Pianist Sigurd Slåttebrekk’s previous Simax CD featuring music by Ravel impressed me no end upon its release, and it garnered high praise from several pianist/critic colleagues who always scrutinize young pianists with relentlessly skeptical ears. His all-Schumann follow-up release is almost as good. Whereas pianists like Nelson Freire and Konstantin Lifschitz weave Carnaval’s diverse personalities into a large-scaled entity, Slåttebrekk invests each movement with a distinct character by way of playful rubatos and reverse accents. I especially like his big-hearted and broad-toned approach in the Valse Noble, Chiarina, Estrella, and Promenade, and how he feels the Finale’s basic pulse in larger units than the heavy accent on each beat other pianists often favor. Sometimes the pianist’s tapered phrase endings fall into predictable comfort zones, as in Pierrot and Reconnaissance. By contrast, Papillons and Pantalon et Colombine run fierce races. Like Rachmaninov, Gieseking, Cortot, and Katchen, Slåttebrekk also disregards the composer’s instructions not to play the Sphinxes.
The pianist reaches greater heights in Kreisleriana and turns in a performance that easily stands with the many superb versions that grace the catalog. Slåttebrekk’s limber, high-voltage way with the opening movement’s outer sections and the markedly contrasted central episode evokes Argerich’s fearless game plan, while the second, fourth, and sixth movements reveal how well this young pianist can keep a truly slow Schumann tempo vibrant and alive. No. 7’s whirling counterpoint, so often banged into submission, rarely has sounded so nimble and jazzy. Perhaps No. 8 moves too quickly for us to absorb the after-effects of the syncopated bass notes, but the music can stand some lithe, Mendelssohnian skipping every now and then. I’m not convinced by the way Slåttebrekk underplays the Arabeske’s central march rhythms at the start of that section, but his eloquently proportioned phrasing elsewhere simply ravishes the ear. Let’s hear more from this talented and accomplished artist.
