I was able to over-ride any embargo on Wagner in order to get better acquainted with Schumann on account of there only being 11 minutes of his music and, to be fair, it wasn't too much of the customary unruly din and nobody suffered too much.
The Schumann Cello Concerto is a great pleasure with its singing lines over a mosaic of orchestration in which different parts of the orchestra provided the interplay with the soloist and the themes. The middle section of the unbroken three movements was more intricate and intimate, contrasting the more agile fingerwork with the flowing melodies before more flourishes led towards a standard post-Beethoven climax and a smoothly satisfying piece that enhances Schumann's position in that overcrowded middle division of much admired if not often enough played composers. I can soon rectify that.
I would have used the phrase 'cantabile' for the concerto had Steven's encore not been Tchaikovsky's gorgeous Andante Cantabile, ostensibly variations of the Volga Boat Song, I like to think, with its hymn-like theme and a rich tone from the cello, that annexed the 'cantabile' for itself. It was hard to separate out enjoyment of the piece from luxuriating in the instument so it's lucky that one doesn't have to and the coming together of various such features is surely what music is.
There is a similar lightness of touch to much of the Rhenish Symphony, no.3 and one quickly realizes one shouldn't be finding a place for Schumann somewhere between Brahms and Mendelssohn but allow him to be Schumann and be glad of him. Profound, broader passages emerge later in the five movements before the stirring brass finale and it is all a gentle enough lyrical excursion to revisit. I had memories of having heard the piece and thinking of a river, having taken no short cut through the title but if a lot of music could evoke rivers, not all of it makes me note the word 'flow' quite so readily to describe it.
So maybe Schumann's symphonies edge ahead of Brahms' in my ongoing project of box set collecting every time a specially selected horse does the business round Newbury or Newton Abbot.
And, what a wonderful added bonus to get my programme signed. That charming man.
