As the title suggests, Beyond Schumann consists of works by Robert Schumann to which German pianist Michael Gees has freely added material. The booklet and publicity for this release present this added material variously as "improvisation," "embellishment," or simply, in Gees' own words, as "a starting point for creative piano playing." The notes are on shaky historical ground in claiming that any of this might have represented actual performance practice in Schubert, much less Schumann, who is the very prototype of the ...
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As the title suggests, Beyond Schumann consists of works by Robert Schumann to which German pianist Michael Gees has freely added material. The booklet and publicity for this release present this added material variously as "improvisation," "embellishment," or simply, in Gees' own words, as "a starting point for creative piano playing." The notes are on shaky historical ground in claiming that any of this might have represented actual performance practice in Schubert, much less Schumann, who is the very prototype of the Romantic artist. Thus the audience for this album may well be restricted to those generally accepting of speculative projects. This said, Gees' approach has much to recommend it. Of the categories above, most of his contributions to these pieces fall into the second category, embellishment. That is to say, he generally respects the structural integrity of Schumann's pieces, mostly short works from the Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13, Kinderszenen, Op. 15, and Kreisleriana, Op. 16. Of course...
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