For the first time, all of Alicia de Larrocha’s solo Schumann repertoire for Decca is brought together in one release. Three items new to CD might hold special interest for the pianist’s fans: the Kreisleriana and Novelette from 1971 plus a 1978 Carnaval (not to be confused with Larrocha’s Decca digital remake). In both of the big works Larrocha serves up liberal portions of grand manner rubato along with similar “old school” voicings and dynamic alterations. The super-hushed, stretched out repeat in Carnaval’s “Chopin” movement typifies her approach, as do Kreisleriana’s slow pieces. Impetuous sweep and rhythmic incision do not appear so consistently in these works as you would expect from such an inspired artist, but they do in the Novelette, big time. Boy, do the swirling, proto-Rachmaninov passagework and obsessive dotted motives really take wing!
In Faschingsschwank aus Wien’s arguably overextended opening movement Larrocha saves her most interesting, personalized playing for the interludes in between the repeated main themes. The Scherzino begins airy and weightless but grows increasingly emphatic and earthbound, while a few tapered phrasings slightly impede the Intermezzo’s ardent flow. However, Larrocha’s ear for color and textural diversity come home to roost in the toccata-like finale, and in the ambitious, rarely-heard Op. 8 Allegro (this is the earlier and better of her two Decca versions). Unquestionable authority and well-proportioned rhetoric distinguish Laroccha’s 1975 recording of the C major Fantasy, although I find the pianist’s gradations of touch and palette of colors more beguiling in her better-recorded 1997 RCA remake. The sonics range from boomy to strident, yet are easy to assimilate.
