Sophia Agranovich: A Reverie of the Soul: Piano Works by Robert Schumann
Centaur Records

Issued earlier this year, pianist Sophia Agranovich's twelfth album was received rapturously by critics, and it's easy to understand why. The internationally acclaimed Steinway Artist, who's performed world-wide and received more than eighty international awards, shows herself to be a superb Robert Schumann (1810–1856) interpreter on the sixty-eight-minute release, which presents four beloved works by the composer. While these Romantic pieces are marked by extreme contrasts in emotion, imagination, and style, Agranovich brings impeccable musicianship and eloquent articulation to all, the result an electrifying Schumann recital capable of standing with the best of them.

Listeners familiar with the composer's musical universe will expect A Reverie of the Soul to range from stirring intimacy to tempestuous theatrics, and they won't be disappointed. They'll also be well-acquainted with biographical details that include his marriage to Clara Wieck and the alter egos he devised, fiery Florestan and introspective Eusebius, as conduits for his musical vision. His works reflect that dichotomy in the way they augment the formality of classical form with the passion of Romantic expression. Despite dying young (in a mental asylum at just forty-six), Schumann is still very much with us, his music never more popular than it is today.

The release starts with Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor, which aligns in structural manner to sonata form without constraining Schumann's robust energy and imagination. As if designed to distill the alter egos' qualities into a single work, the sonata ranges from episodes of triumphant declamation to gentle introspection. Consistent with its movement designation “So rasch wie möglich” (as fast as possible), the opening part blossoms quickly into a technically dazzling statement delivered with characteristic authority by Agranovich; gentler moments emerge too that show her confident essaying of the composer's sensitive side. Impetuous in the extreme, the movement careens between varying moods and tempos at light speed without, amazingly, losing focus. Moments of Wagnerian yearning sit alongside eruptions of volcanic Beethovian power as the pianist advances through the opening part's episodes. After the tumult of that beginning, the subsequent “Andantino” opts for lyrical splendour and serenity. Here too Agranovich's artistry is evident, this time in the care and sensitivity with which the material's paced and articulated. The scherzo-fashioned third part naturally shifts the work into different territory from the second, the pianist's playing nimble and rhythmically precise. Being short, the penultimate movement's quickly supplanted by the work's rondo-styled finale. Mirroring the volatile character of the opening part, the closer moves rapidly from one dynamic passage to another, an occasional slow moment arising for the pianist to catch her breath before the next frenzied section arrives.

The format of Symphonic Etudes suits Schumann splendidly in the way it grants his imagination full and free rein. Structured as a theme-and-variations, the piece begins with a tender statement voiced eloquently by Agranovich, after which it branches off into a freewheeling flow of variations, each of the twelve dubbed an étude and the contrasting extremes of Schumann's two personae again very much in play. There's playfulness and devilry in the fast ones, probing lyricism in the slow ones, each an enticing reflection of the composer's sensibility. All but one last no more than one to three minutes at a time, the boisterous six-minute closer the exception. A multitude of piano techniques is encompassed by a work teeming with rippling runs, militant marches, torrential flurries, and aching romantic statements, Agranovich unerring in her execution of the work's many twists and turns.

Two long-from pieces make up the recording's second half, Arabeske (1839) the first, Papillons (1831) the second. The former, a luminous expression of yearning and tenderness, is regarded by some as a reflection of the composer's longing for Clara during a time of separation. The eight-minute piece was written during a period of personal turmoil and legal difficulties but nevertheless leans in Eusebius's direction when a graceful theme captivates one's attention at the outset. It becomes a springboard, of course, for a number of episodes, some gentle and others buoyant, before the singing theme reinstates itself and the cycle begins all over again. Schumann composed Papillons, a beguiling suite of twelve short pieces, at the age of twenty-one and drew for its inspiration from the masked ball scene in Jean Paul's Flegeljahre. Two characters in the novel, mask-switchers Walt and Vult, might be seen as parallels to Florestan and Eusebius, and consistent with that duality the kaleidoscopic music explores an array of moods over the course of its fifteen-minute run. Dances of various kinds—waltzes, polonaises, etc.—surface, albeit fleetingly as transitions occur rapidly, and the light-fluttering feel of the music makes good on the promise of the work's butterflies-related title.

August 2026