The National Arts Center Orchestra continues its Schumann-Brahms adventure with a third volume, Atmosphere and mastery, more uneven than the previous one.
Let us recall the concept. Brahms and Schumann (Robert) each composed four symphonies. The Ottawa phalanx has given itself the mission of recording a joint integral of it in four albums also highlighting the works of Clara Schumann, wife of Robert and friend of Brahms.
If the first two volumes (two discs each) featured respectively the Piano Concerto and an assortment of lieder by the composer, the most recent has set its sights on the Trio for piano, violin and cello in G minor (played by the pianist Stewart Goodyear and the orchestra’s principal violin and cello), three songs (with soprano Adrianne Pieczonka and pianist Liz Upchurch), three of the Four Fugitive Pieces (also by Goodyear) and the Piano Sonata in G minor (by Gabriela Montero).
If the works of Clara Schumann amply deserve to be recorded (and they have already been recorded several times each), there nevertheless emerges here a certain impression of heterogeneity, even a desire to “fill in” a timing. And why not choose a single pianist for the solo piano pieces?
In both symphonies, conductor Alexander Shelley adopts generally sedate tempos, to the benefit of orchestral and polyphonic clarity, but at the expense of some momentum, as evidenced by the Symphony’s “lively” first movement. no3 by Schumann, whose first theme is more segmented than carried away.
Same thing in Brahms’ homonymous movement where, like too many conductors, Shelley downplays the “con brio” indication (with ardor) to make it more opulent “grand legato”.
This restraint is advantageous in the slow movements, however, except perhaps in Schumann’s fourth, which is a bit too willful to be truly “solemn”.
The works of Clara Schumann, if they suffer from a comparison with the equivalent scores of her husband, are all worth listening to, revealing a singular personality (magnificent Adagio from the Piano Sonata!).