by Ron Schepper
The Schumann Project, Volume 1
Faliks is well-acquainted with the composers. […] Her intent isn’t to set up an evaluative battleground between the two [Schmanns], but instead show how comfortably their works sit alongside each other, something more easily accomplished when the release presents a single work by each. Faliks rightfully ponders how different things might have been had the nineteenth-century milieu been more conducive to treating the two as artistic equals.
Rich in yearning, ebullience, passion, and grandiosity and filled with laments, marches, and waltzes—the [brooding “Theme”] offers Faliks immense interpretive freedom.
This inaugural volume promises much for whatever else Faliks has planned for the series, and collectively the two recordings testify to her consummate artistry and the enduring nature of the composers’ works.