The third volume of Schumann piano works performed by
Michael Endres promises the highest joy of listening:
“Michael Endres accepts the music’s intimate demeanor
and modest technical demands at face value.” – Jed
Distler (ClassicsToday)
Michael Endres piano
Robert Schumann
Klavierwerke Vol. 3
Robert Schumann composed his Kreisleriana
Op. 16 in 1838. These eight fantasies, composed
in just eight days, were named after
the fantastic figure of Kreisler, the Kapellmeister
in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novel Lebensansichten
des Katers Murr (“Kater Murr,
the Educated Cat”). Like its literary model,
the work is redolent with profound, sombre
feeling, and at the same time documents
the wonderful melodic inventiveness of the
young Schumann, who was 28 years old at
the time the work was composed.
The character of each of the eight fantasies
varies widely: the passionate first piece,
interrupted by a delicate, fragile middle
section, is followed by a song-like, elaborate
second piece, which with its two intermediate
sections is the longest fantasy.
Number three begins in manic, energetic
fashion, contrasting with a lush middle section
and ending in a resounding catastrophe.
Numbers 4 and 6 are the centres of tranquillity
in the cycle; only occasionally do dark
clouds loom. The 5th piece is the eeriest,
the most unreal, with (in the first version
played here) a transition into the 6th fantasy.
The mood of the cycle moves from feverishly
restless to hysterically agitated throughout
the 7th piece, which leads directly into
no. 8, containing an unusual performer’s
instruction, “The bass light and free”. This
results in the left and right hands working
almost independently of each other with
disturbing effect. The Kreisleriana ends in
an eerie pianissimo, almost a dark presentiment
of the deeply moving “Geistervariationen”
of 1854. During the composition
of these variations, Schumann threw himself
into the Rhine (on 27th February), then
continued work after surviving his suicide
attempt.
By this time, Schumann had been suffering
from depression for many years, which
is doubtless responsible for the almost helpless,
calm despair of this work which, no
longer occupied with dramatic effect, frees
itself from accustomed tonal structures
(Schumann claimed that the theme had
been “dictated by angels”). The last of the
5 variations, in which a continual, no longer
controllable dissonance emerges, signified
the tragic end of Schumann’s creative work,
as he was to spend the two remaining years
until his death in the asylum in Endenich,
unable to compose.
The Faschingsschwank Op. 26, composed
in 1839, shows a completely different, lighthearted
side of Schumann. However, the
title “Faschingsschwank aus Wien” also
reveals that the work is about a masquerade,
i.e. that the bold cheerfulness is possibly
only a facade concealing a quite different
reality. Movements 1, 3 and 5 positively
bubble with optimism and youthful energy,
but despite its brilliance, the piano scoring
remains strangely compact, i.e. the extreme
registers are used only rarely and in a broken
manner, which means that the timbre is
rather dark. The restless last movement also
has more of bustling hurry than pianistic,
instrumental brilliance.
The Romanze is a brooding, intimate and
almost brittle piece, while the Intermezzo
sinks into the deeper registers after a
period of passionate turbulence. The imagery
of the title cannot cover up the fact that the
long periods of sustained lightheartedness
in combination with extremely homophonic
piano scoring make this work exceptional
among Schumann’s compositions, even
though it is a fascinating facet of his large
and original piano repertoire.
Michael Endres