Schumann: Piano Works

by Dennis G. Voss Jr. On the plus side, Kempff rarely sounds mechanical, as young and technically proficient (but boring) pianists can. He seems to have his own sense of how the notes ought to flow, and while sometimes it's just quirky, other times it adds a really nice touch, what critics apparently mean when they refer to the "poetry" in Kempff's style. (His "Davidsbundlertanze" in particular benefits from the approach.) And Kempff has a sort of lumbering majesty that, in quicker numbers, brings out more of the color than you'll get from pianists who race through them. On the down side, his choices of when to accent notes also differed oddly from the choices of the other pianists, and usually not in a way that made me enjoy the music more. Peculiarly loud bits are distracting. Often it was stray notes that would leave me asking, "Why in the world did that one need to be louder?" Occasionally it was clearly by design (as when Kempff seems to be trying to convert the pompous but stodgy dance of the Philistins into "The Great Gates of Kiev"). Meanwhile, he'll slip calmly past a series of notes that, in less-stolid hands, were one of a highlights of the composition. For example, in other versions of "Carnaval," the clown Pierrot fluctuates between a stately dance and what sounds like a comical stumble -- and while modern recordings can smooth out the transition between these two states, as in my Uchida version, here there's no comedy at all. Finally, I should mention that the fifth disc was an unexpected highlight. I was pessimistic about how a pianist with such quirky timing would interact with an orchestra, but for all the versions of Schumann's famous Piano Concerto that have passed through my hands, Kempff's performance here (with Rafael Kubelik conducting) stands out as the piece that will most often prompt me to pull the box down off the shelf. A compelling performance with sound quality that was better than I expected. So on balance, an interesting boxed set that might be worth picking up if the price is right for you, but I'm skeptical about whether a new listener should start here or whether it's a good choice if you're only going to have one version of the canonical pieces.