Credits:

Irina Mejoueva

Description:

This Schumann world is no longer "literary". Here comes a recording made during the Schumann year (2010) by Irina Medjieva, who continues to enjoy great success, winning the 2010 Recording Academy Award (Instrumental Music category) for her "Chopin: Nocturnes," which is truly a "poem. In addition to the famous masterpiece "Kreisleriana," this double disc set includes "Arabesque," "Children's Scenes," Piano Sonata No. 2, "Novelette" (two pieces), and the late masterpieces "Three Fantasias" and "Dawn Song. (Arabesque" and "Children's Scene" were re-recorded for the first time since the DENON release.) Schumann's music is generally said to be difficult to handle, but in Medjieva's hands, everything is expressed naturally and without excess or deficiency, which is a wonderful thing. The way in which she re-creates Schumann's complex and intricate elements of fantasy, longing, anguish, ecstasy, and madness, as they should be, is breathtaking. Each nuanced detail evokes a vivid scene, and the whole piece is unparalleled in its sense of a larger story.Medjieva uses a variety of narrative styles to create a fairy tale, much like Schumann's beloved German Romantic writers. Schumann's world is no longer 'literary. It is poetry. (Yu Kunishige, from the liner notes) Wakabayashi Kobo