Robert Schumann, 2022

This Week in Classical Music: June 6, 2022.  Schumann, Strauss, Albinoni. This is the sequence in a descending order of talent quality (or at least the way we perceive it): Schumann, one of the great geniuses of the 19^th century music, Strauss, who in a self-deprecating manner said: "I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer" (we disagree: we think he’s absolutely first rate – and the more we listen to his music, the more we think so); and Albinoni, popular for his tuneful, rather repetitive pieces of limited imagination.  Schumann was born in Zwickau on June 8^th of 1810, Richard Strauss – on June 11^th of 1864 in Munich, and Tomaso Albinoni – on June 8^th of 1671 in Venice.  Here’s Artur Rubinsten playing Schumann’s Carnaval op.9.