Brahms: Complete Variations

Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy is a superb pianist and a superlative Brahms player. While he may not have the final degree of supreme virtuosity needed to play the most excruciatingly difficult pages of the Variations on a Theme of Paganini, those pages have stymied nearly every pianist, and there is no shame in dropping some notes and smudging some lines if the heart and soul and spirit are there. And, in all of Schmitt-Leonardy's performances, the heart and soul and spirit are right there, inhabiting the vigorous but melancholy ... Read More

Wolfram Schmitt-Leonardy is a superb pianist and a superlative Brahms player. While he may not have the final degree of supreme virtuosity needed to play the most excruciatingly difficult pages of the Variations on a Theme of Paganini, those pages have stymied nearly every pianist, and there is no shame in dropping some notes and smudging some lines if the heart and soul and spirit are there. And, in all of Schmitt-Leonardy's performances, the heart and soul and spirit are right there, inhabiting the vigorous but melancholy world of Brahms. Of course. Schmitt-Leonardy's mind is there, too: the intellectual power of his Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel is dazzling. But the essence of Schmitt-Leonardy's performances, like the core of Brahms' music, is in the chiaroscuro, in the shades between light and shadow and the distance between joy and sorrow. Schmitt-Leonardy's Variations on a Hungarian Theme and especially his Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann find Brahms' heart and soul and... Read Less