La violoniste Patricia Kopatchinskaja offre quant à elle une lecture éclairée et déterminée. Sous la baguette attentive de Heinz Holliger, elle exploite toute l’étendue de ses capacités pour rendre sa lecture passionnante. Il suffira d’écouter le mouvement central pour saisir la douceur du timbre et la compréhension sans faille de l’architecture. Patricia Kopatchinskaja croit en chaque note et dégraisse magistralement cette œuvre trop souvent négligée.

Zur Aufnahme mit Isabelle Faust und dem Freiburger Barockorchester haben nun auch Heinz Holliger und seine Solistin Patricia Kopatchinskaja im Rahmen der Gesamtveröffentlichung aller Orchesterwerke Schumanns mit dem WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln ihre Sicht auf das Violinkonzert niedergelegt. Und die dürfte Schumanns Vorstellungen vielleicht sogar noch um einiges näher kommen, als dies Isabelle Faust und den Freiburgern gelungen war.

Derzeit erlebt Schumanns Violinkonzert eine wahre Renaissance. Nach Isabelle Faust und Pablo Heras-Casado (harmonia mundi) bricht nun eine weitere CD für dieses Juwel eine Lanze, das sich jeder virtuosen Attitüde versagt. Heinz Holliger hatte im Rahmen seiner famosen Gesamteinspielung der Orchesterwerke Schumanns mit Patricia Kopatchinskaja eine höchst experimentierfreudige Solistin zur Seite, die dem Stück einen Klangreichtum entlockt, der staunen macht – bis hin zu Tönen, die fast schon am Erlöschen sind.

Wie gewohnt gibt die Moldawierin ein bisschen das bad girl.

Die fünfte Folge der Reihe ergänzt die Solokonzerte mit den kompakten Konzertstücken des Komponisten. Patricia Kopatchinskaja und Alexander Lonquich setzen dabei ihre ganz eigene Handschrift in die Kompositionen.

The fourth and fifth volumes of Audite’s Schumann series with Heinz Holliger and the West German Radio Symphony are in many ways the most fascinating so far and the toughest sell. The difficulty is obvious from a glance at the repertoire list: one masterpiece, one quasi-masterpiece, and four conspicuous examples of less than top-drawer Schumann.

The version of the Piano Concerto is all we’ve come to expect from this excellent series, including alert, rhythmically flexible playing from a first-class radio orchestra (people who play to microphones for a living), a conductor who knows his business in Schumann (a firm grasp of the long line, an ability to clarify the occasionally dense inner voicing, a total lack of fear when it comes to punching the telling accent, an uncanny knack for pointing out the previously overlooked—but deeply important—detail), together with superbly realistic recorded sound that nonetheless bathes everything in an early-Romantic glow. The young Hungarian pianist Dénes Várjon takes a wonderfully fresh and unaffected approach to this familiar music; while everything feels perfectly controlled, he bends the bar line in a way that recalls the great Schumann pianists of the past (Cortot and Rubinstein especially) but nothing feels willful or self-aggrandizing. If the finale lacks the head-long excitement of Fleisher, Janis, Richter, and others, then overall it’s an immensely satisfying outing that makes you want to hear some of the solo piano music from this source. (There’s already an excellent version of the violin sonatas with Carolin Widmann on ECM 1902 and an even finer recording of the cello music with Steven Isserlis on Hyperion 67661.)

Wild child Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s presence guarantees an immensely individual look at the problematic Violin Concerto, and, as usual, she doesn’t disappoint. From her first entrance, it’s a startlingly original interpretation, with a seemingly endless variety of tone color—insured by her endless types of vibrato—down to that chilling moment in the heart of the first movement where the line is so drained of life it sounds like someone keening at a funeral. (There are other moments where the sound is so intense at the lower range of audibility that you wonder if she heard of Leonard Bernstein’s extraordinary instruction to a string section: “Play triple piano, but use the kind of vibrato you use playing triple forte.”) Holliger adds as much point and thrust as he possibly can to the outer movements—especially the opening movement, which for once never seems to drag—and although the slow movement seems less a premature anticlimax than usual, things never quite add up (as they never quite have, at least on records).

Kopatchinskaja is just as committed and persuasive in the violin Fantasie, whose gypsy-like opening flourishes are a reminder that it was written for the Hungarian-born Joseph Joachim, who actually played the piece (he refused to touch the concerto). Like the late Concert Allegro with Introduction which Schumann began writing only three days after the Fantasie was finished, it’s a work whose thematic inspiration is pretty thin gruel, as is the working out of the basic material. Like Kopatchinskaja, pianist Alexander Lonquich does everything he can to invest his part with life and interest, though well before the Concert Allegro begins you realize why—after a certain point—the composer’s widow stopped playing it in public.

All concerned are on far firmer footing in the earlier Introduction and Allegro appassionato, written well before Schumann was beginning to lose his grip on things. Lonquich responds admirably to the work’s impetuosity and high romance, though not with quite the same magical fusion of freshness and knowing finesse Jan Lisiecki achieves in his recent recording with Antonio Pappano (DG 479 5327).

The orchestra’s horn section turns in a spectacular account of the op. 86 Konzertstück, which still gets recorded far more frequently than it’s actually performed, given that its often stratospheric writing for the first horn is an endless series of clams just waiting to happen. Holliger and the soloists’ colleagues give them rousing support, though the closing bars lack the visceral excitement of Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony’s madcap dash to the end (Naxos 8.572770).

Collectors of this fine series will have snatched up both installments by now; others can proceed with minimal caution, as anything Kopatchinskaja does these days is mandatory listening.

The Schumann Violin Concerto, rejected in his lifetime by its dedicatee, Joseph Joachim, and suppressed after his death by his wife Clara and devoted friend Brahms, is somehow entering its shining hour. “Somehow” refers to the considerable obstacles inherent in the score, which are open today to the same criticism it originally received from Joachim, who considered it the inferior product of an unstable mind. The music can be faulted as uninspired in its melodies, repetitive, disorganized in development, and feebly or incompetently orchestrated. Not many works can resurface after such a blanket condemnation, but advocates for late Schumann argue that he has unique intentions in mind, even as that mind became erratic. The argument isn’t worth entering, however, when confronted by a beautiful, intimately personal reading of the kind delivered by Isabelle Faust (Harmonia Mundi), backed by period-style accompaniment that edges Schumann into a different sound world from what we’re used to (reviewed in Fanfare 39:2).

As a non-fan of the Violin Concerto, I can hardly credit that I am even more enthusiastic about this new release in Heinz Holliger’s ongoing Schumann orchestral cycle, of which this is Volume 4, with the extraordinary violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja as soloist. In its daring departures from convention their reading surpasses Faust’s in fascination. To begin with, Kopatchinskaja, who was born in the former Soviet republic of Moldavia in 1977, has assumed the mantle of the late Lydia Mordkovitch for fierceness of attack and courageous nonconformity. Her timbre here is almost never consistent within a phrase or even beautiful. The tone whistles, whines, and scrapes as often as it sings, all in service of an interpretation that takes not a single note for granted. I associate this kind of keenly felt violin playing with Leila Josefowicz and more recently the young Norwegian phenom Vilde Frang. But Kopatchinskaja is the only violinist who has the ferocity to frighten me—I found her extreme interpretation of the Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 and the Stravinsky Violin Concerto with Vladimir Jurowski from 2013 (Naïve) almost too unsettling to listen to. But it and her other releases, especially a disc of violin concertos by Eötvös, Bartók, and Ligeti on the same label, have been rapturously received, or at the very least caused heads to turn. The same is certainly true here.

The Schumann Piano Concerto exists at the opposite end of universal love and admiration, which makes things difficult for a relative unknown like Hungarian pianist Dénes Várjon—he won’t be unknown to those who have heard his recordings on Naxos, ECM, Hyperion, Capriccio, and other labels (I seem to be out of the loop on this one). A graduate of the Liszt Academy in Budapest, where he now teaches, Várjon has recorded Holliger’s music under the composer, so I assume a close musical affinity. Here they collaborate to produce a reading of the A-Minor Concerto that I’d describe as streamlined but intense. Tempos and phrasing are not out of the ordinary. The total timing is about the same as for Jan Lisiecki’s recent DG recording (reviewed in Fanfare 39:5), but where Lisiecki is poetic to the point of being subdued, Várjon puts his technique on extrovert display. Short of Martha Argerich’s charismatic, rocket-fueled interpretations, this is one of the more engaging readings of the solo part that I’ve heard, even if the finale loses oomph after a while.

Heinz Holliger has focused his Schumann cycle on making us hear the music without prejudice and absent the traditional Schumann Romantic sound. His starkness in the Violin Concerto succeeds remarkably well, although the orchestral part in the Piano Concerto feels a little abrupt and dry at times. At 77 he’s very much a force to be reckoned with. Holliger’s transition from superstar oboist to composer and conductor has worked on all counts, although here he doesn’t make the WDR Symphony sound better than workmanlike. That hardly matters, nor does the good but not exceptional recorded sound. It’s Kopatchinskaja’s highly original playing that wins the day.

Nach fast anderthalb Jahren setzt das Label audite seinen Schumann-Zyklus mit einer Doppelfolge fort. Aufgrund der Besetzung und der Werke fraglos ein Kraftakt für alle Beteiligten – doch mit einer anhaltenden Poesie verbunden, die einem Schumann, seine vielfach als problematisch eingeredete Instrumentation und sein Spätwerk näher als zuvor erscheinen lassen. War dies schon bei den Sinfonien und dem Cellokonzert zu erfahren, die Heinz Holliger ohne die seit über einem Jahrhundert gepflegten aufführungspraktischen Retuschen mühelos zu verblüffender Lebendigkeit erweckt hat, so stellen er und das WDR-Sinfonieorchester sich nun in den Dienst der übrigen konzertanten Werke.

Wie so oft erweist sich alles nur als eine Frage der Interpretation – von der Verständigkeit gegenüber dem Notentext über das aufmerksame Zusammenwirken bis hin zur passgenauen Artikulation und das rechte Tempo. In diesem Sinne gelingt es Holliger und seinen Solisten mit den Konzertstücken für Klavier op. 92 und op. 134 (Alexander Lonquich) sowie der Violin-Fantasie op. 131 tatsächlich zu überzeugen: Man hört einen Komponisten, dem das virtuose Element eigentümlich fremd und doch so nah war, dem am Ende aber der poetische Gedanke mehr zählte als jede leere Phrase. Hier begegnen sich über mehr als 150 Jahre hinweg die Komponisten Schumann und Holliger auf ästhetischer Ebene – der Dirigent Holliger aber weiß, wie auch der rechte Tonfall in einer klanglich agilen, in nahezu jedem Moment die Aufmerksamkeit bannenden Aufnahme festzuhalten ist. Umso mehr muss der stark aufgeraute, bisweilen kantige Zugriff von Patricia Kopatchinskaja im Violinkonzert verstören, der nicht gerade vor wohliger Wärme sprüht; das kühle Solo des langsamen Satzes lehrt einen gar das Frösteln. Daneben vermag Dénes Várjon im delikat angegangenen Klavierkonzert mit seinem eher vorsichtigen, keineswegs griffigen Forte nicht vollständig zu überzeugen.

Holliger und Kopatchinskaja machen im Violinkonzert auch Schumanns Zerrissenheit hörbar. Anschwellend, ausbrechend, versinkend entfaltet sich das erste Orchestertutti. In Kopatchinskajas erst dünnem, dann schnell und scharf akzentuiertem Geigenton liegen Wachheit, Reizbarkeit, bis jäh die Spannkraft erlahmt, die Sehnsucht nach Rückzug spürbar wird – und die Musik implodiert. Gespenstisch doppelgesichtig fallen Selbstbehauptung und seelische Ermüdung auseinander. Im Souveränitätsverlust treten Seiten des Menschlichen zutage, aus denen Kunst eine eigene Dringlichkeit gewinnt. Holliger hat das erkannt – und zugelassen.

Schumann’s Violin Concerto has one of the strangest histories of all great Romantic works. His last piece for orchestral forces, it was inspired by a meeting with the young Joseph Joachim in 1853. ‘May Beethoven’s example incite you, O wondrous guardian of the richest treasures,’ wrote the 22-year-old virtuoso, ‘to carve out a work from your deep quarry and bring something to light for us poor violinists.’

This coincided with a particularly stressful period in Schumann’s personal and professional life, not least the fallout from his deficiencies as a conductor with the Düsseldorf Musikverein. He was plagued by illness; but work on music for Joachim—two sonatas, the Phantasie, Op 131, and the Concerto—invigorated him and he remarked often on his ability to concentrate diligently on the music for his young new fiddler friend.
Joachim never performed the concerto, though. With Schumann’s decline and suicide attempt, the violinist considered the work to be ‘morbid’ and the product of a failing mind; he wrote that it betrayed ‘a certain exhaustion, which attempts to wring out the last resources of spiritual energy’. This attitude evidently rubbed off on Clara and Brahms, who omitted it from the complete edition of Schumann’s works. Joachim retained the manuscript and bequeathed it to the Prussian State Library in Berlin upon his death in 1907, stating in his will that it should be neither played nor published until 1956, 100 years after Schumann’s death.

It was in 1933, however, that it came to light. This is where the story turns very peculiar. The violinist sisters Jelly d’Arányi and Adila Fachiri held a séance in which the shade of Schumann asked that they recover and perform a lost piece of his; then Joachim’s ghost handily popped up to mention that they might look in the Prussian State Library. A copy of the score was sent to Yehudi Menuhin, who pronounced it the ‘missing link’ in the violin literature between Beethoven and Brahms, and announced he would give its premiere in October 1937. D’Arányi claimed precedence on account of Schumann’s imprimatur (albeit from the other side), and the German State invoked their copyright on the work and demanded a German soloist have the honour. Georg Kulenkampff was eventually entrusted with the world premiere; Menuhin introduced it in the US and d’Arányi in the UK.
It’s long been considered a problematic work, owing partly to Joachim’s opinion of it, partly to some supposedly heavy scoring and partly to the awkward gait of the polonaise finale, which can too easily become a graveyard for dogged soloists. Nevertheless, it’s something of a rite of passage for recording violinists, and two of the finest present it on new discs, as Patricia Kopatchinskaja goes head-to-head with Thomas Zehetmair. Kopatchinskaja (with the Cologne WDR SO under Heinz Holliger in Vol 4 of his series of Schumann’s ‘Complete Symphonic Works’) displays the full range of sounds she is able to draw from her instrument, spinning something almost hallucinatory in the slow movement. The tone employed by Zehetmair (directing the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris) is more focused, more centred, as would appear to be his outlook on the work: all three movements are 40 seconds to a minute faster than Kopatchinskaja. Nevertheless, her concentration and imagination sustain the performance, and Holliger and his players follow her lead in creating some wondrous sounds, demonstrating yet again that Schumann’s orchestration isn’t as leaden as it’s often made out to be.

On first hearing, I wasn’t sure if I’d wish to revisit Kopatchinskaja’s disc in a hurry. But there’s something magnetic about her vision of the work, about the abandon with which she plays, never shunning an ugly tone when it’s called for. Zehetmair’s tidier, more dapper performance avoids such ugliness and makes choosing between the two an invidious choice. Holliger couples an energetic performance of the Piano Concerto with Dénes Várjon, incorporating in the first movement some features of the earlier Phantasie on which it was based, and which some might prefer to the self-conciously individual recent readings by Ingrid Fliter (reviewed on page 40) or Stephen Hough (Hyperion, 4/16). Zehetmair offers a lithe, spontaneous Spring Symphony and the fiddle Phantasie that Joachim did play.

Pat Kop also offers this latter work, on Vol 5 of Holliger’s series. Again, she takes a more spacious, more reactive approach than Zehetmair; elsewhere on the disc, Alexander Lonquich is similarly more inclined to let the music breathe in Schumann’s two single-movement concertante piano works than, say, the tauter Jan Lisiecki (DG, 1/16). The real draw here, though, is the Konzertstück for four horns and orchestra, in a performance that makes a truly joyful noise, even if it’s perhaps less sleek than Barenboim in Chicago or less steampunk than John Eliot Gardiner with a quartet of period piston horns.

These days, you’re as likely to find—on disc, at least—the Cello Concerto co-opted by violinists. Jean-Guihen Queyras returns it to the bass clef, though, completing the series of the three concertos and piano trios with Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under Pablo Heras-Casado. Queyras gives the best possible case for the concerto, making a virtue of the relative short-windedness of period instruments but exploiting their greater ensemble clarity. Where the gut strings really tell, though, is in the First Piano Trio—especially at those points at which Schumann asks for new sounds, such as in the first-movement development, where he tells the string players to play at the bridge for an eerie, glassy sound. I’ve enjoyed all the discs in this series without necessarily preferring them to certain older (modern-instrument) favourites. The combination of Queyras’s concerto and the wonderful, driven D minor Trio, though, leads me to suspect that this is the most persuasive of the three.