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Posts: 26485
Location: SF Bay Area
Joined: February 17, 2004
Contributor
Since: February 6, 2012
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I sampled volumes 1 and 2 last night on Spotify. (My wife was listening too.) Schumann is among my favorite composers, and I also love the Caspar David Friedrich paintings on the covers of so many recordings of Schumann's works!
As the Brits say, FULL MARKS to Holliger for reinstating the original notes of the trumpet fanfare that begins the Spring Symphony! Bb Bb Bb Bb Bb G A Bb, rather than D D D D D Bb C D - which is what the orchestra answers with in the second phrase. When Schumann tried this at the first rehearsal, the notes below the Bb (i.e., the G and the A) were unplayable, and all the player could do when they occurred was to blow air through his instrument - to the great amusement of the rest of the orchestra! This forced a revision in the opening to the notes as we know them today. The only other conductor I know of who recorded the symphony this way (i.e., with its restored opening) was Othmar Suitner, who, in a labor of love, hand copied the original manuscript which was then (and maybe still is) located in the Library of Congress!
 
(BTW, this whole episode is yet another example of how the "original instruments" were inadequate to realize the composer's intentions - the reason trumpeters today can play the opening as originally conceived by Schumann is because valved trumpets have been standard for quite a while, unlike in Schumann's time.)
Another interesting thing about these Holliger performances/recordings is that the balances are often unusual and surprising - however, this is not always to the benefit of the music, since Holliger is often so intent on uncovering what the wind players are doing, that the main line (Hauptstimme) doesn't come out is it should. Nevertheless, these performances are interesting to hear and should certainly hold listeners' attention for a time or two, just on the basis of the unusual balances.
However, Holliger seems to be SO interested in balance and texture that his overall dynamic shape and phase inflection seem to me very restricted. In some parts, I feel as if he might as well be conducting an orchestration of Satie's "Embryons desséchés"! This approach is pretty deadly for the slow movement of the Second Symphony - the yearning and intensity just aren't there. And this is not the only place which suffers from Holliger's approach.
I spot checked some of my faves (Beermann, Skrowaczewski, Sawallisch/Dresden) against these new recordings too, and the differences in the evocation of emotional fire and impassioned feeling seemed pretty obvious. (BTW, despite my admiration for Suitner's efforts to get the original version of the Spring symphony into the public awareness, I feel his recording of this work, like so many of the conductor's other efforts on record, is slack and poorly disciplined - too bad. Also, Beermann, like Holliger and a few others, uses the original version of the D-minor symphony.)
  
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