Papillons; Humoreske; Davidsbündlertänze etc
Llŷr Williams (piano)
Signum Classics SIGCD756 152:17 mins (2 discs)
Llŷr Williams’s Schumann programme offers three of the composer’s large-scale masterpieces – the Fantasy, Op.17, the Humoreske and the Davidsbündlertänze – together with the three more modest cycles of Papillons, Faschingsschwank aus Wien and the Nachtstücke, Op. 23.
The Nachtstücke (like so many of Schumann’s piano works, they borrow their title from the writings of ETA Hoffmann) are among Schumann’s less familiar works, though they were notably championed in the past by Emil Gilels. The last two of their four pieces are particularly fine: an impassioned Allegro whose melody characteristically unfolds amid a swirl of arpeggios, and an intimate slow envoi with gently spread right-hand chords. Mahler seems to have remembered the yearning miniature introduction to the latter piece in the second of the Nachtmusik movements in his Seventh Symphony, which quotes it almost exactly.
Williams is a pianist with a formidable technique (how does he manage to play the spiralling right-hand octaves in the third piece of the Humoreske at such speed?), but – more importantly – he has a good deal to say about the music, too. He’s particularly successful in the constantly changing moods of Papillons and the Davidsbündlertänze, and brings out the poetry of the Op.17 Fantasy’s valedictory finale very well.
On the other hand, the Fantasy’s march-like middle movement is a bit lacking in energy until its quicker coda, with those notoriously dangerous leaps for the two hands in opposite directions. Also, the initial melody of the Humoreske – one of the most beautiful of all Schumann’s beginnings – fails to float as it should, largely because Williams’s tempo is too slow. But these are small minus points in what is an enjoyable and well-recorded album.
