Elisso Wirssaladze: Schumann – Piano Sonata 11 & 22, Waldszenen (APE)

Performer: Elisso Wirssaladze
Composer: Robert Schumann
Audio CD
SPARS Code: ADD
Number of Discs: 1
Format: APE (tracks)
Label: Live Classics
Size: 270 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: no

# Piano Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor (“Grosse Sonate”), Op. 11
Composed by Robert Schumann
with Elisso Wirssaladze

# Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22
Composed by Robert Schumann
with Elisso Wirssaladze

# Waldszenen No. 1 (“Eintritt”), for piano, Op. 82/1
Composed by Robert Schumann
with Elisso Wirssaladze

# Waldszenen No. 2 (“Jäger auf der Lauer”), for piano, Op. 82/2
Composed by Robert Schumann
with Elisso Wirssaladze

# Waldszenen No. 3 (“Einsame Blumen”), for piano, Op. 82/3
Composed by Robert Schumann
with Elisso Wirssaladze

# Waldszenen No. 4 (“Verrufene Stelle”), for piano, Op. 82/4
Composed by Robert Schumann
with Elisso Wirssaladze

# Waldszenen No. 5 (“Freundliche Landschaft”), for piano, Op. 82/5
Composed by Robert Schumann
with Elisso Wirssaladze

# Waldszenen No. 6 (“Herberge”), for piano, Op. 82/6
Composed by Robert Schumann
with Elisso Wirssaladze

# Waldszenen No. 7 (“Vogel als Prophet”), for piano, Op. 82/7
Composed by Robert Schumann
with Elisso Wirssaladze

# Waldszenen No. 8 (“Jagdlied”), for piano, Op. 82/8
Composed by Robert Schumann
with Elisso Wirssaladze

# Waldszenen No. 9 (“Abschied”), for piano, Op. 82/9
Composed by Robert Schumann
with Elisso Wirssaladze

A Pianistic Titan

I cannot remember the last time I was so impressed by a new (to me) pianist at first hearing. But this record simply knocked my socks off! Elisso Wirssaladze is a Georgian pianist in her fifties, professor of piano at the Moscow Conservatory. She was third-prize winner in the Tchaikovsky Competition of 1962. And I’d never heard of her until a friend loaned me this disc. I am stunned to see that there are almost twenty recordings of hers available at Amazon.com and not one of them has been reviewed. (By the way, her name is sometimes transliterated from the Russian as ‘Eliso Virsaladze.’) She appears to specialize in the Romantic piano literature and I certainly intend to get her recording of one of my favorite Schumann works, the Fantasie in C, as soon as I can.

This disc contains the Schumann First and Second Piano Sonatas and the Waldszenen. In the First, I is titanic. This is a huge movement that has both introspective sections and others that move ‘so rasch wie m’öglich’ [‘as fast as possible’] and I’ve never heard the latter played as fast as here. Martha Argerich comes close. Wirssaladze’s playing gives the impression in those sections that it is within a hair of falling apart, and indeed there is one section where her left hand gets marginally ahead of her right, but the excitement she generates is almost unbearable. You simply have to hear it to believe it.

She is not just a speed-merchant, though. The Aria (second movement) in the First Sonata as well as the Andantino of the Second Sonata are relaxed, songful, tender, almost crooning as in a lullaby. Gorgeous. The Second’s Scherzo [‘sehr rasch und markiert’–‘very fast and marked’] is the soul of Schumann’s Florestan persona – headlong, impulsive, and idealistically earnest.

‘Waldszenen’ (‘Forest Scenes’) is, of course, a collection of character pieces which are altogether more picturesque than the Sonatas. This bucolic spirit is interrupted only briefly by the fourth piece, ‘Verrufene Stelle’ [‘Haunted Place’], with its misterioso tone. Wirssaladze plays the set in fairly subdued fashion, as if to let us know that she can play calmly, reflectively, after all the drama inherent in the two Sonatas.

In short, this is, to me, an exciting introduction to a pianist whose other recordings I intend to seek out.

Recommended strongly.

Review by Scott Morrison