Schumann, Reimann & Mendelssohn: Intermezzo

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The songs, with the stratospheric, laser-beam soprano of Anna Lucia Richter, fare particularly well…In the two formal quartets there’s no mistaking the passion and energy of the four players,... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2018, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 22nd Jun 2018
Catalogue No: 0301058BC
Label: Berlin Classics
Length: 64 minutes

Opus Klassik Awards

2019

Winner - Chamber Music (quintet)

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Schumann: String Quartet No. 1 in A minor, Op. 41 No. 1

Work length24:04

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Schumann Quartett

I. Introduction: Andante espressivo - Allegro

Track length8:49

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II. Scherzo: Presto - Intermezzo

Track length3:47

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III. Adagio

Track length5:37

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IV. Presto

Track length5:51

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Reimann, A: Adagio – Zum Gedenken An Robert Schumann

Work length7:36

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Schumann Quartett

Schumann: Sechs Gesänge Op. 107

Work length10:46

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Anna Lucia Richter (soprano)
Schumann Quartett

No. 1. Herzeleid

Track length1:36

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No. 2. Die Fensterscheibe

Track length1:52

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No. 3. Der Gartner

Track length1:25

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No. 4. Die Spinnerin

Track length1:16

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No. 5. Im Wald

Track length1:58

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No. 6. Abendlied

Track length2:39

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Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 1 in E flat major, Op. 12

Work length21:47

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Schumann Quartett

I. Adagio non troppo - Allegro non tardante

Track length6:50

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II. Canzonetta: Allegretto - Più mosso

Track length3:33

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III. Andante espressivo

Track length3:57

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IV. Molto allegro e vivace

Track length7:27

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About
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About

Interest in the Schumann Quartet ignited long before the release of the ensemble’s last album Landscapes. The combination of Liisa Randalu, Erik, Ken and Mark Schumann represents youthful vigour combined with intelligent circumspection and vision. With the release of Intermezzo they forge a link to their previous album by presenting an equally charming and sensitive choice of repertoire linked to their namesake, Robert Schumann: Schumann plays Schumann.

Their point of departure and focus is his String Quartet no.1 in A minor. Robert Schumann always had difficulty with this particular genre, and in 1842 he brought his “attempts at writing quartets” to an end in a headlong burst of creativity that produced his opus 41, comprising three quartets. The Schumann Quartet musicians concentrate unconditionally on the vocal part-writing, and rather than merely overcoming the technical challenges choose to simply ignore them.

The music of Felix Mendelssohn is suffused with what Schumann envied as “ease” or “facility”. The String Quartet no.1 in E flat major was written in the late summer of 1829, when the younger composer was not yet 20. The correlations, corresponding references and tributes are all in evidence – Mendelssohn’s string quartet is the perfect match for Schumann’s equivalent work. There is a kind of cross-fertilization between the attention to detail and fresh approach taken by the Schumann Quartet and the modernity of the almost youthful Mendelssohn; the result is encapsulated in the unrestrained joy of music-making in the fourth movement. Schumann and Mendelssohn provide the framework into which Aribert Reimann then sets “his” Schumann.

Reimann is one of today’s most successful composers and is linked to the composer of the Romantic era born in Zwickau, Saxony, by more than music. He is in fact a direct descendant of the physician who treated Schumann at the psychiatric hospital in Endenich and has therefore had access to the patient file detailing the precarious balance of Schumann’s emotional state. His attitude to Schumann is therefore a reflection of those impressions. The Adagio zum Gedenken an Robert Schumann (Adagio to the memory of Robert Schumann) based on two unfinished chorales without words was composed as a result of intensive and personal cooperation between the quartet and Reimann.

In Reimann’s arrangement of the 6 Gesänge op.107, the ensemble succeeds, in harmony with the soprano Anna Lucia Richter, in fulfilling Schumann’s wish for an “additional, fully-formed accompanying instrument”. Reimann’s skill in handling the original brings out the fine features and nuances of the lyrics. The quartet and singer complement each other so effortlessly that the unusual combination sounds like a quintet that has been working together for many years.

Reviews

August 2018

The songs, with the stratospheric, laser-beam soprano of Anna Lucia Richter, fare particularly well…In the two formal quartets there’s no mistaking the passion and energy of the four players, yet the Schumann work does sometimes seem a little over-pressed…The genial, sun-filled Mendelssohn, however, is a delight from start to finish.

September 2018

In the first of the quartets by their namesake, they are alive to its changeability and embrace the skittering accents of the Scherzo without ever becoming merely motoric, the Trio offering a moment of clam…For Reimann’s reworkings of Schumann’s Op. 107 songs the quartet are joined by Anna Lucia Richter, who sings with flexibility and vivacity…The final song, ‘Abendlied’, is particularly heart-rending in this version, the quartet lending the voice a chorale-like cushion of sound.

Schumann, Reimann & Mendelssohn: Intermezzo

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