CD: Schumann: Sonata in F sharp minor; Humoreske Op 20, Angela Hewitt

(Hyperion)

Angela Hewitt can be a surprising pianist. What sometimes seems to be her almost mannerist approach to baroque or early classical works is replaced in the 19th- and early 20th-century repertoire by something much more impulsive and flamboyant. Her technical control remains as poised as ever, but Hewitt pushes much harder at the margins of the expressive world that directs it. Even so, the five pieces that make up the Op 20 Humoreske can be much more boldly outlined than Hewitt allows, and the contrasts between the work's extroversion and introspection are not always as sharp as they might be. In the often problematic F sharp minor Sonata, however, Hewitt is unreservedly superb, making the music cohere formally without ever undervaluing its flights of lyrical fantasy. For her the slow movement is the emotional heart of the whole sonata, but she is equally impressive in the rangy finale too, boldly characterising its component parts yet always conveying the sense of an organic whole.

Eric Le Sage has similar challenges of coherence to overcome in the F minor Sonata. He plays the first version of the sonata, which Schumann wrote in 1836 as a five-movement work with two scherzos, and which was trimmed for publication to three movements with a totally new finale. Its centrepiece is a set of variations on an andantino by Clara Wieck (later Schumann's wife). Le Sage's performance of this rarely played sequence certainly intrigues, and he also includes the Op 5 set of impromptus on another theme by Clara that Schumann had composed three years earlier. Rarity value makes both worth hearing, but his account of the far better-known C major Fantasy (also full of Clara references) is less impressive, and hardly stands up against the finest performances to be found elsewhere on disc.

There's another early rarity on Claire Désert's Schumann recital, for she follows the apotheosis of his Florestan/Eusebius duality, the 18 pieces of the Davidsbündlertänze, with the Op 4 Intermezzi from 1832. Often flamboyantly virtuosic, the Intermezzi are recognisably part of the same musical world that had already produced Papillons and would soon generate Schumann's first masterpiece, Carnaval. Désert's boldly attractive account makes it strange that they are not heard in recital more often, while her performance of the much larger-scale Davidsbündlertänze suggests an excitingly instinctive Schumann interpreter, even when some of the details are fractionally misjudged.

Contributor

Andrew Clements

The GuardianTramp

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