Tomáš Víšek - Schulhoff: Piano Cycles 1919-1936 (1998)

There are many reasons why Arnold Schoenberg and not Erwin Schulhoff became the most influential composer of the first half of the twentieth century. The most compelling reason is that when the Nazis took over Europe, Schoenberg moved to Hollywood while Schulhoff stayed to be murdered in the Wulzburg internment camp. To listen to Tomas Visek's wonderful disc of Schulhoff's piano music and any disc of Schoenberg's piano music is to compare a composer with a fluent and graceful technique to one with a tortured and inspired technique, a composer whose humor and depth of humanity are obvious to one whose severity and aspiration for divinity are overwhelming.
Played with style, panache, and unlimited conviction, Tomas Visek's performances are always completely convincing. Visek gets Schulhoff's balance of sentiment with irony, of polish and expressivity, of vivacity and melancholy. Visek also gets Schulhoff's buoyant sense of rhythm and supple sense of tempo. In Visek's poised, passionate, and virtuosic performances, Schulhoff sounds like a man who liked to dance all night and come home at dawn. Schoenberg, while living in Hollywood, taught himself to play tennis and invented a new style of backhand. Supraphon's sound is 10th row center in a 500-seat hall.