Pianist Eric le Sage's series of Schumann recordings called Klavierwerke & Kammermusik is a marvel. Not only is le Sage an ideal Schumann player, but he is an ideal Schumann programmer. That is to say, le Sage has not only the technique of a virtuoso and the soul of a poet, both mandatory qualifications for playing the German Romantic's extremely difficult and extraordinarily passionate music, but he also has the taste of an A&R director. On this two-disc set, le Sage joins the well-known with the little-known in a recital ...
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Pianist Eric le Sage's series of Schumann recordings called Klavierwerke & Kammermusik is a marvel. Not only is le Sage an ideal Schumann player, but he is an ideal Schumann programmer. That is to say, le Sage has not only the technique of a virtuoso and the soul of a poet, both mandatory qualifications for playing the German Romantic's extremely difficult and extraordinarily passionate music, but he also has the taste of an A&R director. On this two-disc set, le Sage joins the well-known with the little-known in a recital of amazing intelligence starting with a reading of Kreisleriana, which captures its ardent lyricism and abiding strangeness and ends with an account of Waldszenen, which captures its wide-eyed naïveté and deep-rooted love of nature. But after Kreisleriana, le Sage places the nearly unknown Vier Fugen and the slightly better known Fantasiestücke, while before Waldszenen, he places the rarely played Andante & Variations for two pianos, two cellos, and horn, the almost never played Six...
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