Schumann Quartet/Vinnitskaya - Schumann and Reimann, 20 April 2023

Wigmore Hall

Schumann: String Quartet in A minor, op.41 no.1
Reimann: Adagio (Zum Gedenken an Robert Schumann)
Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-flat major op.44

Erik Schumann, Ken Schumann (violins)
Veit Benedikt Hertenstein (viola)
Mark Schumann (cello)
Anna Vinnitskaya (piano)

I welcomed in February an excellent concert of Schumann and Brahms from the Schumann Quartet and Pablo Barrágan. This latest instalment of The Schumann Show – there will be a third in July – had still more Schumann: two of the composer’s works, plus another derived from his material and dedicated to him. It made for a fine successor, as did pianist Anna Vinnitskaya, joining the players for the Piano Quintet. 

The first of two works from 1842 was the A minor String Quartet. The first movement introduction invited us in, showing at the same time just how well Schumann knew his Bach, refracted by a Beethovenian lens. More important, its inwardness and pregnancy with possibility were very much to the fore, the surprise of Schumann’s move to the major mode for the Allegro registering subtly as part of his general tonal and developmental scheme; there was no need to hammer it home. Fiery and intimate by turn, and sometimes together, this performance certainly had the movement’s measure. Vigour characterised the second and four movements, though neither, rightly, was without vulnerability. Whirlwinds of different character, the former counterbalanced by a charming, sinuous trio, the latter full of post-Mendelssohnian life, they framed an Adagio rich both in secrets and in their divulgence. There was something almost operatic to it: Onegin on the Rhine, perhaps, though its heart still very much beat after Beethoven (not least his example in the Ninth Symphony). 

Aribert Reimann, a composer sadly overlooked in this country and probably best known here for work as a pianist with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, descends from one of the doctors who treated Schumann at his Endenich asylum. In 2006, 150 years after Schumann’s death, Reimann published the medical records he had inherited and composed an Adagio in memory of Schumann based on two chorale harmonisations Schumann had made at that time: ‘Wenn mein Stündlein vorhanden ist’ and ‘Stärk uns, Mittler, dein sind wir’. The Schumanns played the first, alongside Ken Schumann’s valuable spoken introduction to the piece, followed by a fine performance of Reimann’s typically post-Expressionist response. Prolongation, incision, elaboration, and other procedures enabled him – and us – to encircle those sad yet noble last musical words, as did Reimann’s own musical assailants and/or angels. Why, after all, choose?

Vinnitskaya and the Quartet gave us a warm and equally distinguished performance of the Piano Quintet, balance between instruments always finely judged, to the extent one would never have known it might be a problem. In the second group, viola and cello, shadowed and responded to by two violins, reminded us that Schumann’s own instrument is perhaps not even first among equals here, but simply an honoured equal. It was a dynamic reading that yet always found space for the musical drama to unfold. A tumultuous first-movement development and return took nothing for granted, taking us to quite a different place from where we had begun. Ghostly urgency in the second movement, contrasted with hallucinatory episodic visits to the Schubertian major-mode, duly unsettled. So too did Veit Benedikt Hertenstein’s dark viola solo. Full-blooded, almost Brahmsian eruption made its point with power and elegance.  Vinnitskaya’s dexterity, never in doubt, was certainly on show in the scherzo: another whirlwind to succeed those two in the String Quartet. Trios of very different character were equally relished; this was almost, not quite, an embarrassment of musical riches. An enthralling performance of the finale was given in, again, different yet consequent character. That first-movement combination of urgency and space was present also here. The Furiant from Dvořák’s second Piano Quintet made for a lovely encore—and indeed had me wish to hear the whole thing. Another time, I hope.

Schumann Qt/Barrágan - Brahms and Schumann, 7 February 2023

Wigmore Hall

Brahms: String Quartet no.3 in B-flat major, op.67
Schumann: String Quartet no.2 in F major, op.41 no.2
Brahms: Clarinet Quintet in B minor, op.115

Erik Schumann, Ken Schumann (violins)

Veit Benedikt Hertenstein (viola)

Mark Schumann (cello))

Pablo Barrágan (clarinet)

Brahms and Schumann fit, for many reasons, like a glove. Participation of the Schumann Quartet (named after its three Schumann brothers, not the composer) does no harm either; nor indeed, on the evidence of this concert, does a guest appearance from clarinettist Pablo Barrágan. This was an evening of fine musicmaking throughout, evidently appreciated by the Wigmore Hall audience. 

First up was the third and last of Brahms’s surviving string quartets. (He is said to have destroyed his first dozen, even twenty, attempts, so fierce was his self-criticism, those first efforts having been made at Schumann’s urging.) With the Schumanns, the first movement and much of what was to follow wore their Beethovenian inheritance brightly. Even Brahms’s trademark metrical complexity seemed to spring to an unusual extent from Beethoven’s syncopation. There was something of late Beethoven’s fragmentation too, from at least the second group onwards, though there was never any denying Brahms’s own voice in the work’s undergrowth. None of it, of course, is remotely easy listening, and the development too us to greater extremes, no attempt made, quite rightly, to smooth the edges. The recapitulation seemed, in duly Beethovenian fashion, at least as much a second development as a return.

I was struck, in the second movement, by the relish with which the players communicated Brahms’s melodic profusion: first led by Erik Schumann’s first violin, proceeding to involve all. Still more important was the creation of an emotional world, poised between tragedy and something more affirmative, that engendered. Ghosts of the past made their presence felt: not only Beethoven, but Schumann, Bach, Schubert too. It was luminous, yet unquestionably grounded. A more turbulent third movement followed, seemingly darker and lighter, sometimes by turn, sometimes at once. Veit Benedkt Hertenstein’s viola emerged, properly, as first among equals, soon rivalled by Mark Schumann’s cello. Restless until the end, it prepared a fine contrast with the post-Classicism in work and performance of the finale, charm no more precluding depth than it would in Haydn. Serenity and joy were hard won, and all the more appreciated for that. Here was fulfilment, predicated on prior intense longing.

The first movement of Schumann’s F major Quartet, op.41 no.2, heard him in notably post-Classical style too. The Schumanns’ unhurried approach sounded just right to me: Allegro vivace does not mean the music should be harried, quite the contrary. The theme of the second movement was more inward, exuding all the charm of a ‘characteristic’ piano piece. Variations offered individuality and cumulative unity. By contrast, the scherzo and trio’s intensity and frankly involved character presented a later, almost Tchaikovskian Romanticism. The finale was delightfully puppy-like in character: a Haydn tribute, so it seemed, though with a Romantic heart. 

For the second part, we returned to Brahms, to the Clarinet Quintet. Poised and searching, the first movement presented the clarinet now as first among equals, though Barrágan would generously cede as required. Fuller texture combined with still greater sense of chiaroscuro that attended a keen sense of form—and, with that, an equally keen sense of the Mozartian perfection of late Brahms. The Adagio’s sweet melancholy and resurgent passion, h painful in their memories, contributed further to an idea of ‘lateness’ that was anything but maudlin. Romantic questing captivated in the Andantino, relative lightness of tone yielding ambiguously to darker impulses. Stoicism was the order of the day at the onset of the final theme and variations, which unfolded with all the complexity of a human being’s warring passions. The path taken seemed inevitable at the close, though everything had been to play for during its course. This fully involving performance was followed by an encore arrangement, again for clarinet quintet, of Schumann’s Abendlied: once more poised and with subtly convincing depth.