“Homage to Bach” – SCHUMANN: Excerpts from Klavier Pieces for the Young, Op. 68; Four Pieces, Op. 32; Excerpts from Seven Klavier Studies in Fugal Form, Op. 126; Waldszenen, Op. 82; Kinderszenen, Op. 15 – Andreas Staier, piano – Harmonia mundi

by | Dec 5, 2008 | Classical CD Reviews | 0 comments

“Homage to Bach” = SCHUMANN: Excerpts from Klavier Pieces for the Young, Op. 68; Four Pieces, Op. 32; Excerpts from Seven Klavier Studies in Fugal Form, Op. 126; Waldszenen, Op. 82; Kinderszenen, Op. 15 – Andreas Staier, piano – Harmonia mundi HMC 901989, 72:35 ****:


Recorded at the Teldex Studio Berlin in August 2007 on a period, light-action 1837 Erard reconstructed instrument, the music of Robert Schumann by Andreas Staier represents a collaboration of taste and scholarship. The dominant impulse of this survey addresses the polyphonic style of Schumann, with its particular debts to J.S. Bach, whose signature 
B-A-C-H motto frequently inhabits the typically anagrammatical, color writing of the arch Romantic.  A disc clearly for initiates, these versions recommend themselves to the true “fancier” of Schumann.

The music traverses the period 1838-1853, which soon reveals a unity of artistic style in the fascination with counterpoint and the gradual erosion of a strict tempo, perhaps Schumann’s attempt to convey the parlando effect that “storytelling” in music should involve. Schumann’s fixation with slow tempos for contrapuntal studies, like his Fughettas, Op. 126 (1853)–an homage to Bach’s The Art of Fugue–eventually caused Staier to adopt a faster tempo than Schumann indicates, so as to enjoy a more lyric impulse as the pieces develop. The keyboard sound comes off as rather brittle to someone immersed in the modern concert grand–certainly in the Forest Scenes, where Kempff and Casadesus have ruled, as in the No. 8 Jagdlied–but the Op. 68 Album for the Young likewise communicates an aeriness, an innocence if you will, quite disarming and attractive, especially in the roulades of say, the Kleine Studie and its hints of Bach‘s famed C Major Prelude from WTC I. Erinnerung could pass for Mendelssohn in a heartbeat and, in fact, references that composer‘s death 4 November 1847. Staier makes a powerful case for the Bach influence on the formerly “naïve” Children’s Scenes, Op. 15 (1838), here presented in the original, relatively quick, metronome markings. The cumulative effect fuses Baroque sensibilities with the Romantic etude, all “fathered” by Bach, as transposed in the fantastic world of E.T.A. Hoffmann, a virtuosic mix for any age!

No less revelatory is Staier’s realization of the Four Pieces, Op. 32 (1838), which I formerly knew from Gilels and Demus.  The light action of the Erard maintains the impish and skittish character of the pieces, wherein the opening Scherzo quite frolics; then the Gigue proves more polyphonic than the concluding Fughetta, whose fantastic atmosphere easily would fit into the Kinderszenen. The Romanza palpitates and drives forward in the manner of one of Schubert’s horseback songs. The first of the Seven Piano Pieces in Fughetta Form could serve to open a concert of the later miniaturists, Schoenberg and Webern. Amazing Glenn Gould did not record these, for their often stark, pointillist, haunted sensibilities, as in No. 4, a dark, four-note variant on All We Like Sheep from Messiah. The Erard’s spatial, open sound captures in the Eintritt of the Forest Scenes (1849) their march-fairy-tale character, the militancy of which sallies forth in Der Jaeger auf der Lauer. Mock heroics for Freundliche Landschaft. Staier seems to deconstruct Einsame Blumen, the lonely flowers now lying in bleak field on a gray day. The Voice of the Prophet-Bird flits even more eerily–a French Overture variant–more timelessly, in the Erard sonority than is its wont via Steinway and Son. Abschied waxes with Eusebius’ proud, poetic spirit.

— Gary Lemco
 

Related Reviews
Logo Pure Pleasure
Logo Crystal Records Sidebar 300 ms
Logo Jazz Detective Deep Digs Animated 01