Make no mistake about it, Ivan Moravec ranks among the handful of today's (and any day's) keyboard geniuses. His recordings tend to come few and far between, so it's especially exciting to be able to welcome these transcendent interpretations back into the catalog. This Schumann concerto certainly belongs among the best ever recorded. From the opening note you can tell something special is happening: those marvelous Czech winds, the pure poetry that marks Moravec's phrasing of the opening tune, the steady way soloist and conductor call the orchestra to life in the ensuing transition, the chamber music-like exchanges between Moravec and the Czech Philharmonic, his willingness to accompany when the music calls for it--all of these traits bear the hallmarks of true greatness. And make no mistake, for all his sensitivity to nuance, Moravec's vision of this music has no inhibitions whatsoever. Listen to how, for example, he takes the first movement recapitulation with more confidence than the first time around, no mere literal repeat, or to the huge wall of piano sound he conjures up in the same movement's closing two or three minutes. Similarly, the finale swings with an impetuous rhythmic thrust almost physical in its impact. What a joy this performance is!

Moravec's Franck Symphonic Variations manage to combine both suave elegance and brilliance in perfect proportion. The way Moravec coaxes the maximum intensity of sound from the upper registers of the keyboard without ever becoming clattery or shrill is simply marvelous, and once again Neumann and the Czech Phil offer spirited support. In Kinderszenen Moravec takes center stage alone, with no less delicious results. In Hasche-Mann, he demonstrates that the appearance of speed depends as much on articulation and balance of tone as on sheer velocity; while Träumerei proves conclusively that there's a big difference between being dreamy and being catatonic. Supraphon's remastering has these recordings sounding better than ever. In particular, they've managed to tame the Rudolfinum's vast reverberation without undue spotlighting or compromise in clarity. Pianophiles rejoice!

Jeder Versuch, das Klaveirspiel von Ivan Moravec mit einem Schlagwort zu charakterisieren, muss zwangsläufig scheitern. Zu komplex sind seine Interpretationen. Viele pianistische Tugenden vereinen sich hier mit einer solchen Selbstverständlichkeit, als sei gleichermaßen intelligentes wie klanglich generöses Musizieren das Selbstverständlichste von der Welt. Phänomenal ist Moravecs jugendlich-blühender Ton mit exquisiten Phrasierungen in Schumanns Klavierkonzert, hervorragend begleitet von der Tschechischen Philharmonie unter Václav Neumann. Die Kinderszenen dagegen gleichen in ihrer magischen Entrücktheit einer transzendentalen Studie über verlorene Gefühlswelten, während die Franck-Variationen fast asketisch erscheinen, wobei Moravecs glitzernde Brillanz dennoch voll zur Geltung kommt.

... Diese Aufnahmen machen unmissvertändlich deutlich, wie weit Moravec, der mehr an der Vermittlung von Musik arbeitet als an der Vermarktung seiner Person, selbst vom Gros der besten Pianisten entfernt ist.

Readers interested in a recording of the Schumann concerto by a living artist should opt for Czech pianist Ivan Moravec on Supraphon.

Schumann's A Minor Piano Concerto is not only one of the great masterpieces of the repertoire but one of the great touchstones as well. One can tell a lot about a pianist from his performance of it. It is not an easy piece of music for pianists to ignore, and most of the major ones have had a shot at recording it at one time or another, producing a quantity of high-level renditions that is matched by few other works. However, it is not the quantity and quality of the many recordings that are impressive, but the great variety of the interpretations. Poetic, intellectual, classical, romantic, inward, extroverted, and all-out virtuoso approaches all have something to bring to the music which, purely as an arrangement of notes, 'works' so well as to leave ample room for interpretative latitude.

Such an introduction seems necessary because the latest recording of the Schumann concerto - by Ivan Moravec with the Czech Philharmonic conducted by Václav Neumann on the Supraphon label - is a rendition like none I have ever heard before. How to describe it? Well, one might say it seems to have more notes in it than any other performance. Now, obviously, the artists play the same score that everybody else does, but one is made to hear more of it - counterpoint, inner voices, bass accents, accompanimental figurations - so that the whole work seems immeasurably richer in musical material. As a result, the time scale of the music seems to lengthen and one gets pulled more and more into it. There is here, particularly on Moravec's part, ample fire, ample virtuosity, ample poetry, ample lyricism, and much beautiful sound, but the major characteristic of the performance is richness: nothing is thrown away, nothing is submerged, every detail is given its individual weight and nuance and integrated into the fabric.

Moravec does not make it all sound easy. The very approach sets up a tension at the beginning of the concerto - the tension inherent in any attempt to do something tremendously difficult and do it perfectly - which is not resolved until the very end of the concerto. The triumph at the end - because one has felt the tension throughout, manipulated in different ways through the opening, the slow movement, and the finale - is overwhelming. It is, on the one hand, a lesson in what the Romantic solo concerto is all about and, on the other hand, a representation of the work as chamber music on the grandest possible scale.

The Franck Symphonic Variations, too, offered here to fill out the second side, is not your usual light-handed, lighthearted French performance, but one that probes every expressive nuance. If the interpretation has a flaw it is that it exposes the work's inherent propensity merely to stop rather than to end.

Doubtless there are better orchestras in the world today than the Czech Philharmonic, and better and more renowned conductors than Neumann, but it is hard to see how their contributions here could be improved upon. What Moravec offers is what I have come, over the years, finally to recognize as a typical Moravec performance, what makes him, for me, one of the greatest pianists in the world today. The Czech recording engineers have done nobly (a little overbalance in favor of the piano is evident at moments in the first movement), and playback in SQ four-channel adds a bit more depth. Only the necessity of breaking the Schumann concerto between the second and third movements produces any real drawbacks to this issue, but I do not see, checking the timings, how the music could have been arranged otherwise. The Schumann concerto is not a work to be known through a single recording, no matter how good, but this record is basic in any library.

The Franck recalls something of Cortot's proud rhetoric, while Moravec thoroughly matches Rubinstein's sparkle and style. The pianist takes the stage for himself in Kinderszenen... and invests Schumann's evocative cycle with original touches that only fortify what the composer had in mind.

It is a warmly, surely played disk, reminiscent of Rubinstein's gracious authority.

Ivan Moravec's mastery of tone is legendary, and these performances show that legend and fact are sometimes one and the same...The Schumann manages to balance poetry and energy in near-perfect equilibrium. The Kinderszenen, from 1987, is an alluring reading--the famous 'Traumerei' is otherworldly but not lethargic, and the pianist's sensitivity is manifest in every bar. Lovers of the piano, and pianists (aspiring or otherwise) should not miss this one.

These are polished, ultra-sensitive performances that eschew any trace of Teutonic heaviness. Moravec conveys a multitude of color and character in the thirteen pieces of Kinderszenen.