To avoid confusion, let’s clear some discographical air. All of this material stems from pianist Walter Gieseking’s appearances on German radio between 1938 and 1947. Music and Arts issued the F-sharp minor sonata several times (see my comments by typing Q2474 in Search Reviews). The C major Fantasy actually is a 1947 Hessian Radio transmission from Frankfurt, not Berlin as stated in the booklet. Type Q2926 in Search Reviews for what I have to say about the performance as reissued by Music and Arts. These two works, the Träumerei, and the Carnaval also appeared together in a two-disc set from Bianco & Nero (BV 2431/2).
Despite Gieseking’s displeasure with the Urania label (the 1950s outfit, not the present Italian CD firm) for releasing his Davidsbündlertänze broadcast without permission, the pianist’s fiery abandon fully matches Schumann’s feverish creative ideas. The performance was reissued during the old Urania’s short-lived CD revival in the late 1980s, coupled with Bach’s Sixth English Suite and, bizarrely enough, the present Kreisleriana’s first two movements. It’s good to have this Kreisleriana generally available again in complete form. The lyrical movements are sung out with patient repose, while the faster ones inspire Gieseking to tear up the keyboard and let the clinkers fall where they may. For all its faults, there’s a sense of inner urgency absent from the pianist’s slapdash 1953 BBC mess of a Kreisleriana (see my review by typing Q1489 in Search Reviews), as well as a demonic impulse we rarely associate with Gieseking’s carefully crafted postwar studio recordings. Compare the pianist’s vivid wartime Carnaval to his more accurate yet relatively pale “official” traversal (available on a Japanese EMI CD reissue) and you’ll hear what I mean. In sum, the playing is uneven, but Gieseking’s seldom-encountered wild side definitely comes through the dry, constricted sound quality.
