orquesta simfónica de Barcelona y nacional de Cataluña, and he is currently the Chief Conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. So, yes, the man is talented, but, no, we can’t win ‘em all.

In sum, there is nothing about Foster’s Schumann performances that strikes me as being any better than other recordings I like a lot more. Among the top considerations one might enjoy are those by Wolfgang Sawallisch and the Staatskapelle Dresden (EMI/Warner), Otto Klemperer and the Philharmonia Orchestra (EMI/Warner), George Szell and the Cleveland Symphony (Sony), and John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (DG). But, to each his own. You’ve probably already got your favorites, and if it’s an SACD digital recording you’re looking for in multichannel, the Foster performances might just fit the bill.

Producer Job Maarse and engineers Jean-Marie Geijsen and Carl Schuurbier recorded the music live at the Dvorak Hall of the Rudolfinum, Prague in April 2008. They made it in hybrid SACD for two-channel stereo or multichannel, and I listened in SACD two-channel.

The sound at almost any level appears not just soft and warm but frankly drab. I said in my review of Foster’s First and Second Symphony Schumann recordings that they seemed too reverberant to admit much detail. Here, the resonance doesn’t seem the only issue as much as does the distancing, which puts the orchestra too far back, with a consequent loss of definition. It’s better than too forward, close, and bright, I suppose, but it’s not particularly good for transparency. Perhaps five-channel surround would help; I don’t know.

JJP