# Schumann Gesänge der Frühe - favorite performances?



## staxomega (Oct 17, 2011)

I did a search and couldn't find a thread for this piece, IMO one of Schumann's very finest pieces and one that doesn't seem to be recorded all that often. 

So far Dina Ugorskaja has my favorite performance. Michel Block unfortunately only recorded part of it.


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

staxomega said:


> So far Dina Ugorskaja has my favorite performance.


Her father is not too bad either.

I think my top pick is Anderszewski. He is your man when it comes to pensive/contemplative stuff. Michael Endres and Éric Le Sage are probably up there as well.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

András Schiff /Jean-Efflam Bavouzet / Piotr Anderszewski made very fine recordings, I like their approche . 
Give them a try .


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Dina Ugorskaja
Martin Helmchen
Eric Le Sage


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

My own favs (or top 6 recordings, listed in no particular order),

--Edith Picht-Axenfeld:






--Jean Martin--who deserves credit for being the first pianist to commercially record this work back in 1972, when it had a reputation for being inferior Schumann & was more or less a curiosity item. I like how slowly & ruminatively he plays the opening:






--Michel Block--Block is an underrated Schumann pianist (& pianist in general), in my view. I would also rate his recordings of Schumann's Bunte Bl_ä_tter & Novelletten highly, too. Block was another early champion of this music back in 1977:






--Antonin Kubalek: Kubalek is yet another underrated pianist, IMO:






--Dina Ugorskaya--She likewise gets my vote for being the very best recent recording. I prefer her to Schiff, btw. For me, Ugorskaya manages to unify the work remarkably well, which is no small feat in Schumann, whose music tends to be episodic & mercurial (some would say disjointed), & particularly here. Though it's also possible that I've partly got a soft spot for musicians that die tragically young:






--Hélène Boschi: another great sleeper recording, but I don't think she unifies the overall work as well as Ugorskaja does. Plus, Boschi feels the need to change or rewrite the occasional note, so apparently she didn't entirely believe in Schumann's score, either:
Schumann - Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 133 - Hélène Boschi


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## staxomega (Oct 17, 2011)

Superb, thank you @Josquin13 , absolutely fantastic that Block has recorded the full thing. Do you know if there is an EMI CD for that? The incomplete one I was referencing was from his OM Recordings Schumann CD. Can't wait to hear the full thing as soon as time permits, just based off the first movement on the OMR CD Block has the perfect sensitivity for it, up there with his recording of Liszt's Poetiques et religieuses .

I listened to Anderszewski twice, it came off as disjointed.


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

staxomega writes,

"Superb, thank you @Josquin13 , absolutely fantastic that Block has recorded the full thing. Do you know if there is an EMI CD for that?"

Yes, I had thought that Block recorded the whole work, having recommended his recording before to others, & I almost told you that it was complete. But I hadn't listened to it in years, so I took you at your word & thought I must be misremembering the performance. Plus, I took a glance at Block's timings, & he brings the piece in at 2-3 minutes faster than the others on my list (Picht-Axenfeld excepted, I noticed later). So, I backed down & figured you were right, while conjecturing that Block had possibly left a small portion of it out being that it was still considered 'bad Schumann' back in the 1977. Afterall, none of the great Schumann pianists of the earlier generation had recorded the work, such Nat, who recorded the "complete works" but left out the 'late' works (& other things), Horowitz, Haskil, Moiseiwitsch, Arrau, Bashkirov, Richter, etc.. (I've since edited my previous post.)

The bad news is that no, unfortunately, to my knowlege Block's EMI LP recording has never been reissued on CD (though I'd love to hear otherwise). So, your best bet is probably to tape it off of Youtube, if there's a way to do that (there must be...?).


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## mossyembankment (Jul 28, 2020)

Agree re: Ugorskaya, that's my number one. I also like these:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

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