Many young pianists get pushed into their first recording sessions like fruit snapped from vines before it turns ripe. By contrast, Romanian pianist Herbert Schuch, born in 1979, waited until his time was right, so to speak. The results add up to a stunning recital debut devoted to Schumann’s Kreisleriana and Ravel’s Miroirs. Schuch’s interpretations easily match–and often surpass–the catalog’s finest versions.
Kreisleriana’s first piece features subtle and imaginative changes of voicing and articulation with each reiterated phrase, plus a middle section whose slow tempo is unorthodox yet emotionally convincing. Schuch weaves No. 2’s sections together with rapturous textural diversity and fluent, flexible rubatos. No. 3’s middle-section scales float over Schumann’s bar lines like multi-layered clouds, while Schuch intensifies the scampering outer sections with hard-hitting bass-note accents and tiny accerlerandos. Schuch underlines No. 5’s thematic contrasts by treating the central section more freely and lyrically than the norm while imparting a supple spring to the outer sections’ dotted rhythms. The pianist manages to sustain No. 7’s whirling momentum while making sure that the counterpoint is clear, creating the illusion of a faster tempo than the one he actually sets. Lastly, No. 8 offers a master-class on the subject of how to generate tension through understatement.
In Miroirs, Schuch arguably raises the bar several notches for technical perfection and tonal application, much as Michelangeli did in Debussy’s Images and Pollini in Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrouchka. Notice Schuch’s inhumanly even arpeggios in Une barque sur l’océan, his absolute independence of hands when organizing the textural layers of La vallée des cloches, and, in Noctuelles, the prodigious array of colors achieved with little pedal. Alborada del gracioso rarely has sounded so incisive and rhythmically centered. Here the amazing point and accuracy of Schuch’s repeated notes makes other pianists sound relatively thick and earthbound. An awe-inspiring release, not to be missed. [6/15/2006]
