Brilliant Classics continues its series featuring winners of the Holland-based Young Pianist Foundation Competition, this time with 2001 contestant Mariana Izman. Her all-Schumann debut recital disc duplicates a recent DG Maurizio Pollini release with the Third sonata in its rare three-movement first edition coupled with the more familiar Davidsbundlertänze, while adding the Papillons for good measure.
Davidsbundlertänze proves most memorable when Izman matches the quirky abandon of Sehr Rasch, Frisch, and Mit Gutem Humor with like-minded fingerwork. However, slower, more lyrical movements tend to ramble by way of the pianist’s lingering within phrases and by means of heavy accents that prevent long melodic passages from floating over bar lines. Innig is a case in point, while Wie Aus Der Ferne wilts in dreamland, in contrast to the firmer underpinning that András Schiff and, more recently, Paolo Giacometti serve up in droves.
She responds well to Papillons’ rapid mood swings, and happily takes the final piece’s blurry pedalings on faith, even though her basically soft-grained temperament falls short of Kempff’s gaunt lines and magical dabs of color, and misses the extra virtuosic flair distinguishing Richter and Hamelin.
The Third sonata inspires Izman’s strongest work, with the prolix outer movements moving forward in well-bound, fluent paragraphs. While the central “Clara Wieck” variations movement doesn’t rise to the ardent, sharply contoured heights of Schiff or Horowitz, it nevertheless benefits from Izman’s warm, rounded tone, helped by sonics that convey a not-too-distant small concert hall perspective.
