For Volume 2 of Arte Nova’s Schumann piano music survey, Michael Endres turns to the composer’s famous cycle of 43 teaching pieces, Album für die Jugend. He accepts the music’s intimate demeanor and modest technical demands at face value, and admirably scales down his playing without ever downsizing his artistry. Endres imbues each piece with varied articulations and infinite color shadings that never sound contrived or self-conscious (as Rico Gulda sometimes does in his recent Naxos version) but instead give life and meaning to the music’s simple sentiments and inner sophistication. For instance, the cross-rhythms in the “Little Fugue” are nimbly projected but never overstressed, and a hidden singer emerges underneath the ravishing half-tints and dabs of pedal in No. 14 (“Kleine Studie). At the same time, Endres is not afraid to enliven Schumann’s trademark dotted rhythms in pieces like Kleiner Morgenwanderer, yielding livelier results than Luba Edlina’s relatively bland characterizations. By pausing as little as possible between selections, Endres also brings a sense of continuity and cumulative momentum to the cycle that I’ve not noticed on other recordings. As Michael Endres’ Album für die Jugend enters the reference version charts at number one, I eagerly await his next Schumann encounter.
