This is not quite a new release. Ragna Schirmer’s Chopin Op. 10 Etudes originally appeared on a Berlin Classics disc alongside the Etude Fantasy and Fantasia on an ostinato by John Corigliano. Similarly, on another disc, the Schumann Symphonic Etudes was paired with the same composer’s Beethoven Variations.
Schirmer plays much of the Chopin group well. No. 1’s secure right-hand arpeggios effortlessly fly against the proudly ringing cantus-firmus bass, while No. 2’s taxing 16th notes are as smooth and even as the best versions out there in Chopin Etude Land. You could imagine more delicacy and point in Nos. 4, 7, 9, and 10, but No. 8 is fleet and whimsical, No. 12 (the “Revolutionary”) is powerful and incisive, and the lyrical Nos. 3 and 6 benefit from greater animation and long-lined urgency than we commonly hear from young pianists circa 2010.
For the Symphonic Etudes Schirmer has arranged into a single entity all of the variations contained in Schumann’s various editions of the work, with her own ordering. The booklet also lists tracking orders for listeners who wish to replicate three specific Schumann editions–the unpublished 1834 set, the 1837 version, and the 1852 revision.
For whatever reason, Schirmer’s playing proves crisper, more flexible and forward moving in the five “posthumous” variations than in most of the “standard” movements. For example, Etude 3 is too heavy to even approximate Schumann’s Vivace marking, Etude 8’s dotted rhythms are painfully prosaic and stuck in the mud, and the repetitious Finale is solid but square. Yet Etude 9’s rapid chords, if not quite Presto possible, are focused and supple, and there’s an attractive, jazzy tinge to Etude 10’s toccata-like left-hand runs. In all, this is an uneven though not unworthy reissue, especially for collectors interested in the Symphonic Etudes’ textual evolution.
