Gramophone – September 2019

124 GRAMOPHONE SEPTEMBER 2019 gramophone.co.uk

THE GRAMOPHONE

COLLECTION

chumann’s econd ymphony

Nine decades of recordings relect changing attitudes to Schumann’s Second, inds Richard Whitehouse

T

he mid-19th century is still referred

to as one of marking time for the

symphony – when composers

fought shy of the challenges posed by

Beethoven, until Brahms rounded off the

long genesis of his First Symphony in 1876.

A primary factor in this was the tendency

in the early and mid-Romantic eras to

conflate abstract evolution with evocative

or illustrative elements. Mendelssohn,

his teenage First Symphony the only one

of his five designated such works with no

programmatic intent, is a case in point – as,

more ambivalently, is Schumann.

A composer who had hitherto focused on

piano cycles of a more or less illustrative

nature was unlikely to jettison this approach

when tackling the symphonic genre. The

Spring Symphony, his First, duly combines

such aspects with a relaxed take on formal

precepts. While the D minor Symphony

eschews extramusical conceits, its formal

radicalism bewildered listeners and it

was extensively overhauled as his Fourth;

together with the overtly descriptive

Rhenish Symphony (the Third), the D minor

represents the peak of Schumann’s legacy

as this appeared to his contemporaries.

In this context the Second Symphony

is very much a ‘slow burner’. Begun

in December 1845, its orchestration

occupied Schumann until the following

October: a period of emotional depression

and creative realignment, as intensive

study of counterpoint gave his writing

more expressive immediacy but also a

textural intricacy too easily mistaken for

turgidity. Hence the lukewarm response

at its Leipzig premiere, directed by

Mendelssohn on November 5, 1846,

followed by a century of equivocation

concerning its supposed gulf between

ambition and attainment.

The post-war era brought an increasing

reduction of that gulf, with Schumann’s

orchestration vindicated as surely as his

formal control. The Second Symphony

remains music of paradox, not least in its

inherently abstract conception that yet

quotes or alludes to a greater number of

earlier pieces than any comparable work.

No longer in doubt is its pivotal place in

the evolution of the genre, emphasised by

its coming midway between Schubert’s

Ninth and Bruckner’s First in what

more accurately describes the symphonic

‘impasse’ outlined above.

RECORDING DEBUTS

Schumann’s Second Symphony made

a notable entrance into the electrical era,

Hans Pfitzner recording it with the Berlin

State Opera Orchestra in 1928 (the Fourth

had preceded it by two years). His own

composition informed by a mid-Romantic

aesthetic, Pfitzner could be wilful in

approach (as in his 1933 Beethoven Eighth),

but this work finds him content to plough

a relatively straight furrow – interventionist

to the extent that the Adagio evinces

a harmonic ambiguity anticipating his own

music. Ward Marston’s transfer (3/92)

is worth seeking out.

The piece was slow to find its way

into the UK catalogue and, even having

done so, George Enescu’s 1947 reading

with the London Philharmonic went

unreviewed here. Reissued over five

decades later (7/00), its virtues are self-

evident – witness the Scherzo’s pert

insouciance and the Adagio’s easeful yet

never indulgent eloquence. Enescu drives

the opening movement (too?) hard, while

his cumulative approach to the finale places

a premium on ensemble that finds the LPO

wanting. Happily, the location and issuing

of an earlier performance from New York

allows Enescu’s interpretative instincts free

rein, in a spellbinding account whose finale

builds to a culmination of majestic fervour.

Marston does his utmost to open out the

sound, and those who already have the four

main choices listed here should make this

their fifth option.

Among several live performances

by Arturo Toscanini, that with the

NBC Symphony is the best played and

most characteristic, dartingly incisive in the

Scherzo, then with the Adagio rendered as

an impulsive and often uneasy intermezzo.

Elsewhere the Italian maestro is in his

element as he relishes every opportunity

to infuse the four-note ‘motto’ with

a Beethovenian portent that suggests

a determined extramusical dimension –

war in Europe having begun just 18 months

before, with the Japanese assault on

Pearl Harbour barely nine months hence.

The piece no doubt struck a similar

chord in Dimitri Mitropoulos, his 1940

recording from Minneapolis (Archipel)

bringing the expected litany of inspiration

and failure. His impulsive if rarely too

interventionist manner is better captured

in a post-war performance from Vienna:

the Philharmonic are a little inert in

the opening Allegro, then stumble in

the Scherzo, but the impulsive surges

at the Adagio’s climaxes elicit as ecstatic

a response as does the final surge towards

the light. In the absence of any New York

studio account, this is a fitting testament.

The studio recordings that emerged in

this period are primarily of historical

interest. That by Carl Schuricht was well

received (11/52) – Andrew Porter speaking

of a ‘finely architected performance’ which

superseded the Enescu – but the Paris

Conservatoire forces find much of the