The melancholy side of Schumann provides the thematic unity for this recital from 15-17 November 2004, featuring violinist Dora Schwarzberg, a veteran performer trained by Yuri Yankelevitch of the Moscow Concervatory. The Fantasy Pieces, originally for clarinet and piano, have been transcribed for Schwarzberg’s intensely vivacious style of performance. While I cannot state that the SACD 5.0 medium provides any more sonic detail than standard digital processing, the ambiance of the studio is singularly quiet, and Schwarzberg plays with superheated fury when she’s of a mind. In the accompanying booklet, she mentions Heifetz and Stern as influences, although neither master ever recorded any Schumann violin works. The choice of rapid tempos and ferocious pulsation in these realizations brings much of Beethoven’s spirit into our consciousness in both content and cyclic structure operative throughout these pieces.
The Fantasy Pieces push the emotional envelope, with their moody, often hysterical outbursts, their obsessive riffs. Huge octave leaps abound, and Schwarzberg and Leschenko seem to relish the combination of swift tempos and digital legerdemain. The convulsive energy in the D Minor Sonata quite appeals to the fiery nature of these artists, who might well be playing Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. The first movement of the work is huge, a microcosm of all of the composer’s mercurial, manic moods. The mellow piano sound in the D Minor Sonata makes an excellent contrast to Schwarzberg’s whiplash snake of a violin tone, rasping and penetrating at once. The Leise, einfach movement three allows us a much-appreciated moment of repose, and a true lullaby emerges. The last movement brings us back to the emotional hothouse, where colors and febrile emotions mix in Schumann’s fierce crucible. Uncompromising playing from two well-paired artists, each of whom embraces, often in sizzling sonics, the Schumann sensibility without qualification.
— Gary Lemco
