Schumann: Symphony No. 4 in D Minor, Op. 120; Overture, Scherzo and Finale - Kurt Masur, Gewandhaus Orchestra

ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856 SYMPHONY No. 4 liner notes

This is actually the second symphony Schumann wrote. It was completed in 1841, not long after the "Spring" Symphony, but withdrawn after the first performance and revised ten years later and subsequently published in 1853 as No. 4. Schumann's original title of Symphonic Fantasy and his later direction to play the work without breaks between movements both suggest a unique conception of the traditional architecture of the symphony: an approach towards a one-movement work of symphonic proportions. Beethoven had already anticipated the fusion of symphonic movements in his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. Indeed, the striving for internal and external unity in large-scale compositions was no novelty when Schumann began his D Minor Symphony, but the degree to which he here achieved such inner connectedness among many diverse parts, and without the aid of a supplementary program, raises this work from the level of experiment to that of convincing success.