SCHUMANN, ROBERT

Op haar derde album voor Challenge Classics koos Einav Yarden (Tel Aviv, 1978) voor een programma met drie werken (Drei Fantasiestücke, Fantasie in C en Waldszenen) van Robert Schumann (1810-1856) uit de periode tussen 1836 en 1851. Met haar wat koele, doorgaans kloeke aanslag laat zij op het eerste gehoor de muziek het werk doen. Niettemin legt ze op veel plekken haar eigen frasering aan de dag, zonder die er nu al te dik bovenop te leggen. In alle grillige passages, als gevolg van Schumanns grote stemmingswisselingen en depressies, weet ze met haar beheerste spel de lange lijnen in de muziek goed te bewaken, terwijl ze in de verstilde en de meer lichtvoetige momenten overal mooi de tijd neemt.

Schumann: Scenes and Fantasies

Einav Yarden

For her third release on Challenge Classics, pianist Einav Yarden has chosen works by Robert Schumann. Two popular masterpieces, the Fantasie and the Waldszenen, are coupled with late and little known Fantasiestücke op.111.
The three works on this CD span a period of fifteen years, years in which the young Schumann suffered forcible separation from his beloved Clara, followed by their marriage and a brief period of relative calm, to the increasing bouts of mental instability which were to close him off from the world around him until his death.
The piano Fantasiestücke op. 111 was composed in 1851 during a time of deteriorating mental health and increasing disillusionment with his post as Music Director of the Düsseldorf Music Society. In contrast to the youthfully extrovert Fantasiestücke op. 12 of 1837, these three untitled pieces are "of a serious and passionate character", as Clara described them, their bold harmonies intensifying their expressivity.
The Fantasie in C major op. 17 is one of Schumann's most powerful large-scale piano works, composed during the bitter period of his enforced separation from Clara.
Schumann completed his cycle of nine forest piano miniatures, Waldszenen, in 1849, while struggling with increasing bouts of mental instability and depression. Each piece is headed by a descriptive title. These masterly tone paintings display Schumann's genius in creating miniature images consummate in expression, characterisation and mood.
Praise for Oscillations (CC72599)
"She pairs Beethoven with Stravinsky to striking effect, merging that unlikely couple with imagination and exceptionally vivid playing." - The Washington Post "Yarden plays a wonderfully exuberant, vibrant Haydn, glowing, transparent, adventurous, at times intimately chamber-music-like, at times grand and orchestral. A voice for Haydn!" - Fono Forum (DE)