Schumann: Symphonic Etudes, Op.13 (Suzuki)

Ladies and Gentlemen, here is the sleeper to end all sleepers. Japanese pianist Hironao Suzuki is pretty much a no-name outside his country, as the couple of recordings he made are only distributed in Japan by their local label Triton/Octavia Records. This is the perfect demonstration that great artistry has nothing to do with international reputation.

Performances of Schumann's Symphonic Etudes can easily be divided into two categories: those that include the five posthumous variations, and those that do not.
Among the recordings that do include them, Suzuki's stands among the very best. In fact, his frenzied and overtly romantic traversal reaches levels of expressive intensity that have rarely been matched since Richter's benchmark performance. His pitiless and resolutely grim delivery of Etude 8 is a case in point.

Including the five posthumous variations is also a great way to challenge the good taste of the performer. Suzuki comes up with his own ordering, which has clearly been thought through and attest to his probing musicality.
For example, the ascending and descending arpeggios of Etude 3 are mirrored in the scale patterns of Posth. 1.
Posth. 4, 2 and 5 are placed right in the middle of the piece and offer a very welcome poetic interlude in a piece of a such a relentless nature.

All repeats are observed (with the exception of the first repeat in Etude 2) and they are not gratuitous: Suzuki often takes advantage of them to play around with dynamics and voicing.

The bottom line is that this white-hot performance truly deserves more exposure. Suzuki plays with an admirable purposefulness and passion, and I have no shame in ranking it as one of the reference recordings of Schumann's mighty masterpiece.

00:00 Intro
00:13 Theme
01:57 Etude I (Variation I)
03:05 Etude II (Variation II)
05:34 Etude III
06:48 Posthumous Variation I
08:33 Etude IV (Variation III)
09:26 Etude V (Variation IV)
10:38 Posthumous Variation IV
13:57 Posthumous Variation II
16:14 Posthumous Variation V
18:58 Etude VI (Variation V)
19:51 Etude VII (Variation VI)
21:04 Etude VIII (Variation VII)
23:35 Etude IX
24:12 Etude X (Variation VIII)
25:29 Posthumous Variation III
26:44 Etude XI (Variation IX)
29:49 Etude XII

The Schumann playlist:    • SCHUMANN