Imogen Cooper - Schumann & Brahms: Piano Works (2013) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

This is Imogen Cooper’s first release on Chandos Records. Recognised worldwide as a pianist of virtuosity and poetic poise, she has established a reputation as one of the finest interpreters of the classical and romantic repertoire. She has dazzled audiences and orchestras throughout her distinguished career, bringing to the concert platform a unique musical understanding and lyrical quality.

‘Duality, intermingling and juxtaposing identities, the dream world, the subconscious, wild humour, the supernatural, disguise, the outsider’. These are all words used by Imogen Cooper to describe the inner world of Robert Schumann. On this recording, she offers her interpretations of two works by this deeply inspired composer: Fantasiestücke and Kreisleriana. Both display in full Schumann’s extraordinary ability to express the gamut of human emotions in a highly imaginative language that draws the best from both piano and performer.

Schumann dedicated his Fantasiestücke to a young Scottish pianist by the name of Roberta Laidlaw, with whom he had a close, if brief, relationship during his eighteen-month-long separation from Clara Wieck, whom he was patiently courting. In one of the most important early studies of Schumann’s music, published in the journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Franz Brendel compared this work to ‘a landscape painting in which the foreground gains prominence in sharply delineated, clear contours while the background becomes blurred and vanishes in a limitless perspective’.

Kreisleriana was inspired by a complex character created by the writer E.T.A Hoffmann: Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler. In reflecting the complex personality of Kreisler, Schumann’s Kreisleriana seems to take on the very same alternating characteristics that are ascribed to this character. At times the music comes across as wild, eccentric, and clever, at others it displays a mood that is truly tender, lyrical, and romantic.

The last work on this album is the solo piano arrangement which Johannes Brahms made of the Theme and Variations movement from his String Sextet, Op. 18, and dedicated to Clara Schumann. She received the manuscript of this arrangement on her forty-first birthday, 13 September 1860. She was delighted to be able to play the variations herself, as she wrote in a letter to Brahms three days later. Nonetheless, the first public performance did not take place until a concert in Frankfurt on 31 October 1865.

(she) finds her way to the very heart of the composer in the delectably pointed romantic polyphony in the central section of In der Nact . Cooper is finely recorded. –Gramphone, march'13

…the result is a disc which deserves to form a part of any self-respecting collector's library…in every respect this is quite outstanding release. IRR OUTSTANDING –IRR, Mar'13

Imogen Cooper sets out on her survey of Schumann's complete piano music for Chandos with two of his greatest cycles. Alongside Carnaval and the Davidsbündlertänze, the eight pieces of the Fantasiestücke Op 12 and the eight of Kreisleriana Op 16 perhaps define Schumann's special qualities as a composer for the piano better than any other of his works, and in both of them the competition on disc is fierce. Cooper, though, proves a wonderfully tactful and sympathetic guide to the boundless imagination of the piano writing. Other pianists may make this music sound more virtuosic or more winsome, but she projects the emotional turbulence of the fifth of the Fantasiestücke without making it overwrought, delivers a wonderfully polished account of the seventh without it descending into slick display, and steers a perfectly poised course through the even more sharply contrasting numbers of Kreisleriana. Between the two cycles there's an intriguing oddity Brahms's own piano arrangement of the second movement of his Op 18 String Sextet, whose emotional restraint is a great foil for the unbridled fantasy on either side of it.**** –Guardian,21/03/13

An enthralling tour of Schumann's genius, heart + mind. Performance + Recording ***** BBC MUSIC INSTRUMENTAL CHOICE –BBC Music Magazine, Apr'13

TRACKLIST

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Fantasiestucke, Op. 12 (1837) 29:13
(Fantasy Pieces)
Miß Anna Robena Laidlaw zugeeignet
01. Des Abends (Evening). Sehr innig zu spielen 3:37
02. Aufschwung (Soaring). Sehr rasch 3:24
03. Warum? (Why?). Langsam und zart 2:44
04. Grillen (Whims). Mit Humor 3:45
05. In der Nacht (In the Night). Mit Leidenschaft - Etwas langsamer - 4:29
Tempo I
06. Fabel (Fable). Langsam - Schnell - Langasm - Schnell - 2:46
Tempo I [Schnell] - Langsam
07. Traumes Wirren (Restless Dreams). Äußerst lebhaft 2:47
08. Ende vom Lied (The End of the Story). 5:33
Mit guten Humor - Etwas lebhafter - Tempo I

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

09. Theme and Variations (1859) 10:29
in D minor - in d-Moll - en ré mineur
from String Sextet No. 1, Op. 18 (1859-60)
in B flat major - in B-Dur - en si bémol majeur
Arranged by the composer for solo piano
Für Clara Schumann gesetzt: Zum 13. September 1860 als freundlichen Gruß
Andante, ma moderato

Robert Schumann

Kreisleriana, Op. 16 (1838) 35:43
Fantasien
(Fantasies)
Seinem Freunde Herrn F. Chopin zugeeignet
10. 1 Äußerst bewegt 2:53
11. 2 Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch - Adagio - Intermezzo I. 10:19
Sehr lebhaft - Erstes Tempo - Adagio - Intermezzo II. Etwas bewegter - Langsamer (erstes Tempo) - Adagio - Erstes Tempo
12. 3 Sehr aufgeregt - Etwas langsamer - Erstes Tempo - 5:19
Noch schneller
13. 4 Sehr langsam - Bewegter - Erstes Tempo - Adagio 3:50
14. 5 Sehr lebhaft 3:02
15. 6 Sehr langsam - Etwas bewegter - Erstes Tempo 4:38
16. 7 Sehr rasch - Noch schneller - Etwas langsamer 2:22
17. 8 Schnell und spielend 3:16