Schumann: Symphony op. 42; Overtures

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Feddeck, James

CPO 555110

Georg Schumann is known to the cpo listening audience from our releases of his chamber music, songs, and first symphony, the »Praise Symphony.« One critic wrote in a very positive review of the symphony that it had made him eager for further discoveries. And so now here it is: our second CD with symphonic works by Georg Schumann, who was the director of the Sing-Akademie in Berlin for many years and a professor of composition at the Prussian Academy of the Arts. He is currently being rediscovered as a late romanticist, but during his lifetime he was regarded as a neoromanticist. The Symphony in F minor is his most monumental instrumental work. Minor composers typically adhere rather mechanically to the classical, four-movement symphonic form. But this does not at all apply to Georg Schumann! He has the scherzo third movement go over into the fourth and last movement without a break while taking the traditional mirth and sparkle of the scherzo into a gloomier sphere. And what one critic wrote of the symphony of his youth also is above all true here: »… how one idea logically develops from the other.« The recording also includes two of Georg Schumann’s overtures. He was able to express all the moods in music – and this is his claim to greatness. After the weighty »Prelude to a Drama« he wrote a joyous celebration of life in the »Lebensfreude« overture, a work overflowing with delight in musical performance.

CD x 1

CPO

8/17/17

761203511020