Paintings from the Piano (2005)

The Louisiana-based Centaur label offers quite a list of artists performing the traditional kind of piano recital, centered on a group of substantial Romantic works from different decades. This one is by hometown artist Jennifer Hayghe, who teaches at Louisiana State University. The vaguely Cubist watercolor painting of Hayghe on the cover is appealing, but the pages of white space in the back of the booklet suggest that no one involved with the project had a burning desire to say much about the music. Hayghe's very ... Read More

The Louisiana-based Centaur label offers quite a list of artists performing the traditional kind of piano recital, centered on a group of substantial Romantic works from different decades. This one is by hometown artist Jennifer Hayghe, who teaches at Louisiana State University. The vaguely Cubist watercolor painting of Hayghe on the cover is appealing, but the pages of white space in the back of the booklet suggest that no one involved with the project had a burning desire to say much about the music. Hayghe's very straightforward performances, though never less than competent, convey the same impression. The program is a logical one, with the three major works (introduced, puzzlingly, by a Busoni transcription of a Bach chorale prelude centered on the primarily nonvisual concept of prayer) all depicting more or less specific visual scenes. Hayghe's restrained readings bring little to Robert Schumann's Kinderszenen, Op. 15, and one misses in her performance the capricious quality that pervades... Read Less