Remarkably, this is Mitsuko Uchida's first recording devoted to Schumann. And I have the impression that in these two so very often recorded works her primary aim was to shed new light, or in other words to make them wholly and uniquely her own. Much of what we hear is as refreshingly imaginative as it is pianistically exemplary. Now and again, however, I was a bit too aware of a conscious interpreter, and not least in the more searching introspection of Kreisleriana. The Eusebius she conjures in Nos. 4 and 6 could be mistaken for some aged seer on his deathbed, so static is her pulse. Even in No. 2 (marked Sehr innig, nicht zu rasch) the melody is not allowed its natural flow—sometimes (as in one or two other lyrical contexts) impeded by excessive rubato. It is interesting to note that her timing for this number is 90 seconds longer than Lupu's nine minutes in his own unforgettable recent recording. Florestan fares better from Uchida, not least in No. 7, so often gabbled. And there is much to enjoy in her nonchalant nimbleness (even if tempos are fastish) in the work's Hoffmannesque whimsy.
She relishes the fantasy and caprice of Carnaval with an arrestingly vivid immediacy of characterization—sometimes, perhaps, a little over-excitably, sometimes a little too obtrusively coquettish in details of rubato (like those lingering E flats in the reprise of ''Valse noble''). But there is never a dull moment. And rightly or wrongly she includes the mysterious ''Sphinxes'' (in sepulchral octaves) so often left silent. The recording itself is acceptable. R1 '9505099'