A Welcome Schumann Revival : A spate of new recordings range from the composer’s original symphonic intentions to Shostakovich’s bizarre version of the Cello Concerto.

Schumann’s four symphonies periodically enter and leave the field of vision of conductors with clout. At the moment, the symphonies are out, which makes welcome their revival on recordings--from which they have been equally absent of late--especially when we’re allowed to hear the notes of these much doctored and questionably improved scores pretty much as the composer himself set them down.

First out of the chute with the Urtext editions of all four is the period-instrument Hanover Band of London, conducted by Roy Goodman (RCA Victor 61931, two CDs).

There is some marvelous stuff here, including the first (1841) version of the Fourth Symphony cleanly, clearly executed. The original Fourth is a tighter, more risk-taking creation than the composer’s own, putatively corrected version of a decade later, which has been in the orchestral canon all these years.

The Hanoverians, hardly the most elegant of ensembles in previous recorded outings, do themselves proud here (and indeed throughout the set) with playing of admirable crispness and sufficient breadth under Goodman’s energetic direction.

Some of Schumann’s most daring orchestral writing and biggest tunes occur in the Second Symphony, and while we might want a bit more suggestiveness in the glorious slow movement, there is compensation in the clarity of delivery by Goodman’s relatively small forces.

The beauty of the present “Spring” Symphony is, again, in Goodman’s faithfulness to the composer’s wishes. When there are instances of thick orchestration, they are mitigated not by re-orchestrating but by thoughtful re-balancing of the existing forces.

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The “Manfred” Overture is one of Schumann’s most familiar orchestral works. But what is it an overture to? To a melodrama--a free mixture of spoken declamation (here there is singing too) against an instrumental background--in this instance, a German-language adaptation of Lord Byron’s dramatic poem of the same name, whose eponymous hero is the quintessential Romantic outsider.

The score is rarely heard beyond the overture, which is understandable, not because of any subsequent lack of quality but because of its awkward form. It’s a work that might have been born to be recorded but seldom has been. The two recent CD releases (esoterica come in pairs these days) deserve the adventurous listener’s attention.

The spoken title role is delivered with brooding grandeur by Klausjurgen Wussow for conductor Gerd Albrecht, who leads the Berlin Radio Symphony (Koch Schwann 10892), and with more extrovert intensity by Jorg Gudzuhn for conductor Michael Schonwandt, whose orchestra is the (formerly East) Berlin Symphony (Kontrapunkt 32181).

Both editions, which differ somewhat in the texts employed, amply convey the score’s alternations of dramatic thunder and evocative lyricism, with the composer’s imagination working on all cylinders in at least half a dozen numbers beside the overture.

The sung solo vocal portions are delivered by pleasing young voices in both, and the choruses--the most subtle the composer created--are in sensitive hands as well.

Why Kontrapunkt chose to play the overture as postlude as well is not explained. Whether or not this was Schumann’s idea--in context it makes no dramatic sense--this repetition is a function the listener could have accomplished at a touch of a button, permitting a lesser-known Schumann overture or two to be included.

And now for something completely weird: Dmitri Shostakovich’s orchestration--with piccolo and harp, yet--of the Schumann Cello Concerto, gone one, um, better in a new Deutsche Grammophon release (439 890). Gidon Kremer, the present soloist, has had the inspiration of grafting onto Shostakovich’s aberration a recently discovered arrangement for violin (supposedly by Schumann himself) of the cello solo. Read that again.

In what is the first, and probably last, recording of this foul hybrid, Kremer plays with ferocious intensity and a good deal of quavery tone. His accomplices are the Boston Symphony conducted by Seiji Ozawa.

The coupling finds the same forces performing Shostakovich’s neglected Second Violin Concerto. Some of its pained lyricism is captured here, but to experience the full force of this elusive music, apply to David Oistrakh, its dedicatee, and conductor Kiril Kondrashin (Russian Disc 11 025).*