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The great Bulgarian pianist and composer of Greek origin Emile Naoumoff who was Nadia Boulanger’s last disciple, continues his collaboration with the Parisian label Melism Records presenting a recital entirely dedicated to Schumann’s music. The program consists of two cornerstone works of German Romanticism, the Carnaval, Op. 9, a cycle of 21 “scènes mignonnes” set on four notes, and the Fantasie in C Major, Op. 17. In the Carnaval, Schumann once more explores his imaginary characters inspired by those of Jean Paul, such as the contrasting personalities of Eusebius and Florestan, in a whirlwind of poetic atmospheres. In the Fantasie, Schumann uses Beethoven as his model, while also declaring his passion for Clara Wieck. The initial theme in C Major is inspired by the initial two letters of Clara’s first name through the German notes nomenclature’s C-A. It is undoubtedly one of the German composer’s greatest works where Emile Naoumoff offers his signature Finale’s coda, in the tradition of the ninetieeth century’s performance practices. © Melism

Five major piano cycles of early Romanticism, newly recorded by a major exponent of historically informed keyboard playing. Acclaimed as China’s "premier interpreter of Bach" by International Piano Magazine, the Chinese pianist Yuan Sheng has gained international recognition through his performances in the United States and China. The New York Times praised Sheng’s performances of Bach as "models of clarity, balance and proportion". His discography includes several of the composer’s major cycles such as the Goldberg Variations and Partitas. This depth of study and beauty of sound, informed by intensive study with Rosalyn Tureck, also mark out his newly recorded interpretations of five major piano cycles by Robert Schumann, who along with Chopin did more than any other composer to expand the horizons of the piano in the early decades of the 19th century and position it as the supreme articulation of a Romantic composer’s ambition in the hands of a single performer. Thus the present album makes an essential complement to Yuan Sheng’s extensive collection of Chopin’s work. While Sheng’s Chopin was recorded on an 1845, he touched here on a Streicher fortepiano from 1846. From the Davidsbündlertänze of 1837 through to the Waldszenen of 1849, the collection surveys the peaks of Schumann’s piano writing with a concentration on the composer’s gift for distilling a mood within a miniature. This mood-painting reaches its height in the seventh movement of Waldszenen which became an avatar of Romanticism, Der Vogel als Prophet, connecting worlds as seemingly distant as Rameau and Messiaen. The piano cycles presented here offer a wide variety of emotions, from the sublime calm of a summer evening, the intimacy of a dream, the soaring of young passion to the sinister atmosphere of a pitch-dark night. In Carnaval, Op. 9 and Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6 Schumann presents characters from the Commedia dell’arte, each representing different characteristics and emotions. In the characters of Florestan and Eusebius Schumann finds his own innermost personae: the dreamlike Eusebius contra the passionate Florestan. The Kinderszenen is unique in the evocation of childhood and its contrasting emotions, the Waldszenen evoke nature’s realm, its natural, animal and human (the hunter..) inhabitants. © Piano Classics