Volume 27 Issue 1 - September / October 2021

The Schumann Project: Robert –
Symphonic Etudes; Clara – Sonata in G
Minor
Inna Faliks
MSR Classics MS 1763 (msrcd.com)
Reimagine: Beethoven & Ravel
Inna Faliks
Navona Records nv6352
(navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6352)
! The name Inna
Faliks may not seem
familiar to music
lovers today, but
the credentials of
this Ukrainianborn
American
pianist are impressive
indeed.
Currently head
of the piano department at UCLA, Faliks
has made a name for herself both as a
performer and pedagogue, and has appeared
in concert throughout the world including
a tour of China in 2016.The recording, titled
The Schuman Project, is the first in a series
designed to juxtapose the music of Robert
Schumann with that of his wife Clara, who
for too long has had the unfortunate reputation
as “a pianist who also composed.”
The 19th century wasn’t kind to women
composers (or any women involved in the
creative arts) and Clara was no exception.
Her Piano Sonata in G Minor, which opens
the disc, was an early work dating from 1841
when she was all of 22. It was composed
specifically for Robert and despite her youth,
there is much to admire here including solid
construction and fine thematic development
among the four movements. Faliks
approaches the unfamiliar score with a clear
understanding of the music, delivering a
compelling and heartfelt performance.
Schumann’s renowned Symphonic Etudes
were begun in 1834 and have long been
regarded as one of the most challenging of his
large-scale piano works. Faliks easily proves
her grasp of the material, rising to all the
technical demands. But she is no mere technician
– at all times her phrasing is carefully
articulated and, beginning with the
mysterious opening theme, her performance
is a captivating musical journey right through
to the jubilant finale.
Faliks turns her
attention to very
different material in
the disc Reimagine:
Beethoven and
Ravel. Here she
focuses on putting
a new “spin” on
standard repertoire,
in this case,
the Beethoven set of Bagatelles Op.126 and
Ravel’s suite Gaspard de la Nuit. These
were used as a basis for new compositions
by modern composers such as Peter
Golub, Tamir Hendelman and Richard
Danielpour. Just as the Beethoven set is a
study in contrasts, so are the reinterpretations.
For example, the mood of the Bagatelle
by Golub based on the first in the Beethoven
set is pensive and contemplative, closely
following that of the original, while Ian
Krouse’s Etude 2a based on the second is a
true perpetuum mobile. For whatever reason,
Faliks didn’t include any original movements
from the Ravel suite, but pieces such as
Variations on a Spell by Paola Prestini are an
evocative reimagining of Ondine.
These are fine recordings demonstrating
two sides of a gifted artist – and recorded
during a pandemic no less. We can hope to
hear more from Inna Faliks in the future.
Richard Haskell
Brahms – Symphony No.3; Serenade No.2
Budapest Festival Orchestra; Ivan Fischer
Channel Classics CCS SA 43821
(channelclassics.com/catalogue/43821)
! “There is no
more magnificent
opening of a
symphony than
the first 38 bars of
Brahms Third” says
Ivan Fischer, and
obviously he is very
partial to the work.
Fischer is known to pursue unjustly neglected
works and restore them to mainstream repertoire.
Brahms Third Symphony is certainly
the dark horse, the least performed of his
four. Granted, it is different from the others:
it’s the shortest, terse, vivid, passionate and
intensely alive. It begins with a great heroic
theme in an optimistic F Major fortissimo
that dominates the work, but it’s also capable
of becoming soft and tender as at the end of
the first movement and the very end of the
symphony.
The nickname heroic fits only the outer
movements. The second is quiet and peaceful
and simply glows with one beautiful melody
after another. It comes to a gorgeous climax
and then a hushed magical moment of
dialogue between various woodwinds and the
lower strings echoing one another. The third
movement should be a scherzo, but it isn’t.
It has a “beautiful, caressing theme, loving
and slightly melancholic, but all in a mildly
rocking rhythm” (Clemens Romijn). It is in
3/4 time and so catchy that it became a pop
song. The last movement is intense, dramatic
like a battle, heroic, but the main theme
returns in a quiet, peaceful manner that ends
the symphony gently.
Brahms wrote the two Serenades before
he composed symphonies and I first heard
them by the late, great Brahmsian István
Kertséz and fell in love with them instantly.
The graceful Serenade No.2 provides a nice
contrast to the heroic Third Symphony,
performed here in a thoroughly delightful
manner by the wonderful musicians of the
Budapest Festival Orchestra, the pride of
Hungary and one of the top ten of the world.
Janos Gardonyi
Johannes Brahms – Piano Concertos
Andras Schiff; Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment
ECM New Series 2690/91
(ecmrecords.com/shop)
! Perhaps like
many classical
music listeners and
lovers, I mainly
(and perhaps limitingly)
associate the
Hungarian-born
pianist Sir András
Schiff with J.S.
Bach, whose music Schiff plays beautifully,
frequently and with an insight and mastery
that few have equalled. Accordingly, it was
a pleasure for me to dig into Schiff’s recent
double-disc recording of the reimagined
piano concertos of Johannes Brahms, accompanied
capably by the Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment.
Captured following a string of highly
acclaimed European concerts in the spring
of 2019, the resulting recording is magical.
Doing double duty as pianist and conductor,
Schiff leads this unique United Kingdombased
period-piece orchestra through some
of the most musical and challenging pieces
in the Western art music canon (Concerto for
Piano and Orchestra No.1 in D Minor, Op.15
and No.2 in B-flat Major, Op.83), mining
the depths of Romantic-era dynamics and
expressivity for which Brahms is revered.
Further, the recording, captured at London’s
Abbey Road studios, contains all of the fidelity
hallmarks for which ECM Recordings has
earned its blue-chip reputation over the
last near half-century, exhibiting the telltale
expansive sonic thumbprint of executive
producer Manfred Eicher, who helps realize
here a recording that captures Schiff, and the
1859 Blüthner piano on which he performs,
beautifully.
Andrew Scott
38 | September and October 2021 thewholenote.com