A flurry of notes and an accelerator of tempo

For the fact that it is performed only comparatively seldom, however, quite a bit has already been said about it. Of "too many notes or "virtuoso overload now and then the talk turned to robert schumann’s grande sonata. It was precisely this schumann to whom georgy tchaidze was particularly devoted on sunday afternoon in the world classical music series. The st. Petersburger drew the audience in the former synagogue into a schumannian aura.

Curious. While tchaidze (30) sabbed at the piano, sunbeams fell through the windows. Shortly before the concert, the weather must have ensured that not so many visitors decided to head for the box office. One cannot say that the romantic schumann (1810 to 1856) is comfortable to everyone and this work certainly not. But from the opening movement (allegro), the russian worked on a question that now spreads through the listener: why must he consider something fascinating that he can only grasp with difficulty?.

This combination of a torrent of notes and tempo accelerator contained so many leaps and bounds, so many elegiac interjections, so many abruptnesses, through which now and then a motif shimmered through and yet was carried away again by a new wave. Even back then, when schumann presented this tone poem at the age of 26, it also raised questions.

With pitying face

This also applied to thaidze, who asked himself how it was possible to keep all this in his head and to form it. But the man who forms expressions under his hands with a pitying face is not just anyone either. Stations of his work so far: concertgebouw in amsterdam, carnegie hall in new york. That he is from st. Petersburg, the co-organizer roberto bauer, who had slipped into the role of conferencier, later explained on stage: "st. Petersburg is the forge of many world stars (of classical music)."

The day before, the multiple prize-winner tchaidze, who has also focused on the music of schuberts, mussorgskys and prokofiev, gave a guest performance at the berliner konzerthaus. One of the most astonishing performances of the astonishingly rich program was tchaidze’s mastery of the second movement vivacissimo, in which a melody emerged and had to be nuanced in the minor-key range and in the background.

In the fourth movement, on the other hand, it was the urgent function of the bass that thrilled in the andantino de clara wieck. Exhaustion, fatigue or slackening concentration on the part of the pianist was nowhere in evidence. For modesty and quiet humor.

When bauer later called the man who had left the stage for an encore, for example, he acted surprised and pointed at himself with a questioning expression, and on the stage he gestured to bauer to sit down at the piano himself. With schumann’s carnaval opus 9, the russian once again set a mark and created 22 character sketches around the carnival in all precision and freshness.