Search - Robert Schumann, John Eliot Gardiner, Barbara Bonney :: Robert Schumann: Das Paradies und die Peri / Requiem für Mignon / Nachtlied - The Monteverdi Choir / Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique / John Eliot Gardiner

Serene ,uplifting & captivating Schumann

Paul Harben | Sydney, NSW Australia | 10/31/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have just re listened to this marvelously moving collection of Schumann's choral works again after my initial purchase. I am even more moved and in awe at both Gardiner's way with the Romantic era, and Schumann's powerfully wrought music. Lilting, intense, lyrical but always serene and flowing.If Gardiner's driven and superbly played HIP Schumann Symphonies were not enough to entice, then do try these beautifully proportioned and recorded works. The clarity is amazing. The Nachtlied is spell binding. Barbara Bonney is enthralling in the Peri role. The choral ending and final brass blaze to part one of Paradise and the Peri is spine tingling, no other way to describe my reaction.I'm a real Schumann convert. Now wouldn't John Eliot like to try Schumann's opera Genoveva? I hope so. This is simply a spectacularly affecting set. Don't hesitate."

An Essential Schumann Recording

M. C. Passarella | Lawrenceville, GA | 07/21/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I recall a biography of Schumann that I once read in which the author opined that Schumann was a miniaturist foolishly driven to try his hand at bigger works. The author went on to say the composer's tiny piano piece "Elf" (from Bunte Blatter, I believe) is worth more than all his massive choral works together, collecting dust as they are on library shelves. I submit there are two things wrong with this assessment. First, when it was issued, no one had taken Schumann's big choral works down form the shelf and dusted them off for a long time, so it was pretty impossible for music lovers to make a judgment about their contents. Second, the person who took them down off the shelf, when it occurred, was not John Eliot Gardiner. Pretty strong praise, maybe, but though "Das Paradies und die Peri" has been recorded before, more or less successfully (there used to be a semi-decent version by Armin Jordan on Erato), the beauty and sheer genius of Schumann's work was only hinted at in earlier recordings. And it is a thing of beauty, with music that would beguile even Schumann's detractors. Much is made of Schumann's naivete about orchestral color when he wrote his First Symphony in 1841. Well, by the time of "Peri" in 1843, Schumann knew how to write for the orchestra. His writing for winds, harp, high percussion--instrumentation he rarely used for coloristic effect in his works--is beautifully rich.



Part of the success, of course, is original instruments, whose freshening effect in Schumann's music can be likened to the efforts of a restorer working on the oil painting of an old master. However, it must be said that Schumann was in the thrall of Mendelssohn at this point in his career, so a piece like "The Chorus of the Nile Spirits" (No. 11) has all the lightness of a Mendelssohn scherzo; this is an influence Schumann progressively shed in his later choral music. Still, it is not merely original instruments nor Mendelssohnian influence but Gardiner's sure ear for balance that makes this music come up so fresh and radiant.



Add the fact that Gardiner has at his disposal the radiant voice of Barbara Bonney for his Peri, and it would be difficult to imagine finer talents employed on Schumann's behalf. The other soloists are fine as well--Christoph Pregardien being an especially sweet-voiced match for Bonney in the tenor-solo role.



As critics have pointed out, in "Peri" Schumann benefited from his work with the German lied; the vocal writing is always fluent, and Schumann is always sensitive to the text he is setting. High points for me are the gentle finale to Part 2 (No. 17); No. 20, where the rejected Peri vows to keep on keeping on; No. 23, where the Peri wins her wings, so to speak, by capturing the tears of the repentant sinner; and the final magnificent solo and chorus (No. 26), to which I could listen again and again. No. 23 is like one of Schumann's famous ballads, Nos. 17 and 26 like the best of his great love songs. Sure, the libretto is more than a bit corny for modern tastes. Just skim it, and listen to the music.



Actually, Schumann did miscalculate a bit in this work, and that may be why it isn't heard as often as it should be. The first part is clearly the most dramatic, with a thrilling battle scene using "Turkish" percussion and a powerful final chorus with thundering timpani; Schumann would use that trick again at the end of his wonderful Second Symphony. At this point, Schumann wasn't a seasoned enough oratorio composer to pick, or craft, a libretto that would share the dramatic wealth across all parts. But Parts 2 and 3--especially Part 3--have so many individual beauties that we're the losers if we don't overlook Schumann's miscalculation.



As to the other works on the disc, "Requiem fur Mignon," a very unusual setting of a scene from Goethe, is probably Schumann's best-known choral work, though you are unlikely to hear it in as imaginative and subtle a treatment as Gardiner gives it. Until hearing Gardiner, I thought Abbado's recording, also on DG, was as much as I needed to know about this work, but again, original instruments make all the difference. Despite the enthusiasm of Schumann expert John Devario, who wrote the excellent notes, for "Natchlied," I find it is not on the same exalted plain as either Peri or the Requiem, but it is short and relatively sweet and certainly nice to have as an addendum to the other pieces.



All in all, this is one of the most important Schumann recordings in years. And years.

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