“Schumann is the composer who has almost always been at the true centre of my thoughts” says Heinz Holliger, and the brilliant performance by Alexander Lonquich illuminates deep connections between the sound-worlds and imaginations of two great composers separated by one and half centuries. In this remarkable recital, Lonquich offers new insights in his account of the 1838 first edition of Kreisleriana op. 16, and then plunges deep into Holliger’s contemporary invocation of Schumann, the “radicalized romanticism” of the 1999 piano cycle “Partita”.
Robert Schumann / Heinz Holliger
Alexander Lonquich
- Kreisleriana op. 16
- 1I Äußerst bewegt02:02
- 2II Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch - Intermezzo I. Sehr lebhaft - Erstes Tempo - Intermezzo II. Etwas bewegter - Langsamer08:27
- 3III Sehr aufgeregt - Etwas langsamer - Erstes Tempo05:02
- 4IV Sehr langsam - Bewegter - Erstes Tempo04:34
- 5V Sehr lebhaft03:11
- 6VI Sehr langsam - Etwas bewegter - Erstes Tempo06:08
- 7VII Sehr rasch - Noch schneller - Etwas langsamer02:03
- 8VIII Schnell und spielend03:15
- Partita (1999)
- 9I Praeludium ("Innere Stimme")05:19
- 10II Fuga07:12
- 11III Barcarola03:23
- 12IV Sphynxen für Sch. (Intermezzo I)02:49
- 13V Petit "Csárdás obstiné"01:21
- 14VI Sphynxen für Sch. (Intermezzo II)03:13
- 15VII Ciacona monoritmica13:50
Lonquich rithly favours the original Kreisleriana over Schumann’s 1849 revision, smoothing out eccentricities that are also subtleties, for it offers a deeper bond with Holliger’s adventurousness. The latter’s imposing Partita includes a substantial fugue and longer chaconne, as well as two intermezzi called Sphynxen für Sch, homages to the Sphinx ciphers in Schumann’s Carnaval, but utilising the inside of the piano.
Paul Driver, Sunday Times
Alexander Lonquich (…)spielt Schumanns „Kreisleriana“ in der Erstausgabe von 1838, möchte deren ganz eigenen Charakter herausstellen – extremer, kühner, kontrastreicher, zerrissener als die zwölf Jahre später entstandene Überarbeitung, von der heutige Pianisten meist ausgehen. Was für ein Moment, wenn dann das verhuschte letzte Kreislerianum „schnell und spielend“ in die Tiefe auströpfelt – und gleich darauf aus dieser Tiefe eine heftige Tonkaskade emporschießt, immer wieder abrupt abbricht, scheinbar ihrem eigenen Nachhall nachlauscht. Als hätte der Schweizer Heinz Holliger diese dunkel getönte, im Duktus Schumann nicht unähnliche „Partita“ (1999) eigens für diese Kollision mit dem romantischen Vorbild geschrieben.
Carsten Fastner, Falter
Lonquich verleiht in seiner atemberaubend sichren Schumann-Lektüre den teils extremen polyphonen Verschachtelungen klare Konturen und folgt mit klanglichen Schattierungen den harmonischen Besonderheiten, spürt aber vergleichbaren Kennzeichen auch in seiner feinnervigen, auf Tastatur und Klavierinnenraum bis in dynamische Grenzregionen ausgeloteten Holliger-Interpretationen auf, wodurch in beiden Fällen die Tendenz zur gedanklichen Überschreitung des Instruments deutlich wird.
Stefan Drees, Musik der Zeit
Was für ein Moment, wenn dann das verhuschte letzte Kreislerianum „schnell und spielend“ in die Tiefe auströpfelt – und gleich darauf aus dieser Tiefe eine heftige Tonkaskade emporschießt, immer wieder abrupt abbricht, scheinbar ihrem eigenen Nachhall nachlauscht. Als hätte der Schweizer Heinz Holliger diese dunkel getönte, im Duktus Schumann nicht unähnliche „Partita“ (1999) eigens für diese Kollision mit dem romantischen Vorbild geschrieben.
Carsten Fastner, Falter
Robert Schumann: Kreisleriana, Heinz Holliger: Partita – Lonquich gelingt nun das Kunststück, diese beiden doch unterschiedlichen Werke zu verbinden. Er betont dabei weniger das Versponnene, sein Kreisler ist kein so leichtfüßiger Tänzer, wie man ihn sonst hört. Vielleicht wirkt seine Interpretation sogar mehr erden. Dadurch aber vermag Lonquich die Energien zu bündeln – was wiederum Holligers Musik zugute kommt. Die Obsession in der Fuge und in der Chaconne etwa entsteht nicht durch Kraftentladung, sondern durch innere Spannkraft: Sprengkraft durch Anbindung gleichsam.
Thomas Meyer, Schweizer Musikzeitung
His discreet pedaling and voicing permit every melodic strand to be heard, even against dense accompaniments (Nos. 3, 5, and 7); his fast, dotted rhythms are unusually tight (Nos. 5 and 8); he plays in long phrases and often makes us unaware of bar lines (Nos. 2 and 4); his slow tempos are never excessively so (although No. 6 verges on this, but it is so heartbreakingly beautiful that no Schumannian will complain). He is also alert to the quirky qualities of the work without exaggerating them (Nos. 3 and 8 are complete triumphs), and his virtuosity is unbridled (Nos. 3 and 7). He even makes Schumann’s long tied notes audibily resolve during the pianissimo ending of No. 4. And, unlike most pianists, he follows Schumann’s first edition (1838) and does so very persuasively.
Charles Timbrell, Fanfare
“Schumann,” says Heinz Holliger, “is the composer who has almost always been at the true centre of my thoughts”. On this recording, Alexander Lonquich makes plain the connections between their worlds, linking Kreisleriana’s dark, nocturnal romanticism with the “radicalised romanticism” of Holliger’s Partita. A century and a half separates the two works. Lonquich plays the 1838 version of Kreisleriana and the Partita (composed in 1999), two works dedicated to great pianists, respectively Frédèric Chopin and Andràs Schiff, and conveys Holliger’s vision of the language of Schumann extended into the present.
“As the final echoes of Kreisleriana give way to the first movement of Heinz Holliger’s Partita, our first reaction is one of amazement”, writes Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich in the liner notes. “The prelude seems to be a direct continuation of the Schumann style, now hurled off track and channelled in directions which it enters as a matter of course, as if only a thin wall had kept its latent energies from exploding in full force. As might be expected, we soon notice that other forces and more rapid gesticulations are at work, that one and a half centuries of musical composition have prepared the ground for the compositional explosion here on display, sweeping aside all the hoary rules and props of musical academia.” The core energies of the Partita, allying idiosyncratic imagination to great technical demands, are anticipated in Kresleriana, whose “musical idiom is high-strung, impatient, constantly interrupted. This music is not so much firmly shaped and flowing as improvisatory – suddenly bursting forth, faltering, yet presented with the felicitous rapture of an exhilarating line of verse. The pianist Alexander Lonquich exposes himself mercilessly to the rough and tumble of Kreisleriana’s romanticism.”
Lonquich’s decision to work with the first version of Kreisleriana, rather than the better-known revised version of 1849 is explained by the pianist in a performer’s note in the CD booklet. “Many passages in the original edition have far more extreme dynamic and agogic markings than we find twelve years later. Several ritardandos – hesitations that interrupt the natural flow, sometimes coming almost to a standstill – were later 'expunged'... To follow this system of tempos and contrasts is unavoidably to court an impression of inner disunity. Highly imaginative flights of fancy seemingly detached from their context are laboriously pieced together into a whole – an exact portrait of Schumann's psyche… To my mind, the 1849 version sacrificed many subtleties to the need for simplicity and clarity. The second piece is unquestionably more polished and well-rounded in the later version, but isn't there a special attraction to the fragility of the initial conception? And again, aren't the two editions almost identical? No, they aren't. When I play them I feel that those accents, those hesitations are without doubt formally constitutive. The original version really does tell us a completely different story.“
“As the final echoes of Kreisleriana give way to the first movement of Heinz Holliger’s Partita, our first reaction is one of amazement”, writes Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich in the liner notes. “The prelude seems to be a direct continuation of the Schumann style, now hurled off track and channelled in directions which it enters as a matter of course, as if only a thin wall had kept its latent energies from exploding in full force. As might be expected, we soon notice that other forces and more rapid gesticulations are at work, that one and a half centuries of musical composition have prepared the ground for the compositional explosion here on display, sweeping aside all the hoary rules and props of musical academia.” The core energies of the Partita, allying idiosyncratic imagination to great technical demands, are anticipated in Kresleriana, whose “musical idiom is high-strung, impatient, constantly interrupted. This music is not so much firmly shaped and flowing as improvisatory – suddenly bursting forth, faltering, yet presented with the felicitous rapture of an exhilarating line of verse. The pianist Alexander Lonquich exposes himself mercilessly to the rough and tumble of Kreisleriana’s romanticism.”
Lonquich’s decision to work with the first version of Kreisleriana, rather than the better-known revised version of 1849 is explained by the pianist in a performer’s note in the CD booklet. “Many passages in the original edition have far more extreme dynamic and agogic markings than we find twelve years later. Several ritardandos – hesitations that interrupt the natural flow, sometimes coming almost to a standstill – were later 'expunged'... To follow this system of tempos and contrasts is unavoidably to court an impression of inner disunity. Highly imaginative flights of fancy seemingly detached from their context are laboriously pieced together into a whole – an exact portrait of Schumann's psyche… To my mind, the 1849 version sacrificed many subtleties to the need for simplicity and clarity. The second piece is unquestionably more polished and well-rounded in the later version, but isn't there a special attraction to the fragility of the initial conception? And again, aren't the two editions almost identical? No, they aren't. When I play them I feel that those accents, those hesitations are without doubt formally constitutive. The original version really does tell us a completely different story.“
| YEAR | DATE | VENUE | LOCATION | |
| 2026 | January 13 | Pierre Boulez Saal | Berlin, Germany | |
| 2026 | January 18 | Max-Reger-Halle | Weiden, Germany | |
| 2026 | January 31 | Isarphilharmonie | Munich, Germany |
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