Few pianists living or dead can touch Marc-André Hamelin in the gnarly, difficult repertoire by composers such as Godowsky, Medtner, Catoire, Alkan, Kapustin, and in certain Liszt pieces, to say nothing of his standard-setting contributions to Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series. However, in the case of these three Schumann cycles, Hamelin proves relatively vulnerable to catalog competitors. Though Hamelin’s consummate workmanship speaks for its frighteningly proficient self, I often want to puncture the pianist’s Apollonian bubble and make him face the composer’s surface disquiet and diverse cast of characters head on.
Carnaval’s opening Préambule, for example, is breathtakingly clean under Hamelin’s fingers, yet Nelson Freire’s sense of abandon and long-lined sweep gets closer to the music’s celebratory essence. Likewise, Hamelin’s staggering clip for Paganini matches Kissin’s Olympic record, but not the Russian pianist’s frenzied dynamism. While Hamelin takes the Chopin movement’s agitato subtext more to heart than others, the concluding Marche des Davidsbündler is too foursquare and emotionally blocked to pay off with the expected, defiant grandeur. Hamelin’s self-awareness in introspective, lyrical passages also bothers me at times, notably in Fantasiestücke, where he lingers over Des Abends and Warum? to the point where the melodic lines sag in midair.
But when Hamelin’s on, he’s awesome. Papillons abounds with felicities, such as the pianist’s supple touch and rhythmic spring in No. 5’s dotted octaves and No. 6’s big chords, or the real Prestissimo with which he tosses off Nos. 2 and 9. I’ve rarely heard Fantasiestücke’s Traumes Wirren sound so fleet, weightless, and controlled (and I’m not forgetting Richter and Horowitz!), Grillen’s clipped chords so fully voiced and precisely defined, nor, in Carnaval, Arlequin’s chancy right-hand leaps so accurately nailed or Florestan’s busy inner lines so cogently projected. By any standard, this is golden-age pianism. Hyperion’s engineering is a little harsher and closer up than its atmospheric norm, but Mischa Donat’s informative, scholarly, and evocative booklet notes count among the label’s best. Collectors seeking these three works on a single disc might also consider a 2002 release on Somm with George-Emamanuel Lazaridis–a less seasoned and individual pianist than Hamelin, but one who arguably broaches Schumann’s idiom more naturally.
