Schumann - Piano Concerto [Barenboim/ Fischer Dieskau-London Philharmonic Orchestra]This is a great coupling, it makes sense to have Schumann's two best concertos on the same disc, and a Husband and Wife combination is ideal.
I must admit i do like the booklet cover [photo by Reg Wilson], but it's also the colour scheme of red and blue that makes the booklet stand out.
Looks like this concerto has been really popular this month, i wrote about both Vogt [1st June 2010] and Anda [4th June 2010] playing the Schumann, i'm roughly playing it once a month, but three times this month!, hmmn.
I certainly enjoyed the first movement, the recording was made in 1974, but is quite good for its age, maybe it doesn't quite have the same 'air' around each section of the orchestra, so you can pinpoint certain instruments against others, maybe not enough bloom on the recording, because this movement used to be a one movement Fantasy, before Schumann composed the other two movements to make it a Piano Concerto, this first movement has it's very own 'slow movement' section in the middle [4:43-6:31], a delightful respite from the more vigorous music around it, it starts with the piano in gently rolling waves [4:43+], the clarinet has a dialogue with the piano [4:58+, 5:28+ & 5:52+], with also the flute joining in, this is the very best part of this movement, a little later there's some nice flowing music [7:00-8:05] between piano and orchestra, and right at the end there's a coda of sorts [14:43-15:40], with the piano playing some nice triplets, while the woodwind chatter away, a wonderful piece of music.
Here's Daniel Barenboim playing the first movement on YouTube, with Celibidache conducting.
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