Novelletten / Nachtstücke
$45.00
Special Order3 - 6 weeks add to cart
SCHUMANN
Novelletten / Nachtstücke
Danny Driver (piano)
[ Hyperion / CD ]
Release Date: Tuesday 20 January 2015
This item is only available to us via Special Order. We should be able to get it to you in 3 - 6 weeks from when you order it.
In this new album Danny Driver brings his impeccable pianism, consummate style and imagination to Schumann's Novelletten and Nachtstücke, less well-known sets from his extraordinary output for the piano.
Schumann wrote Nachtstücke, a set of four character pieces, upon the death of his brother, and would have entitled it 'Corpse Fantasia' were it not for Clara's intervention. The eight pieces of the Novelletten form what is at once the largest and the least known among Schumann's major piano cycles. The music itself is of consistently high quality (years later, Schumann himself still regarded this among his most successful works), and clearly written in an exultant mood.
"Driver is commanding and personable. He never fails to establish character and to provide the understanding and flair of a virtuoso in leading us on, in getting from one thing to another. The only qualities I miss are a measure of ease with the continuity and greater differentiation in the sound and movement." (Gramophone Nov 2014)
"Driver proves at once with the first Novellette that he is alive to the composer's robust, macho side and its inverse, those luminescent and melting atmospheres...This is, in short, engaging and sophisticated playing with a fine mix of care and spontaneity." (BBC Music)
"[Driver], who is going from strength to strength at the moment, turns in a powerhouse performance on his new Schumann album, playing with great technical prowess, and admirably alert to the fluctuations of mood and feeling within the prevailing intensity of the whole." (The Guardian)
"Where Driver's playing wins through is in his willingness to colour as well as to shape phrases, both in the livelier and more energetic pieces and the gentler and more intimate moments. This multi-layered refinement informs Schumann's music from the most exciting or playful to the more poetic and deeply felt passages." (MusicWeb Jan 2015)
Tracks:
Novelletten (8), Op. 21
Nachtstücke, Op. 23
Romance in F sharp major, Op. 28 No. 2
