Schumann: Symphony op. 42; Overtures

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Feddeck, James

CPO 555 110-2

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

17.08.2017

761203511020