Schumann!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Das Paradies und die Peri. The missing historical link between the Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Brahms's German Requiem. And the most underrated choral work of the nineteenth century.)

I usually don't like acknowledging composers anniversaries but this time I'll make an exception. Swiss musician extaordinaire Heinz Holliger has a truly fantastic INTERVIEW in Die Zeit (translated by Sign and Sight) in which he extols the very real and overlooked virtues of Schumann. It may seem bizarre to say this, but to this day Schumann is one of the most underrated composers who ever lived - for reasons explained in the article, and to my mind the very greatest composer in what very well may be the greatest generation of composers (Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt, Verdi, Wagner).

Schumann is one of the few composers' music I never get tired of listening to or studying (Beethoven, Mozart, Mahler, Janacek, Shostakovich, Schnittke, maybe Britten and Monteverdi...and that's about it...how's that for too many lists in one post?) - endlessly unpredictable, strange, and human. It runs the entire gamut of human emotion from beautiful sublimity to the lowest brow dirty jokes and is totally fearless about exposing vulnerable places of the self where other great artists wouldn't dare touch - I like to think that that was eventually what sent him over the edge into the asylum, and that Brahms learned from his example...

So here's to you Bob, in this, the month of your big 2-0-0. Those of us who've loved you will always keep listening, and hopefully those who haven't will wake up this year to hear what they're missing.


(How many composers would ever think to write a concerto for Four Horns?)