Thursday 25 June 2009

277. Rober Schumann - Carnaval (1835)




















Recording

Title: Carnaval, Fantasiestucke, Papillons
Performers: Marc-Andre Hamelin
Year: 1999
Length: 30 minutes

Review

Schumann's Carnaval is slightly more interesting than his Etudes, this is good progress here Mr. Schumann. Still it is less than overwhelming music. It consists of a set of short portraits in a way almost reminiscent of programmatic Harpsichord music of yestercentury.

Some of the pieces are very successful, others not so much, but his music is generally quite expressionistic and shows the romantic movement in full swing, down to his twin personalities of Eusebius and Florestan.

So the fact that this is a mixed bag, with moments of brilliance permeating the music is its ultimate downfall. Still waiting for Schumann to really astound me, and I am sure that there will be works in the future where it will happen.... fingers crossed.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Among those who have orchestrated Carnaval are Maurice Ravel.
It was choreographed for a ballet for a Diaghilev production, with orchestrations by Alexander Glazunov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Tcherepnin.

Arrau plays Carnaval:


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