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Schumann - The Complete Symphonies (Mahler Edition) | 
 enlarge | Creators: Robert Schumann, Riccardo Chailly, Gewandhaus Orchestra
Label: Decca Records
Category: Music
List Price: $17.98
Buy New: $9.77
You Save: $8.21 (46%)
New (35) Used (8) from $9.77
Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 47776
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.5
MPN: 001068902
UPC: 028947800378
EAN: 0028947800378
ASIN: B000YM4I4S
Release Date: February 12, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
Disc 1
| • | Andante un poco maestoso | | • | Larghetto | | • | Scherzo: Molto vivace | | • | Allegro animato e grazioso | | • | Sostenuto assai - Allegro, ma non troppo | | • | Scherzo: Allegro vivace | | • | Adagio espressivo | | • | Allegro molto vivace |
Disc 2
| • | Lebhaft | | • | Scherzo | | • | Nicht schnell | | • | Feierlich | | • | Lebhaft-Schneller | | • | Ziemlich langsam - Lebhaft | | • | Romanze (Ziemlich langsam) | | • | Scherzo (lebhaft) & Trio | | • | Langsam-Lebhaft-Schneler-Presto |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra
complete their cycle of Schumann s four symphonies,
presented together in a specially-priced 2-CD set.
The Gewandhaus Orchestra under it s Music Director
Riccardo Chailly brings generations of authentic romantic
style to performances of all four Schumann symphonies.
These symphonies, recorded in the wonderful acoustic of
the Gewandhaus itself, include the revisions made by
the composer Gustav Mahler a lifelong supporter
of Schumann and his symphonic writings.
Since Chailly took charge at the Gewandhaus, the orchestra
has received consistently excellent reviews for their playing
and interpretations of the works of the great Romantic
composers. The orchestra was invited for the first time this
summer to appear at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall
and sold out the concert!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Brilliant! September 5, 2008
Scott A. Duffy
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
What a great recording - I have other versions of the second symphony but this version is superb!
Highly recommended!
Scott
 Mahler also tried to reorchestrate Bach August 8, 2008
Hubert S. Mickel
4 out of 11 found this review helpful
Mahler had the hubris to set himself up to be a master orchestrator. He showed some respect to Brahms, and did not mess with his stuff, but Schumann, poor defenseless Schumann, whose last two years were spent neglected in an asylum at Endenich bei Bonn, was fair game.
Schumann had studied Bach carefully and learned some orchestration cues from Bach, especially the doubling of instruments in composition, a trait for which he has since been severely criticized. It was Schumann who had found the St Matthew Passion and brought it to Mendelssohn's attention. To my ear, when the Schumann symphonies are played correctly, i.e. by Leipzig or Dresden, in the original scores, they are among the most beautiful symphonies to be heard. Chailly has performed the fourth symphony of Schumann on an all Schumann DVD with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, so that he has demonstrated convincingly that he can make the original Schumann scores beautiful. What Mahler has done has made the Schumann symphonies suitable for elevator music, if they are not played too loudly.
Sigmund Freud and Mahler had a long walk in the park when Mahler's marriage was breaking up. Mahler returned and never wrote another piece of music. My thoughts are that it would be better for Mahler and all of us as well if Mahler had taken that walk before he focused his attention on Schumann.
 I didn't like it April 4, 2008
A Reader from (Atlanta GA)
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
I understand Schumann was not a master orchestrator and tended to over-orchestrate his symphonies. But although Mahler cleared up the texture quite a bit, the overall edit and performance sounds like muzak from the sixties and seventies. This music sounds lobotomized: it doesn't sound like Schumann--or even Mahler for that matter--but it sounds much more like 101 Strings or Leroy Anderson. And Chailly wasn't able to keep that tendency from occuring in many places.
This is an unsuccessful, if curious, experiment IMHO. I would rather recommend Kubelik's performance of the original orchestration with the Berlin or Bernstein's with the Vienna (Heh! Now there's a man has been known to edit the orchestrations of a few classics in his day!)
My two cents.
 Mahler made a good up-grade April 4, 2008
R. G. W. Brown (Tustin, CA, USA)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
Mahler got it right. Many small changes to the orchestration, here and there, make Schumann's Symphonies all the more enjoyable. He sorted out some weaknesses and lightly re-scored in places for even better results. This is super-polished Schumann, not Mahlerized-versions.
Having performed all of these symphonies with various orchestras over the years, it has been a delight for me to discover the Mahler editions, especially in these fine performances by the Gewandhaus and Chailly - ebbing and flowing beautifully, full of nuance and detail - most entertaining and polished.
You will enjoy these performances a great deal if you enjoy Schumann.
Chailly, good, but Decca, bad April 2, 2008
Javier Bezos Lopez (Madrid, Spain)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Two questions to Decca: why have not been #1 and #3 issued separately, and why has the Genoveva Overture included with #2 and #4 been removed? Weird. Thanks to Decca, I drop a star. That said, I own #2/#4 and they are very modern performances, clean, fast, dramatic. They are among my favourite versions (with Sawallisch).
As to the Mahler arrangements vs. original scoring: For many years I have been trying to convince myself Schumann scoring was not that bad, after all. But I can't -- orchestration is not only about textures, but also about building melody, rhythm, harmony, and so on, and except in a few cases (#2, mov. III, Adagio, with a very inspired Schumann, indeed), the composer seem unable to use effectively the orchestra for that. IMO, Mahler improved the symphonies (and he didn't touch #2/III at all), even if the way Mahler changed the harmony at the end of #2/IV sounds, well, wrong to my ears.
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