Lepidopterology

[Todd]

Youri Egorov starts off with a deep key, big sonority intro and not only doesn't deviate from that as the dances begin, he doubles down.  The Pomposo waltz blows the listener's socks right off.  Digital nimbleness and dynamic nuance beguile.  Egorov marries a sense of freedom with immaculate preparation.  Some of the playing veers dangerously close to sounding too hard, but part of that is down to the recording.  As with Luisada, this is geared toward the concert hall, but with less (wholesome and delectable) idiosyncrasy.  A tier.

[Todd]

Michaël Levinas starts off with an extremely slow opening movement, stretching the piece out with an equal weight on spaces between notes in an approach rare in this work.  His Eusebius is a dreamer of gentle, dreamy dreams.  The seventh movement, Semplice, melts time and entrances the listener with exquisite aural beauty.  Levinas' Florestan, in contrast, can blast out lower registers with organ-like heft, something also found in Levinas' Bach, and pierce the listener's ears with tart upper registers.  Rhythm throughout is fluid and appropriate to each piece, but this not a dance inspired work so much as romantic text filtered through Schumann and transformed into a multimovement fantasy.  The way Levinas rushes some of the playing in the finale, the pronounced rubato, the fickle mood swings, the bright tone, and the extended coda, all combine to create an ending that almost approximates waking happily from a sunny dream.  A supremely fine version.  S tier.

[Todd]

The first of three recordings taken from complete sets, Dana Ciocarlie, playing on a bright Yamaha, delivers a measured intro and first waltz, and she plays a weighty, dark-hued Pomposo waltz.  So far, so nice.  Nicer yet is when she really brings the Eusebius dreaminess to the gentler pieces, whereas some other takes sound punchier throughout.  Her rhythmic sense is rock solid, and her p and pp playing shines.  The Vivo waltz gently rocks back and forth, again with the Eusebius playing the highlight.  Ms Ciocarlie's complete set remains a sleeper set, and this recording demonstrates that.  A tier.

[Todd]

In the second of three complete set recordings, Eric le Sage launches his take with a subdued and beautiful intro and first waltz and then launches into a big, bold second waltz.  So, basically, he adopts the tried and true and successful Eusebius/Florestan split personality from the outset.  The path to ensured success succeeds.  He mixes up dynamic contrasts very nicely, with the playing only rarely becoming ever so slightly hard.  The softer music, though, sounds affecting and beautiful and fairly clear as le Sage doesn't rely overly much on the sustain to blur the playing.  In the more extroverted passages, he maintains a romantically classical, or classically restrained romanticism – take your pick – that prevents the music from sounding opaque or heavy.  It had been a good long while since I last listened to this take, and I will say that it comes off better than memory suggested it would.  The lesson: never throw out old recordings.  (Of course, it's ripped and resides on an HDD, and I am too lazy to even delete files, so that old rule doesn't really even apply in the here and now.)  B tier.

[Todd]

In the last of the complete set recordings, Florian Uhlig starts with a slow, subdued intro and first waltz, then turns up the wick.  There's a nice fluidity to his playing in the second waltz, though the rhythm sounds compromised a bit to achieve it.  The Pomposo waltz has punch.  While Uhlig can and does deliver good Eusebius playing, he is relatively better at the Florestan music.  As the piece progresses, though, the playing, while technically polished, seems too hemmed in, too serious, too studious, sometimes too cool.  C tier.

[Todd]

Claudio Arrau brings that big, burnished tone to the intro, while also sprinkling in some bright upper register playing.  The first waltz is more fantastical and beefy than waltzy, and the second waltz has some drive and weight.  Lots of weight.  Perhaps too much.  Indeed, the main traits that stand out are the sonority and weight.  Sure, Arrau can and does bring out little details, and he mixes things up with some nice rubato, but in contrast with some other repeat-laded, slower than average takes (eg, Baglini), Arrau's sounds heavier and more mature, and less flighty, as it were, and definitely rather unyouthful.  As always with Arrau, there's a lot to like.  As is sometimes the case, there are more than a handful of preferable versions.  C tier.

[Todd]

The great Herbert Schuch starts out with a fairly quick intro and then launches into an extroverted first waltz with Schuchian rhythmic excellence, and then ramps up more in the Prestissimo, and then punches out the Pomposo waltz with extra potent left hand playing and a swirlingish right hand.  Even the Eusebius music remains more extroverted than normal, but this is how to pull it off.  In the Semplice waltz, Schuch shows that no or at least very few pianists can play more purely beautifully when he puts his mind to it.  The second Polonaise most definitely meets the con spirito designation, and the finale offers quick, articulate playing, grander sweeping playing, and the way that Schuch transitions between sections, sort of blending the end of one and starting in on another, is nothing short of magnificent.  S tier.

[Todd]

Christian Zacharias goes for slightly quick tempi throughout, and while his rhythmic vitality is exceptionally fine, his recording is one where dynamics are the thing.  He moves from quiet to loud both smoothly and with near instantaneous speed, and his younger fingers match anyone's here.  The higher registers often become appealingly flinty in the loudest passages.  This should hurt, but it helps.  The Semplice waltz turns into something like a lieder accompaniment, and the Vivo is all theatrical punchiness married to very waltzy rhythm.  The finale is delivered with great clarity of voices and nicely varied, simultaneous dynamic levels and gently tolling repeated notes.  A tier.

[Todd]

Maurizio Baglini starts low and rich with his mighty Fazioli in the intro, and then coaxes out crisp, bright upper register playing in the first waltz, all while maintaining fully satisfying rhythmic playing.  Then the big ol' dynamic swings arrive, and the large-scale playing becomes less about generating dancy playing and the work sounds almost like a tone poem.  The slightly leisurely overall tempo allows Baglini to luxuriate in some of the gentler, more beautiful music, and his style and instrument allow for one of the grandest scaled takes on the more extroverted music.  This is big-boned, romantic Schumann.  One hopes he records even more Schumann in the future.  S tier.

[Todd]

Yves Nat's take is basically a mostly straight-ahead reading, with clear playing, rolled off highs (due to recording and more so to mastering) and beefy lower registers.  The rhythmic component is amply dance-like, the dynamics wide, the energy level high.  This is perhaps the most direct, masculine take in the survey.  Audible pedal stomps and heavy breathing reinforce this.  B tier.

[Todd]

Mr Klien brings proper, clear playing to his take.  While it's evident in the first waltz that this take is less romantic than others, it's also clear that full attention is paid to providing clear voicings and fine dynamic contrasts.  Rhythm may be a bit less swaggering than in some other takes, but it melds perfectly with playing that might, maybe, be described as patrician, as some playing used to be described.  The remastering is such that one can hear his breathing, but that is the only impropriety in this recording.  Walt remains underappreciated.  B tier.

[Todd]

If you're gonna go with one Vox recording, you might as well go with two.  Guiomar Novaes starts off conventionally, and then she quickly adds subtle little touches to rhythm that catch the ear, and she mixes up lower end dynamic contrasts nicely, though on the forte side it's less variegated.  It's a pleasant enough recording.  C tier.

[Todd]

Catherine Collard starts off more or less standard in approach, brings a light flitting feel to the Prestissimo waltz and a nicely measured heaviness to the Pomposo waltz, before backing off.  In short, she offers nice contrasts, but her Eusebius playing doesn't really evoke dreaminess or poetic elements.  Her crispness and energy nonetheless yield fine results.  B tier.

[Todd]

Alessandro Deljavan starts with a deep key, big sonority introduction, and then right in the first waltz one hears his penchant for fiddling, with the minutest of tempo changes and dynamic gradations.  The Prestissimo waltz is extroverted and shows, the Pomposo scaled back in relative terms to start, and then punchy and bracing.  All throughout from that point, one hears Deljavan sort of just throwing things in, with stilted micro-pauses, luxuriant or thundering tone, crackerjack dynamic changeups, and all other manner of virtuosic tricks.  He does them because he can.  (That happens in a goodly number of his recordings.)  If perhaps this becomes showy for the sake of being showy, the pianist has the chops to pull everything off.  B tier

[Todd]

If one can rest assured that Deljavan can deliver whatever goods he wants, one can rest assured that Marc-André Hamelin can deliver anything that is humanly possible.  Not that it's really needed or evident here.  With one exception.  Like that other superhuman virtuoso turned unvirtuoso Volodos, the thing that jumps out most is the remarkable touch on display.  In multiple places, Hamelin plays with awesome dynamic control, often playing with two, maybe three, or even four perfectly executed dynamic levels at once.  His pp to p shading is the most captivating thing here.  Sure, he spins out quick passages with accuracy most pianists find impossible, and he plays each piece well.  But there's something verging on the antiseptic here.  Think of him as the un-Cortot.  C tier.

[Todd]

Moving on to another bona fide supervirtuoso, Andrei Gavrilov's first recording starts off slow in both the intro and the first waltz, stretching things out, but not breaking the musical line.  Then, whammo, quick and dynamically fulsome playing in the Prestissimo arrives, and then things go further in the nearly Mussorgskian Pomposo waltz, sounding informed by some extra picture.  Then it's back to something smaller, gentler, nearly infinitely nuanced in all aspects of playing all at once.  The Polonaise is almost cartoonish, but in a wonderful, classic Looney Tunes sorta way.  Gavrilov plays much of the music in an exaggerated way, but he has the chops to pull it off, and if perhaps it remains surfacy, this is early Schumann, and that's no vice.  S tier.

[Todd]

Gavrilov's second recording is more of the same, by which is meant there's more of everything.  Slow tempi are slower.  (And the whole thing is slower.)  Grandiose gestures are grandioser.  Gentle playing is gentler.  OTT moments are more OTT.  Thing is, execution is not up to the same ridiculous standard as the earlier recording.  Still, it's hard to not like it.  B tier.

[Todd]

See Siang Wong starts slow and rich in the introduction and then moves to a standard pace for the first waltz, but one where rhythm is, well, downplayed.  Something else that becomes and remains evident is that the recording techniques yield some of the most rounded tone in the survey.  Even the brightest upper register playing sounds edgeless, and anything middle and lower register almost sounds like some type of filter or curve was used to darken the sound.  While Wong clearly has not even a hint of a whiff of a challenge navigating the score, and plays with ample energy in some dances, it just seems to lack Schumannesque style.  So, well executed but kinda meh.  C tier.

[Todd]

Laure Favre-Kahn, in contrast to Wong, plays much brighter, quicker, with quicksilver dynamic contrasts, a rushed, almost improvisatory style and rhythm, and holds nothing back.  Lithe and punchy, or slower and subdued, she moves seamlessly between fiery Florestan and more measured Eusebius.  Kahn always plays with a sense of freedom, and that works well for her here.  This is a hit play and enjoy recording.  B tier.

[Todd]

György Sándor, in a big mono recording so well recorded and remastered that one doesn't even miss stereo or digital, launches with a quickish, bold introduction and then more or less keeps up this style.  The Pomposo waltz is big and bold, while the subsequent waltz backs off while retaining forward momentum.  Sándor's articulation is top notch, and his rhythmic playing is dance-like enough, though this is a purely pianistic recording.  There's definitely stylistic differentiation between the Florestan and Eusebius pieces and sections, both remain bold.  Like Nat, this is a masculine recording.  B tier.