Thursday 23 July 2009

286. Robert Schumann - Kinderszenen (1838)




















Recording

Title: Piano Music
Performer: Alex Slobodyanik
Year: 1999
Length: 21 minutes

Review

Finally something from Schumann which I really enjoyed. A set of very short pieces (which I don't usually enjoy) about childhood. The way this works better for me has to do with the fact that Schumann simply gets a good hook in each piece and runs with it for a short time.

So this is a collection of pieces which never tires and many of them are understandably famous, the delicacy of Traumerei for example could never go unnoticed by anyone.

Maybe I am just starting to warm up to Schumann, maybe it is just a particularly good subject for him, but this was almost a revelation in the context of the list. Some really beautiful stuff.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Träumerei is one of Schumann's best known pieces. It was the title of a 1944 German biopic on Robert Schumann. Träumerei is the love song for Robert and Clara Schumann in the 1947 Hollywood film Song of Love, starring Katharine Hepburn as Clara Wieck Schumann.

Horowitz plays Traumerei... maybe a a bit too fast:

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