Clara & Robert Schumann: Piano Concertos

by Bill Heck

Clara Wieck-Schumann: Piano Concerto 1 in A minor; Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, Widmung. (Beatrice Rana, piano; Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Chamber Orchestra of Europe). Warner Classcs B0BLGH14M1.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin seems to be showing up in recordings everywhere these days, and this time he teams up with Beatrice Rana – or should I say that she teams up with him? – to produce an enjoyable disk featuring the piano concertos by what must be the most famous musical couple of the Romantic era, Clara and Robert Schumann. Robert’s piano concerto is well-known to modern audiences; Clara’s, actually written first, has been little-known. Recently, though, Clara’s music seems to be staging a mini-revival.  

Given the dates of composition, it is appropriate that Clara Schumann's concerto appears first on the disk. Considering her age when she composed it (14!), the work is remarkably sophisticated and mature, easily mistaken for the effort of a much older and more experienced composer. For those unfamiliar with the composition (and until very recently that included me and, I’m sure, many readers of Classical Candor), here’s a capsule summary:

The first movement begins with a flourish in the home key of A minor, a theme that is a bit foreboding, followed by both orchestral and pianistic flourishes. There's plenty of drama here, with quiet piano passages alternating with full-throated combinations of the solo instrument and the orchestra. One might even be reminded of an early Beethoven concerto, at least in general outline, if not in clear structural integrity. Toward the end of movement, the sun breaks through and a series of ascending lines take us to a major key.

Interestingly, Clara Schumann dares to tie the first movement directly to the second, a device that, although hardly unprecedented, must have seen quite daring its day, especially for a young, female composer. This second movement is a "romance", with a stretch of piano work that turns into a duet between piano and cello, with additional strings gradually adding harmony. By the way, the device of giving the melodic line in the slow movement to the cello shows up again in Brahms’s second piano concerto. Given the relationship between Brahms and the Schumanns, that seems more than coincidental -- just sayin'. In any case, as with the transition from the first to second movements, the second moves directly into the third.

The third movement, about the length of the first two put together, is more dramatic and initially restless, primarily staying in the minor key. Soon along comes a more joyful melody, which in turn gives way to solo passages in a more introspective mood. But restlessness moves us on, moving through several moods until, as we near the end, the piano gallops off with the orchestra coming along in full stride, ending back in the minor key again: another innovative move, as it was quite unusual at the time to end such a major showpiece work in a minor key.

The playing is both enthusiastic and more than competent: if hearing is believing, I’m certainly convinced that Rana truly enjoys playing this work. The recorded sound is very good: after several listens, I realized that the projected sound of the piano was a little too wide, but the Warner engineers had balanced the piano and orchestra so nicely that this was not bothersome.

Clara and Robert Schumann

Moving on to the next work, the coupling with Robert’s concerto is, at first glance, an obvious one. Both are in A minor, so they must be related, right? In fact, they are not particularly related, other than by key. Sure, there are a few passages that share some similarities, but in the main these are quite different works, and I needn’t go into details about Robert’s concerto, as it is a mainstay of the repertoire. Rana brings much the same energy and vitality to Robert's composition as we just heard in Clara’s; a few passages that struck me as slight missteps don’t detract from a first-rate effort. The story is much the same with the orchestra: intelligent phrasing, very good playing. I can summarize quickly by saying that the performance here is quite nice, as is the sound, although to my ears neither aspect is so spectacular as to displace any other favorites that you might have. I don’t mean to damn with faint praise; if you are looking for a very good performance of Robert Schumann’s concerto in modern sound, this will do nicely.

But, but….at this point, the astute reader may wonder about my attitude here. Well, I am a little disappointed. It’s not because there’s anything wrong with what we hear here. I just wish that we could have had more innovative (might I even say more daring?) programming.

As I mentioned earlier, Clara Schumann's compositions mostly languished in obscurity until recently. We can be glad that they now are played more often, as they truly deserve to be. We can be especially happy that the piano concerto has received such a fine recording as this one. However, I would be remiss if I did not point out that the concerto, although an amazing work for one of her age at the time of composition and signaling and extraordinary talent, still ends up being the work of youth. While it's certainly worth hearing, it only foreshadows some of Clara's more interesting later works. 

Sadly, Clara composed relatively little throughout her life: given the demands of caring for Robert through his increasing mental illness and eventual death, raising a passel of children, enduring a crushing travel and performance schedule, and (in her spare time, one supposes) dealing with a tricky relationship with Brahms, it’s a miracle that she found any time at all for composition. It seems that there were a couple of minor orchestral pieces that are now lost, and she did work on a second concerto that was never finished; so much for orchestral output.  But she managed to create several pieces of chamber music and even more for solo piano. So wouldn’t it have been nice if, on this disk, the concerto had been followed by a few of those latter piano compositions? I’m drooling (metaphorically anyway) at the thought of hearing Rana have a go at some of those.

Oh well, given the realities of marketing and contracts, perhaps a concerto/solo works program wasn’t feasible. And maybe Rana is already hard at work on another album of Clara Schumann’s compositions – or so we can hope!

By the way, there's a nicely-done video about the album and the Schumanns on the Warner Classics channel on YouTube, part of which is transcribed in the liner notes for the disk.