Clara Schumann reviews
Album für die frau
Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Joseph Middleton (piano) (BIS)
Charmes (Olena Tokar/Igor Gryshyn)
Olena Tokar (soprano), Igor Gryshyn (piano) (Orchid Classics)
Klengel • R Schumann: Cello Concertos
Raphaela Gromes (cello), et al; Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Carter (Sony Classical)
Pioneers (Hiroko Ishimoto)
Hiroko Ishimoto (piano) (Grand Piano)
The Leipzig Circle, Vol. 2
London Bridge Trio (SOMM)
Darlings of the Muses
Gabriela Montero (piano); Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra/Alexander Shelley (Analekta)
Fanny Mendelssohn • C Schumann - Piano Trios
The Nash Ensemble (Hyperion)
Nightingale: A Tribute to Jenny Lind
Elin Rombo (soprano); Västerås Sinfonietta/Simon Crawford-Phillips (db Productions)
Beach • C Schumann • Smyth
Tasmin Little & John Lenehan (Chandos)
The Monte Piano Trio perform Piano Trios by Beach, Klouda and Clara Schumann
The enigmatic, impressionistic opening of Amy Beach’s 1938 Piano Trio in A minor promises much: Fauré hovers in the air, but his ghost is rapidly dispelled in the violin’s soupy first melody, and laid to rest in thunderous piano scales that seem ludicrously inappropriate in this whimsical context. It’s as if she toyed with something dangerously Continental but lost heart and fell back on the crutch of virtuosic noise.