Search - Robert Schumann, Kotaro Fukuma :: Schumann: Abegg Variations; Novelletten; Fantasiestücke

A Pianist with Maturity beyond His Years--and Technique to B

M. C. Passarella | Lawrenceville, GA | 03/02/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'd expect a young pianist to bring appropriate freshness and spontaneity to Schumann's Opus 1, with which the composer hoped to dazzle in the manner of Henri Herz and other manufacturers of virtuoso piano variations popular in the 1830s. What I didn't expect of so young a performer as Kotaro Fukuma (born 1982) is the kind of maturity needed to make Schumann's Opus 111, written over twenty years later, sound as involving as the masterworks of the composer's youth. In fact, the first time I heard these three pieces (in a performance by Claudio Arrau), I thought they represented a great falling off of talent. Fukuma shows us definitively that that's a mistake in judgment. The first two pieces of Opus 111 especially are straight from Schumann's troubled heart and speak of the great sadness of his last years as well as of nostalgia for a happy past the composer probably never really knew. Fukuma plays these pieces as they need to be, with simplicity and directness. His is certainly among the finest performances of the work I've ever heard.



Just as welcome is Fukuma's performance of the Novelletten. The first two pieces in the cycle are among Schumann's most popular, and Fukuma chooses perfect tempi for them and phrases them with sensitivity. The surprising thing is how attractive he makes the rest of the pieces seem. At one time, I confess, back in LP days, I'd take out my record of the Novelletten and listen to the first two pieces, lose interest, and walk away while the pianist ground through the rest of the cycle. Well, I've come to fully respect Schumann's invention in these wonderful works, and Fukuma helps me see the error of my ways all the more. He brings great warmth and fantasy to them--a faultless technique doesn't hinder his efforts either.



Naxos provides bright, clean piano tone and a nice sense of the hall (the Performing Arts center of the County Day School in King City, Ontario). Altogther, a very distinguished entry in Naxos' Laureate Series.

"

Poetry and Fire: A Pianist to Watch

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 07/31/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is the debut album of Kotaro Fukuma (b.1982), the 2003 winner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition. Earlier, at age fourteen, he had won a prize at the Gina Bachauer International Young Artists Piano Competition in Salt Lake City. He has studied in his native Japan and in Paris with Bruno Rigutto. This recording is part of the 'Laureate Series' of the Naxos label which has been bringing us recordings of emerging artists.



This is an all-Schumann recital that begins with an exciting 'Abegg Variations,' Op. 1, and is followed by the 'Novelletten', Op. 21, and ends with the late 'Drei Fantasiestücke', Op. 111. The 'Abegg Variations,' dedicated by the young Schumann to Meta Abegg, a young pianist. The theme on which the variations are based is a literal tonal transcription of Mme. Abegg's name A-B-E-G-G (in non-German notation this would be A-B flat-E-G-G). (This theme has always sounded to me like the inversion of a theme in 'Carnaval' and indeed it is later itself inverted.) It starts with a rather simple statement of the theme in waltz rhythm and is followed by three virtuosic variations that tax all but the most skillful pianists. Fukuma manages them with aplomb as well as finely judged musicianship. One notes that in all these works Fukuma plays with less sustaining pedal than some pianists -- it's always a temptation to over-pedal Schumann's piano music -- and gains a crispness and clarity often missing in other performances.



The 'Novelletten' are eight short pieces which, reflecting their designation as 'Novellettes,' each seem to tell a story. It seems to me that in the second of these, 'Äusserst rasch and mit Bravour' ('Extremely fast and with bravura') Fukuma almost meets his match. There is some sense that his fingers almost get away from him. But the payoff is that this is an exciting traversal because of the inherent risk of the piece going off the rails. In the other Novellettes he seems to have the measure of Schumann's mixture of the two sides of his own personality, the Eusebius and Florestan personae that Schumann wrote so much about. Hence, my designation of this pianist having both 'poetry and fire.'



'Drei Fantasiestücke' ('The Fantasy Pieces') were written as Schumann was sliding into his final mental illness and they reflect his troubled state of mind. The three pieces are played without pause. The first piece is the most troubled, the second contains a lovely Schubertian melody that is interrupted by disturbing thoughts before the melody returns (ABA). The final piece is a march reminiscent of Schumann's Davidsbündler pieces and other earlier works, but decorated with mysterious arpeggios. Fukuma plays the work with insight and well-judged variation of tone.



This young man is definitely a pianist to watch. One looks forward to hearing him in recital, with orchestra, and on future recordings.



Scott Morrison"