Evgeni Koroliov - The Koroliov Series, Vol. 9: R. Schumann – Piano Works (2006/2020)

Finally, once again, a really “composed” Schumann program in the sense of a recital on CD! Evgeni Koroliov frames the complexes of works Op. 16, Op. 99 and Op. 15 with two pieces from the Forest Scenes, Op. 82, which are not lacking in indirect lighting, thoughtfulness, but also imagery, even on different levels of religiosity. In the introductory disreputable passage it is a threatened, faintly gruesome piety, in the middle section the bird as a prophet study we are dealing with a chorale - as in a small-format neighborhood to Franz Liszt's first legend in veneration of St. Francis of Assisi.

Koroliov is not the piano character at the beginning of the Kreisleriana - like Viktoria Postnikova many years ago - boldly sweeping across the keyboard. For him, “extremely moved” is a question of carefully considered diction, of the momentary, controlled excitement with regard to what is to come. In the following, far-reaching second fantasy (“Very intimate and not too quick”) he does not go to the limits of tonal and declamatory refinement, but rather guides the listener through the soft and brisk passages of these peculiar passages with the care of a piano sociologist World of music ideas. With Koroliov - and in my opinion this applies to all the other pieces on this recording - it is not about the separate miracles of the main, intermediate and secondary characterization, but about the clear visibility of details that naturally fit into a whole. He and his audience do not get lost in lovable details; In retrospect, however, what remains for them is the reverberating effect, the echo of an interpreter's language that, through syllables and words, has brought the meaning of connected sentences into consciousness.