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Review by Sauron November 20, 2012 (10 of 11 found this review helpful)
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I have literally created my account here to review this SACD. Don't expect to much because I first have to get used to writing good quality reviews that are well structured and give a good image on the product.
So with this album I am really glad I bought it, even though I didn't really know the artist before or own other SACD or CDs from him. I just browsed through PentaTones new releases and found this one.
The musical performance to my account is outstanding good!! rellay it transmits the joy of music and palying so well, this music stuck in my head for many days, and I know these pieces by Schumann are played and recorded quite a lot, so it's not that easy for a musician to stay in his or her own style.
He hits every emeotional tone, the joyful ones as well as the sad or melancholic, serious or tempest ones. I am pretty sure that we can expect a lot from this young pianist, i will sure have a look at his other recordings after this one.
Considering sound I am also quite happy. With piano recordings for me it's always difficult, there are a couple of ways to transmit a nice beautiful piano sound, of course very much dependend on the instrument itself. And there are a lot of ways to have bad piano sounds. This one is not one of my most preferred, but it is very natural, the room supports the music performance very well, it is not too big but gives some decent reflections that don't disturb the piano sound.
I would have preferred a bit more tidied up sound in the mid frequencies and there are actually quite a lot of playing 'noises' but as I said above, it's very natural, you believe the sound. it does not come across as artificial.The instrument has a very solid and clear bass register and the recording trnasmits that very well, high register also sounds brilliant and nice! Relation of room/spatial and direct sound is just right!
What else can I say? If reduced the stereo sound in half a star, because there for me the little weakness in the sound (midrange transparency) sticks out more. In surround it's all over all very comfortable and a very good engineered record!!
I definitely recommend buying this one.
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Review by JJ September 1, 2013 (1 of 2 found this review helpful)
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With these three scores, the Symphonic Studies Op.13, which Schumann began writing in 1834, Scenes from the Forest Op.82 dating from 1849, and Arabeske Op. 18 from 1839, the German pianist Martin Helmchen has signed a Schumann disc of great inspirational force, whose tone is both original and rigorous. For, as Harry Halbreich, states: “Whereas Chopin’s work is pure music in the most intransigent sense of the term, that of Liszt gives rise to either problems of virtuosity or extra-musical pretexts one can by and large qualify as exterior – folklore, evocations of scenes, philosophic ideas or metaphysics. In Schumann, it is poetry itself which turns itself into music.” The musical discourse that Helmchen delivers is bathed in this essential aspect, and as the composer himself said: “That which people cannot give me, music does; all the higher feelings I can translate the piano says for me.”
Jean-Jacques Millo
Translation Lawrence Schulman
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