What's required of a great Schumann player? If the answer is poetry, fantasy, sensitivity, and virtuosity coupled with the talent for making melodies sing, bass lines ring, and inner voices sound plus a gift for touching the warm-beating heart of Schumann's quintessentially Romantic music, then Finghin Collins is a great Schumann player. It is a very good thing that a young Irish pianist has undertaken Schumann's complete piano works for the Swiss Claves label -- and if the rest are as fine as this two-disc first volume, ...
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What's required of a great Schumann player? If the answer is poetry, fantasy, sensitivity, and virtuosity coupled with the talent for making melodies sing, bass lines ring, and inner voices sound plus a gift for touching the warm-beating heart of Schumann's quintessentially Romantic music, then Finghin Collins is a great Schumann player. It is a very good thing that a young Irish pianist has undertaken Schumann's complete piano works for the Swiss Claves label -- and if the rest are as fine as this two-disc first volume, Collins may prove to be one of the great Schumann players of the twenty first century. In the well-known Arabeske and Kinderszenen, Collins fulfills every expectation while still finding new facets among these familiar gems. In the lesser-known Humoreske and Waldszenen, he makes a convincing case that they should be better known by granting them the depth and breadth they deserve. And in the least-known Fantasiestücke, Opp. 12 and 111, he persuades the listener that the pieces should...
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