Schumann: Fantasiestücke, Op. 12

“BBC Legends have done no greater service than issuing so much Richter, and this latest disc of Schubert and Schumann, with a magical Debussy encore, shows him at his most intimate with the composers he loved most.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2008 *****

“Schubert composed his A minor Sonata, D784 in 1823, the year in which he learnt he was suffering from an incurable venereal disease. Richter digs deep in this remarkably, bleak and uncompromising reading. The enforced optimism of the final Allegro vivace leaves us with a bitter taste, while the famously treacherous closing octave triplets are dispatched with breathtaking nonchalance.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2007

“The performance is hypnotic, full of the subtlest shades of colour” Donald Manildi, International Record Review

“In this young Irish pianist we have an artist of rare poetic empathy, one with an uncanny and moving capacity to arrive at the still centre, the very heart, of Schumann's teeming and frenzied imagination.
Winner of the 1999 Clara Haskil Competition, Collins is here to stay. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that he plays in the spirit of Haskil herself, a great artist who while appearing to do so little ended by doing everything. At his finest his playing is enviably clear and transparent yet touched with a subtle and distinctive eloquence, allowing Schumann's voice to shine through. Hear him in the Waldszenen, capturing the quizzical melancholy in 'Vogel als Prophet' and the dark and lighter sides of Schumann's szhizophrenic nature in the sinister 'Verrufene Stelle' and 'Freundliche Landschaft'.
The storm clouds scud across the sky in the first of the Fantasiestücke, Op 111, and the B minor Allegro, a souvenir of Schumann's early ambitions as a virtuoso pianist, takes on a new poetic quality and dimension, and never more so than in the glorious sunset coda. Kinderszenen glows with an inner warmth and radiance, 'Träumerei' displaying rare musical honesty and 'Rocking Horse' set in realistic cantering rather than jet-propelled motion.
Humoreske, a notably elusive challenge, is again a marvel of interior light, grace and energy, and if Collins's Fantasiestücke, Op 12, are less illuminating they include a fascinating final addition, a 'Feurigst' normally excluded. Claves's sound is as natural as the playing.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Here's a disc of fine Schumann playing, superbly recorded and on a beautifully voiced piano. To undertake a critical nit-pick of each of the 27 short pieces that make up these three works would seem invidious and, besides, not reflect the spirit in which the music is offered. In the Fantasiestücke some might feel that Cassard uses too much pedal here, or takes such-and-such too fast or too slow there; others might justifiably counter by saying that Richter in his famous 1956 selection uses too little pedal, and strives for effect, compared with Cassard's more relaxed approach in infinitely better sound.
Kinderszenen, likewise, is distinguished by its simplicity, its tenderness and unexaggerated rubato, nowhere more apparent than in the final 'Der Dichter spricht'. Perhaps Argerich finds more impish delight in the extrovert titles, but that again must be a matter of personal preference.
Humoreske – 42 pages almost all in B flat major or G minor – is one of Schumann's works that might have been more satisfactory had he let it mature in the cellar for a while before drinking.
It's difficult to overcome the problems presented by a continuous flow of fragments of such varying musical interest. Cassard almost succeeds if only because his mellifluous tone and subtle phrasing are such a pleasure to hear. Both Ashkenazy (1972) and Horowitz (1979) in their very different ways find more character in the details, the latter's pacing of Schumann's meandering 'Conclusion' more convincing than Cassard.
But that's quite the wrong note on which to conclude a review of a recital that merits the highest praise.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010