Schumann
Violin Sonatas
Alina Ibragimova (violin), Cedric Tiberghien (piano)
Hyperion CDA68354 71:46 mins
Why is it that musicians, critics and audiences are able to find it easier to understand late Schumann these days? Certainly, the old routine objections seem to be losing traction.
Is it that there’s less prejudice about what makes ‘proper’ classical form? Or is it that Robert Schumann’s unstable, lateral thinking – almost certainly a reflection of some kind of acute bipolar disorder – scares people that much less? Whatever the reason, if the result is that we get recordings of the late violin sonatas that sound like these, then we should be profoundly thankful.
Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien are well established as a formidable, finely poetic duo, and this set of performances shows them at their vibrant best. On a purely practical level, the balance between the two instruments is exquisite, and that is thanks at least partly to the recording team.
Tiberghien’s playing is so delicate, so minutely responsive but also impassioned, without ever elbowing Ibragimova out of the way, that for a moment I wondered if this was an older piano – something a little closer to Schumann’s vintage perhaps. As for Ibragimova, her characteristic mixture of tonal fragility and incisive strength suits this music marvellously.
The Schumann who emerges here is complex, just as he should be: exuberant one moment, nervy and apprehensive the next; tender, then suddenly barbed; a wry comic face behind the tragic mask, then hints of something dark and dangerous when the music turns to exultation. The wild, alarming, wickedly subversive poet of the earlier Kreisleriana hasn’t softened with age, even if he seems superficially to be moving towards Brahmsian romantic classicism.
Best of all for me was the Second Sonata, which at times resembles an Escher- like combination of two, or even three different sonatas. Warmly recommended.
