Reviews
GMCD 7311 Georg Schumann
INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW SEPTEMBER 2007
Five Chorale-Motets, Op. 71". Three
Chorale-Motets, Op. 75. Geraldine McGreevy, aMary Nelson (sopranos); Purcell
Singers and Ensemble! Mark Ford.
Guild GMCD7311 (full price, 1 hour 8
minutes) German texts and English translations included. Website
www.guildmusic.com. Producers
Mark Ford, Michael Ponder Engineer Michael Ponder.
Dates November 5th and 12th, 2005.
Although the Purcell Singer recorded a disc of choral music
by Georg Schumann (18661952) for ASV, reviewed with 'a firm and enthusiastic
recommendation' by Martin Anderson in September 2000, his music was new to me.
Two sets of Schumann's chorale motets for mixed choir are here, the five of Op.
71 dating from 1921-22, with the three that form Op. 75 coming in 1934.
Gottfried Eberle' s notes for Guild provide good descriptions
of the music but say virtually nothing about Schumann. 'Jerusalem, du
hochgebaute Stadt', Op. 75 No. 1, and the following 'Sollt ich meinem Gott nicht
singen?' are for eight-part choir a cappella,
whereas the third of the group, 'Mit Fried und
Freud', has three horns, three trombones, tuba and timpani as an unhackneyed
accompaniment. Eberle writes: Schumann retains his usual approach, which leads
him from the simple harmonized original melody to his own music of symphonic
scope, by means of thematic metamorphosis inspired completely by the meaning of
the text, to an apotheosis of the original melody, and finally to a
retrospective, summarizing coda.
'Jerusalem' is based on a melody by Melchior Frank. The
recording was made in a church and is reverberant, with the sound echoing round
and taking its time to die away. Listeners who like this type of recording will
doubtless enjoy being bathed in such ambience. I prefer a much drier sound, with
more clarity. There is certainly little about the music which should deter
anybody, even though Schumann's harmonies are often dissonant.
Such dissonance is effective in 'Sollt ich meinem Gott', on a
melody by Johann Schop. This motet has much of harmonic interest, and how well
the Purce]] Singers reveal it. Martin Luther's text and original tune are used
by Schumann in 'Mit Fried und Freud', with a lovely setting for the third verse,
as a solo soprano holds a line above the choir, with the brass playing a solemn
melody below.
Op. 7] begins with the longest motet, on Philipp Ni CO lai '
s Wie schOn leuch' uns der Morgenstern. Schumann's 'spicy
harmonies' are conspicuous, unpleasantly so to my ears at the start of the third
verse. 'Ermuntre dich, mein schwacher Geist', the third motet, held my attention
more. Those two works and the second, 'Jesus, meine Zuversicht', are
unaccompanied, but the choir is joined by four trumpets, four trombones, tuba,
timpani and organ for another Nicolai item, Wachet a'!f, nift uns die Stimme,
the shortest piece (5'33"). Probably because Schumann stays more closely to
the original here, I find this the most pleasing of the eight works. When the
brass instruments enter in the third verse, one feels an impact that the rather
recessed choir had not made. The final motet, on Luther's Vom Himmel hoch,
begins with two sopranos briefly adding their voice.
The 50 or so members of the Purcell Singers make a good noise
in the over-spatial acoustic. On occasions, when returning to the text after
consulting Eberle's notes, I had difficulty in finding my place. For the choir's
contribution one has respect, and although I cannot echo my colleague's
enthusiasm [ do suggest that admirers of twentieth-century choral music should
consider this CD, for many may wish that they had encountered Georg Schumann
earlier.
John T. Hughes
Gramophone Awards 2007
G. Schumann Choral-Motetten fur
gemischten Chor, Opp 71 & 75 Geraldine McGreevy, Mary Nelson sops Purcell
Singers I Mark Ford Guild ® GMCD7311 (68' . DDD. T/t)
Isn't it time you made the acquaintance
of the other Mr Schumann?
The name of Georg . Schumann will be
unfamiliar to most readers.
He spent 50 years as director of the
Berlin Sing-Akademie, the choir of which he described, when he first conducted
them in 1900, as “extraordinarily musical". He composed some music for organ and
two piano quintets, but the vast bulk of his output was for this Berlin choir.
A disc of earlier choral pieces appeared
in 2001 on ASV (also performed by the Purcell Singers under Mark Ford) but, as
the booklet-notes tell us, the two works recorded here "crowned his a
cappella output".
This is gorgeous music; harmonically
luxuriant and richly expressive, the musical language firmly rooted in late
German Romanticism but concise enough that nothing seems extravagant or
superfluous. Accordingly the Purcell Singers come up with sumptuous
performances, impressive in their breadth and tonal range. Ford paces things
just right so that we can savour the opulence of the sound without any hint of
overindulgence, and his dynamic control is, at times, quite miraculous; there is
a spellbinding diminuendo after 9' 15" in "Sollt ich meinem Gott nicht Singen?"
from the Op 75 motets, followed )by an equally breathtaking crescendo.
These are not all a cappella
works; one motet in each set has instrumental accompaniment. In the case of Op
75 it is “Mit Fried und Freud", where distant timpani underpin a mystical
chorale from the men's voices while Geraldine McGreevy floats ethereally above a
solemn brass chorus. Rich and lovely as that is, it pales into insignificance
besides the riveting and majestic setting of 'Wachet auf" from the Op 71 set.
The sheer splendour of this is perfectly captured in the superb Guild recording.
Readers for whom the name Georg
Schurnann remains unfamiliar after listening to this hugely impressive disc only
have themselves to blame. Marc Rochester
KLASSIK COM Thursday November 08 2007
Aus englischer
Sicht
Kritik von
Gabriele Pilhofer,
08.11.2007
Schumann,
Georg: Jerusalem, du hochgebaute Stadt
Label: Guild
Interpretation: Three Star
Klangqualität: Two Star
Repertoirewert: Three Star
Booklet: Three Star
Georg Schuman ist weder
verwandt noch verschwägert mit Robert Schumann. Beide stammten zwar aus Sachsen,
beide waren sie Pianisten und Komponisten. Aber damit erschöpfen sich die
Parallelen zwischen den Namensvettern. Georg Schumann (1866-1952) war seit 1900
Leiter der Berliner Sing-Akademie, langjähriges Mitglied und später Präsident
der Preußischen Akademie der Künste und hat zusammen mit Richard Strauss und
anderen die Genossenschaft deutscher Tonsetzer (die heutige GEMA) gegründet. Er
setzte sich für die authentische Aufführung der Werke Johann Sebastian Bachs ein,
war engagierter Chorleiter und komponierte ein mehr als 100 Werke umfassendes
œuvre mit Schwerpunkt auf Chormusik. Als Komponist jedoch ist Schumann zu einem
typischen Fall für Labels wie ,Guild' aus der Schweiz geworden, dessen
Programmschwerpunkt u.a. vergessene oder kaum entdeckte Komponisten sind. Ein
wenig kurios ist, dass sich der auf der hier vorliegenden CD-Produktion acht
spätromantischen deutschen Choral-Motetten ausgerechnet ein englisches
Vokalensemble - die ,Purcell Singers' aus London - angenommen haben.
Klang im Überfluss
Es steht leider nicht
zu hoffen, dass Schumann mit den Leistungen des Chors unter der Leitung von Mark
Ford einen Zuwachs an Popularität erfährt. Wegen des undifferenzierten, recht
halligen Klangbilds der Aufnahme leidet der Genuss an dieser eigentlich
reizvollen Musik erheblich. Wie nicht selten bei englischen Choraufnahmen wähnt
man sich in einer riesigen Kathedrale, in der viel Räumlichkeit viel Homogenität
erzeugen soll. Leider ist das Gegenteil der Fall: Einzelne Vokalisten - meist
vibratogeladene Sopräne - stechen unangenehm heraus und die Tongebilde sind
wabrig. Die harmonische und verbale Artikulation geht bei den drei achtstimmigen
Choral-Motetten op. 75 (1934) und den fünf Choral-Motetten op. 71 (1921/22)
verloren und kompositorische Finessen unter. Die Stücke, darunter Bearbeitungen
der Choral-Klassiker ,Wie schön leucht' uns der Morgenstern', ,Jesus, meine
Zuversicht, ,Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme' und ,Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich
her', sind nämlich melodisch und vor allem harmonisch um einiges verwegener als
bei Vorbildern wie etwa Johannes Brahms oder Max Reger, so dass das Gefühl für
die Tonalität auf angenehme Weise durcheinander gewirbelt wird. Etwas
anstrengend wird es allerdings, wenn man dem Ensemble nach relativ kurzer Zeit
in Sachen intonatorischer Sauberkeit nicht mehr vertraut. Da nämlich punkten die
Purcell Singers wenig. Während die Phrasierungen vorbildlich und liebevoll
gestaltet sind und auch die deutsche Aussprache für ein englisches Ensemble
relativ gut ist, fehlt es dem a cappella-Gesang an stimmlicher Brillanz. Wer ein
gutes Gehör hat, den beschleicht mehrfach das Bedürfnis, die Töne hoch- oder
runterzudimmen, um die Harmonien in ein besseres Licht zu stellen.
Könnte man diese
Minuspunkte einfach ignorieren, hätte man es mit durchaus bewegender, dabei
überwiegend getragener, homophoner geistlicher Chormusik zu tun, die zwar
manchmal leicht am Kitsch vorbeischrammt, aber dennoch ansprechend und
hörenswert ist. Unter anderen klanglichen Bedingungen wäre sie bestimmt eine
Entdeckung.
Gabriele Pilhofer
MusicWeb Thursday August 02 2007
Georg SCHUMANN
(1866–1952)
Three Choral Motets
for mixed choir, Op. 75 (1934) [25.10]
Five Choral Motets for mixed choir, Op. 71 (1921/22) [42.15]
 Geraldine McGreevy (soprano)
Mary Nelson (soprano)
The Purcell Singers/Mark Ford
rec. St. Alban’s Church, London, 5, 12 November 2006. DDD
GUILD GMCD 7311
[67.35]
Georg
Schumann came from a family of musicians: his father was the town music director
in Königstein, his grandfather was a Kantor and his brother Camillo was also a
composer. Georg studied music with his father and grandfather before continuing
at Dresden and at the Leipzig Conservatoire. A talented conductor and choir
trainer, he settled in Berlin in 1900 where he became director of the Sing-Akademie.
He found the choir extraordinarily musical and it learned music quickly. This
gave an impetus to his composing and he wrote his first piece for them, Drei
geistliche Lieder in 1902.
In 1916 he
was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Friedrich Wilhelm University. War and
post-war chaos prevented him from writing a piece in response to the honour.
Finally in 1921 he wrote the Five Chorale Motets, Op. 71, which
were first performed by the Berliner Sing-Akademie in 1922.
The motets
are well wrought pieces, firmly in the tradition of Bach, Mendelssohn and
Brahms. But they are also rooted in the 20th century, though the
tradition to which Schumann belonged is the conservative one. Schumann’s music
is closer to Reger and Pfitzner than it is to Strauss, Berg or Schoenberg.
Schumann’s
chorale-based motets are not slavish followers of the past. His harmonisations
of the chorale melody are often quite idiomatic. After a statement of the
chorale he transforms the theme almost beyond recognition, firmly placing motifs
in modern harmonic relationships. He was equally free with the words, adjusting
texts to suit his own purposes.
The first
motet in the set is based on a chorale by Nicolai. Schumann alternates the high
and low voices to magical effect at the opening of the piece. By the middle of
the piece, Schumann is getting quite harmonically adventurous and the chorale
almost disappears. The following two motets are very similar in construction and
sound-world. Only in the fourth motet, “Wachet auf”, does he vary the structure,
by introducing first organ accompaniment in the second verse and brass
accompaniment in the third. The result is very stirring and would certainly bear
reviving.
For the final
motet of the group, Schumann reverts to an unaccompanied choir, but here they
accompany two soprano soloists. The opening, with its soprano solo and
high-voiced choir, as if coming from celestial heights, is quite magical.
Schumann’s
next group of choral pieces were written in 1932 and first performed in 1934
again by the Sing-Akademie. The Three Chorale Motets, Op. 75 are again
structured along the lines of the earlier pieces. Despite their late date, they
remain firmly in the world of Wagner and Liszt. Like the earlier motets, one is
rather more festal and uses an accompaniment of horns, trombones, tuba and
timpani.
These are
well-wrought, symphonic-scale pieces. The longest motets last over eleven
minutes and the shortest is nearly six minutes long. They would make strong
items in a mixed choral programme and sound as if they are rewarding to sing. In
fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that they are probably as much fun to sing as
to listen to … possibly more so.
The Purcell
Singers under their conductor Mark Ford have already recorded a disc of
Schumann’s earlier motets for ASV. This disc of the later pieces complements
that neatly. In his Gramophone review of the ASV disc, Malcolm Riley described
the disc as ‘revelatory’.
The choir
make a warm, well-blended sound and respond well to Schumann’s luxuriant
textures. As recorded here, they use a big, vibrato-laden sound which does not
always work well with Schumann’s chromaticism. When Schumann’s textures get
complex I would sometimes have liked a greater sense of line and clarity of
texture rather than the suave and resolved choral sound produced here. There are
odd moments of raw tone in the tenors and sopranos, but not enough to disturb.
These are
fine performances of well-crafted music. Anyone interested in the byways of
German neo-Romantic composers in the 20th century would be well
advised to try this disc.
Robert Hugill
Page revised Thursday February 07 2008
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