Schumann's Piano Concerto

 

Martha Argerich plays the Schumann Piano Concerto in Amsterdam

Most of Robert Schumann's music puzzles me. Perhaps because he was insane; or maybe I'm crazy. Or perhaps it is because he composed his music to go straight to the heart and my head often gets in the way of this kind of listening. Whatever it is, I am often at a loss as to what the music is trying to say.

His Kinderszenen are easy enough to appreciate, but I've read few critics who have praised either his concerto for violin or the cello concerto. The Piano Concerto in a-minor, on the other hand, is one of the most frequently played and most lovely piano concerti in the concert repertoire. It is often called a woman's concerto, perhaps because the half-hour long work is not as strenuous to play as some of the other piano concerti in the repertoire. 

My first introduction to the piece came at William & Mary when the first movement was to be played by a student pianist, Steven Budd, who had won that year's concerto competition. At the time my music theory teacher was the conductor of the student orchestra which was to accompany him. I asked Prof. Williams if I could come to the rehearsals and see what happens there. Steven was very nice and told me a lot about the challenges of playing a piano concerto with an orchestra. I turned the pages for him at the rehearsals and learned the types of things a conductor says to the players - and the questions the instrumentalists have for the man wielding the baton. That was fascinating for me, and something I did later on again and again when I lived in Richmond and got to know George Manahan, the conductor there. 

Martha Argerich is one of the greatest pianists of the past 100 years. This performance with the conductor Riccardo Chailly is electrifying, as are most of the performances one might see and hear with her.

If you want an encore after listening to this, the piano concerto by Edvard Grieg, which is also coupled with this on a CD, is the first place to go. Listen to it and you'll know why!


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