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DANA CIOCARLIE
As the concerts of this complete Schumann cycle followed on from each
other, I made all his characteristic features my own: his obsessional, quasi-
hypnotic rhythm; his ability to change affects very quickly, going for example
fromextreme tenderness to amood of savagery; theway heminglesmultiple
inner voices as if inviting the pianist on a paper chase; the way he indulges
in self-quotation, as in the films of Hitchcock. It’s possible to understand his
music intellectually, to analyse it at your desk; but in concert you have to play
it with heart and soul, abandoning yourself to a state close to trance; you
mustn’t be afraid of being overwhelmed by fervour or by reverie.
‘ToplaySchumann is to lendone’s voice tohis voices that ask:“Why?”To thismusic
that softly utters:“Dowe exist?”’ (Michel Schneider, LaTombée du jour).The piano
is his confidante, receiving the composer’s innermost thoughts. ‘Music gives
me what men cannot give; the piano expresses for me all the lofty sentiments I
cannot convey’ (letterwrittenby Schumann in 1828).
Dana Ciocarlie
NB I have chosen to perform only the works for piano, deliberately excluding those
written for pedal piano, a hybrid instrument that is a cross between the piano and the
organ (a fewspecimens of which are conserved inmuseums). Since I did not have access
to a suitable instrument, I would have had to play arrangements; even if there are some
very fine ones (notably by Claude Debussy), in my opinion they go beyond Schumann’s
style.