Robert Schumann: Szenen aus Goethes Faust (2CDs, Br-Klassik)

Neither opera nor oratorio, cantata or choral symphony, the Faust scenes by Robert Schumann can hardly be inserted into a common scheme. Not least because of a re-evaluation of the Faust scenes in the professional world as one of Schumann’s main works, BR-KLASSIK’s recording takes into account the increased interest in a composition that its creator himself considered to be one of his best works. At the podium of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra: the outstanding English conductor Daniel Harding. With the Faust scenes, he presents a large-scale masterpiece that musically traces the complex and highly philosophical literary model of Goethe in a loose sequence of scenes. Again and again, especially in the last decade of his life, Schumann occupied himself with the possibilities that lie in vocal-symphonic and music-dramatic composition. In addition to Genoveva, Manfred and Requiem for Mignon, it is the Faust scenes in which he treads new musical paths beyond opera, oratorio and cantata. The development process, which Schumann had only completed shortly before his health collapse in 1853, lasted more than a decade. What Schumann created spans with lyrical and dramatic sentences the arc from Gretchen to Faust’s death to the transformation and redemption mysticism of the concluding chorus mysticus. The role of Faust is performed by the extraordinary baritone Christian Gerhaher, with Christiane Karg as Gretchen at his side, as well as other internationally renowned soloists, the chamber choir of the Augsburger Domsingknaben and the Bavarian Radio Choir.