# Schumann and his Symphonic Etudes



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

They really are a thing of divine beauty. How one man can write such beguiling music is beyond comprehension.


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

My favorite piece in All of Music. Though it's a completely different piece depending on whether you play the posthumous five extra variations discovered by Brahms or not (before we go into whither you insert them). Gilels said the adding the five posthumous etudes would compromise the dramatic unity of the cycle, and listening to the incomparable intensity he achieves with just the original ones, I suppose I know what he means. Whether one agrees with him or not, it works for him, and how...






But I love the five posthumous variations too much to make do without them...


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

I know and like them but I can't say I'm a huge fan. I'm not sure why this is: it seems like the kind of work I'd usually just flat out love. The posthumous variations are among my favourites...

OTOH, I really, really like Kreisleriana, and the Fantasy in C is one of my favourite works of the Romantic era. I've heard the latter live three times this year! It's just pure _genius_.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Cortot recorded this music in the 1950s, probably when he was past his prime technically, but there is still the _madness _there, you can hear it in the occasional disquieting rumble and drum beat in the bass. And in the 1950s performance you have sound good enough to actually hear what the timbres he made were like.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

One of the very few pieces that I can remember hearing for the first time. I was just amazed. How had I missed it for so long? It was an old Richter recording. Wonderful.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

There's a recording of them by Arrau from a concert in Prague which captures him at his best






Another one I liked was by Pollini from a concert in 1976, I don't know if it's on YouTube, it was released I think, I have it if anyone wants it.


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

Quite tricky to play for Schumann as well.


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## Pjotr (May 2, 2018)

I'm just now discovering those Schumann Etudes after reading this forum and...where have those been all my life. Truly amazing.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

The first "proper" Schumann piano work I really got into. For some reason, they "make sense" very quickly, even if the Posthumous Etudes are interwoven. I always have liked Papillons, the first Schumann piano work I ever heard, but I don't think these can be seen as a major Schumann piece!

Arrau's my go-to Schumann pianist.


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