Search - Cesar Franck, Robert Schumann, Václav Neumann :: Moravec Plays Schumann & Franck

Transcendent Schumann performance

Denis Bradford | Chelmsford, MA United States | 08/24/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"We now have two Moravec performances of the Schumann Piano Concerto. The other one (on DOR-90172, actually recorded later than this one), with the Dallas Symphony, is paired with the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1. I'm hard pressed to choose between them - both are wonderful. If I have any preference, it's for the warmer sound of the Czech Philharmonic, due in part to the woodier woodwinds.Cesar Franck's one-movement Symphonic Variations is a kaleidoscopic fantasy of many moods. At first I wondered if Moravec's opening tempo was too slow. But by the end I realized that it served the development well, making the other sections all the more effective by contrast. As often as not, this piece comes across as light music whose main attraction is the sunny Spanish dance finale. Moravec's ending supplies plenty of adrenaline, but his playing in the haunting middle section is a poetic revelation. The modulations here are as heavenly as anything in Faure, and Moravec's piano fairly shimmers over the cello section's brooding chorus, like stars in a vast night sky. Schumann's Kinderszenen is among the most charming and accessible of all his pieces, but as the liner notes point out, this is music about children, not for children. It inhabits a world of shifting light and shadow where things are not always what they seem to be. Each brief vignette evokes some thread of memory that is as ephemeral as childhood itself. I doubt that many pianists have revealed this inner tension more poignantly. No performance that I know of even comes close to this one in its organic unity and exquisite shading of color, line, and harmony.The performances on this CD are all reissues. But none of them should ever have been out of print, and so they are as welcome as any new issue."

His music speaks for itself

Thufferin Thuccotash | Austin, TX USA | 09/12/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Nothing that I can write approaches the eloquence of Ivan Moravec's pianism. Since you are reading this "review", you almost certainly know him already, and you know you must have this recording. The only flaw in this recording is its length, but there is never enough. In every recording of his I have heard, Moravec's thoughtful intelligence, the integrity of his repertoire, and the restraint and elegance of his artistry coalesce into a rare treasure that I keep for special moments of reflection when I can take his music from its box, hold it to the light, and marvel at the purity of its crystalline beauty."

The best Schumann piano concert in the next years

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 05/06/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Before I noticed this recording I had Lipatti, Richter and Benedetti Michelagenli among my battlehorses favorites.
But suddenly a czech pianist Ivan Moravec , and the Czech Philarmonic (one of the five best European orchestras) conducted by the giant Vaclav Neumann. It was an interesting riddle. So I decided to buy it in 1977.
The surprise still shocks when I remeber the first time I listened it. Moravec is a genius of the keyboard, but not onlythat, the dionisiac approach who Moravec and the czech orchestra give to this piano concerto seem to reveal more notes than this concert has in its score. So brilliant, magnificently performed with deep honesty and an outstanding poetry.
Forget all you can have heard about any other recording. Please, ignore it and try as soon as it's possible this issue.
Moravec stole this concert for himself.
The transfer on CD is extraordinary. Supraphon made a technical prodige in the transfering process, fortunely.
Warning forget the another recording with Dallas Symphony."