Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto in A-Minor and Symphonies 1, 3 and 4

This 1990 double CD release from the German budget label Pilz provides some of the best music from Robert Schumann (1810-1856), whose life and career were cut short from mental illness, but whose massive catalog of piano works and four symphonies are among the finest music from the so-called Romantic period.

Schumann was influenced by such major figures as Franz Schubert and Felix Mendelssohn, but his performing career on piano was ended by an injury to his right hand, forcing him to focus exclusively on composition.  He came into prominence with his piano works during the 1830s and, the next decade, branched out into symphonic work.

His muse was Clara Wieck, a virtuoso pianist and daughter of Schumann's teacher, who resisted their romance even as they married in 1840 when Schumann went to court to overcome a legal objection.  Clara was ambitious, controlling, and constantly championed her husband even as she chafed at the restraints of raising a large family (there were eight children), managing the household, and continuing her performance career.

Schumann's mental illness worsened by the early 1850s and he attempted suicide before being placed into an asylum where he remained until his death.  One of his few visitors (Clara was not allowed because of concerns of his mental state) was a young Johannes Brahms, who was a friend and who the Schumanns championed, though it was years before Brahms made his mark.

The piano concerto on this set was recorded by The Radio Symphonic Orchestra at Ljubljana in Slovenia, conducted by Marko Munih and Dubravka Tomsic as soloist, while the three symphonies were conducted by Henry Adolph and performed by the Philharmonica Slavonica.  To these untutored ears, the playing is fine, especially the concerto, and Schumann's expressive, dynamic and emotional compositions seem to come out well.  The pieces abound with beautiful melodies and pleasing harmony.

Schumann's works may be very familiar, but they are always welcome to hear again and again, because of their complexity, richness and expressiveness.

Franz Joseph Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 64, #s4-6

From the late 1980s on the German budget label, Pilz, comes this fine recording of three of Haydn's best-known string quartets, filled with gorgeous melody, rich harmony and excellent playing by the Caspa da Salo Quartet.

Composed in 1790 and often called the Tost quartets after Johann Tost, a Hungarian violinist who assisted the composer in finding a publisher for much of his work and who is given a dedication by Haydn for the Op. 64 works, this trio includes the fifth, called the "Lark Quartet", and which is one of the most famous of his pieces.

All six of the set are remarkable works.  The quality of these pieces reflect Haydn's full development, by his sixties, of both the string quartet and the symphony genres.

They were also written just as the maestro was ending a decades-long employment at the Esterhazy court and soon to be sent to London, where he reached new levels of fame with some of his late symphonies.

When it comes to bargain-basement budget classical labels, Pilz is probably the most notable of all.  This blogger has hundreds and hundreds of classical recordings, many on high-end labels, and quite a few on Naxos, Pilz and other budget ones, and does not have any pretension as to knowledge or deep understanding of the technical underpinnings of the music.  But, this recording and the few dozen others from Pilz are enjoyable.

Click here an interesting take on what the Pilz series has to offer for the "frugal" classical music consumer--this was definitely relatable!

Edvard Grieg: Holberg Suite/ Norwegian Wedding Dances/Lyric Suite

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) was a Romantic pianist and composer whose use of folk music elements in his native Norway somewhat mirrors similarly explorations by contemporaries like Bedrich Smetana, Jean Sibelius, Anton Dvorak and others in other parts of Europe.

This 2-CD set on the budget German label, Pilz, presents a nice variety of the instantly-likable work of Grieg, including some of his better-known and more obscure works.  The Slowakische Philarmnonie, conducted by Libor Pesek, and pianist Stefan Jeschko perform wonderfully, showing that lesser-known ensembles and players sometimes get short shrift as their status allows for these budget labels to offer well-performed music at a low price with no noticeable reduction in quality.

The Holberg Suite was published in 1884 to celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of Norwegian playwright Ludvig Holberg and is based on musical forms (the air, sarabande and gavotte, for example) from the 18th-century.  Grieg is most renowned for his Peer Gynt suite, which will be highlighted here sometime, but the Holberg has as much going for it, including one after another of memorable and beautiful melodies, as well as striking harmonizing of instrumentation.  Notably, the Holberg was originally composed for solo piano and only later adapted for orchestra, where the richness of its melodies and general structure are more fully realized.

What follows are a quartet of "Norwegian Wedding Dances," and a smattering of lyric pieces for piano that are beautifully rendered and redolent of the Romantic style which was the rage at the time.  Particularly notable are the Halling Dances, which include some of Grieg's more recognizable melodic themes.

Then, there is the Ballade in G Minor, also known as "Ballade in the Form of Variations on a Norwegian Folk Song", the source being "The Mountain Song," is another gorgeous piano work of themes and variations which starts quietly and impressionistically and builds from there, with a clear (at least for this amateur listener) from Chopin and Schubert, as it develops impressively and more forcefully with crystalline arpeggios and strong left-hand block chords.  Jeschko, as throughout the recording, plays with virtuosity, authority and a balance of power and a light touch as called for.

The second disc is principally noted for its rendering of the Lyric Suite, derived from a larger body of Lyric Pieces Grieg composed with three of the pieces developed from original orchestrations of lyric pieces by Hungarian conductor Anton Seidl, though Grieg later revamped the trio and added a fourth entirely his own.  Grieg appreciated Seidl's work but felt that his lighter touch did not accord well with Seidl's more bombastic style developed partly from his training under Franz Liszt and more prominently from his long association with Richard Wagner.  In any case, these are very fine pieces performed with great skill by Marian Pivca.

A Concerto for Violin in D-Minor by the Philharmonia Slavonica, conducted by Carlo Pantelli, with Bruno Zwicker as soloist; a Symphonic Dance by the Nuremberg Symphony and a Valse Triste by the London Festival Orchestra, the latter two conducted by Alfred Scholz round out the second disc and are beautifully performed and also a nice selection of the variety of the composer's oeuvre.

Franz Josef Haydn: Symphonies 94. 99 and 101 & Concerto For King Ferdinand, No. 5

This double-disc budget release on the German Pilz label from 1990 features fine performances of three of the great Haydn's later symphonies by the Philharmonia Slavonica, the Süddeutsch Philharmonie and the Camerata Romana--none known in the upper echelons of orchestras or smaller ensembles, but still excellent nonetheless.

Haydn was one of the modern developers of the symphony, though the form was still relatively brief at roughly 25 minutes for each four-movement work, even in the composer's later years--nothing like the gargantuan works by Mahler, Bruckner and others who followed a century and more later.  These were also not monumental sonic blockbusters as with those later composers and were, instead, lighter, more melodic and, yet, still quite rich and complex.

Each of the three symphonies featured in this set was composed during Haydn's first stay in London.  The Symphony #94 was written in 1791 and is usually denoted as the "Surprise Symphony" because of a famed little joke the composer inserted in its second movement.  There is a quiet passage with piano when suddenly a quick loud fortissimo burst erupts from the orchestra before the movement resumes its ambient quietude.  A biographer asked the aged composer whether this was done to awaken a sleeping audience member, to which Haydn replied, "No, but I was interested in surprising the public with something new."

The Symphony #99 was written in late 1793 and premiered early the next year on Haydn's second visit to England and is notable for being the first of the composer's symphonic works to feature clarinets.  Coming at around the same time and premiered within a couple of months as the other, the Symphony #101 is usually known as the "Clock Symphony" because of a notable "ticking" rhythm in its second movement.  As with most of the dozen London (or Salomon, after Johann Peter Salomon, a musician, composer, and impresario who brought Haydn to Britain) symphonies, it was very warmly received and, like the others, is frequently performed.

The fifth concerto for King Ferdinand of Naples (later of "The Two Sicilies" in Italy originally featured a pair of that monarch's favorite instrument, an Italian one similar to a hurdy-gurdy.  Modern performances forego that unusual sound and soloists usually feature flutes and oboes.  The second and third movements of the concerto, which was completed in 1786, were recycled the following year in Haydn's Symphony #89.

Haydn is often overshadowed by Mozart, who was a generation younger, but his later works in particular are amazing and the composer became a favorite of this listener from the time his music was first heard a quarter century ago, in 1990.  These symphonies are timeless classics that never get old or timeworn.

Georg Friedrich Handel: Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks

Though a German by birth, Georg Friedrich Handel became British by virtue of his move to England following the accession of Prince Georg, Elector of Hanover, to the throne of Great Britian as King George I.  For nearly a half century, Handel became a preeminent composer of baroque music, completing a vast array of works of various types, including his famed oratorios, concerto grossos, operas, and much more.

Among his best-known works are "Water Music" and "Music for the Royal Fireworks," which came over three decades apart.  The first was composed just a few years after Handel settled in England and was made for a pleasure cruise for the king on the River Thames which took place on 17 July 1717.  Fifty musicians on a barge performed the piece while the king's party was on the nearby royal craft.  The work was so well received that the sovereign ordered the musicians to perform the work three times and they were undoubtedly worn out by the three hours of playing.

In the case of the latter work, it was created for King George II for a performance at Green Park in London on 27 April 1749 to celebrate the treaty that ended the War of the Austrian Succession, a conflict that raged through much of Europe for the preceding eight years.  There had been a performance six days before at Vauxhall Gardens that drew 12,000 people and there was a three-hour wait as carriages vied to reach the gardens for the concert.

When played at Green Park to support the massive display of fireworks, the music overshadowed the pyrotechnics and "Music for the Royal Fireworks" became another masterpiece for the composer.  Because both it and "Water Music" were written for outdoor performances, the two pieces are often paired together in concert programs and on recordings.

The German budget label Pilz issued the first two of the three suites of "Water Music" and the concerto grosso, "Music for the Royal Fireworks," in 1993 along with a second disc of the fifth, sixth and seventh concerto grossos.  The music is filled with beautiful and graceful melodies, stately rhythms and the baroque majesty that, while different from that of Bach, who was Handel's contemporary, proved with his fellow composer to be the acme of the music of the age.

These two great works were performed by the Süddeutsch Philharmonie or Southwest German Orchestra in Konstanz on Lake Constance where Germany, Switzerland and Austria meet.  While this orchestra is probably not considered "world class" by connoisseurs, and amateur like YHB enjoys the performance perfectly fine.  In any case, the brilliance of Handel's famed works shines through.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphonies 35 and 38 and the Salzburg Symphonies

In 1990, when classical music was first being discovered by this blogger, one of the first recordings obtained was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Linz (or 36th) symphony and, within moments of listening to the theme of the first movement, it was extremely easy, as it has for many millions of people, to appreciate and enjoy the true genius of the composer.

Mozart (1756-1791), a child prodigy as a performer and composer, composed voluminously and with amazing creativity and was immensely popular.  Over 600 works were produced in about a quarter century and he was only 35 when he died--who knows how many more compositions, including masterpieces, he would have produced if he had lived as long as one of his mentors, Franz Josef Haydn?

He also composed extremely rapidly and completed his final trio of symphonies in only a month and a half.  His greatest work came in the final decade of his life, during which time, not coincidentally, he worked closely with the great Haydn, who, in turn, learned much from his much younger compatriot.

There is so much to discover and appreciate in the mountains of music, most of it of extremely high quality and so memorable, produced by the remarkable Mozart.  A nice collection of two of his most famous symphonies, the 35th (Haffner, from 1782) and the 38th (Prague, from 1786), as well as the so-called Salzburg symphonies, which are divertimenti or lighter music that run about half the length of the "mature" symphonies, can be found on a release by the German budget label, Pilz.

As a rank amateur, this blogger lacks the discernment to distinguish between good, excellent or superior playing in the way that a professional musician or a well-schooled aficionado can, so the Pilz disc may or may not meet the criteria called for by the latter, but for moi it works just fine.

The two symphonies on the first disc are performed by the Mozart Festival Orchestra, while, on disc 2, the Salzburg pieces are by a German orchestra called the Süddeutsche Philharmonie along with a thirteen minute Serenata Notturna by the Münchner Symphoniker that functioned more like a suite than a symphony and was "light music" that was performed in the evenings in outdoor settings, hence the name. 

Yet, even though the Salzburg "symphonies" and the serenades were usually thought of as ephemeral and not as important as "major" works like symphonies, concertos, sonatas and other more formally performed works, Mozart's skills with memorable melodies and unusual orchestration have made these pieces as timeless as the others.