May 3, 2006
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Monday, 7:15 pm: A small knot of people is twisting and turning outside the locked gates of the German Embassy on Reservoir Road. A woman pushes the buzzer in the gate, waits, pushes again. I'm watching from my car across the street, scrolling through the iPod and trying to remember how Robert Schumann died -- syphillis? Or some other 19th Century delight? More people arrive; the knot is getting annoyed and starting to make sharp little gestures of impatience. Finally, an official bustles down and starts to check names off a clipboard, letting people through the gate one by one. Concert-going in the 21st Century.

The lovely ClaraMozart tonight, and Schumann, and Schubert. Heard so little modern music in the past few months my ears are starting to mold. But I'm sure it's a good mold! Like ... penicillin. Schumann's classic Dichterliebe is the focus tonight. "From my tears sprout forth / Many blooming flowers / And my sighing becomes joined with / The chorus of the nightingales." It sounds better in German. But still -- a little too much chit chat with the flowers. At fifteen, this seems like poetry; beyond that, parody.

Hard for us moderns to be patient with Schumann -- he marries the lovely Clara, gets obsessed that an imagined "other" will come between them, and despairs. Over ... let's see ... basically nothing, if I have it right. My 12 year old would advise him to get over himself, pronto. Is there anything less sympathetic to our tough modern hearts than Romanticism? Not at my house.

But the concert itself: hands-down brilliant. Ann Schein's musicianship made me want to hug her in weepy gratitude, and while the blush of youth is off Jerome Barry's voice, alas, he gave a fine reading of the Schumann.

Here's the review for the Post:

The Washington Post: Thank God for Ann Schein. With all the mane-tossing, keyboard-splintering wunderkinder cluttering up concert halls these days, what a relief it is to hear a pianist who, with no fuss or muss, simply reaches right into the heart of whatever she’s playing -- and creates music so powerful you cannot tear yourself away.

And that was what Schein (with a superb company of musicians) did at the Embassy of Germany on Monday night, as part of this season's Embassy Series. The program opened with a chamber version of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A major, K. 414, in which Schein was joined by Peter Sirotin and Claudia Chudacoff on violins, Michael Stepniak on viola, and Thomas Kraines on cello. But this was not some anemic cousin of the full-orchestra version; Schein and company rolled up their sleeves and unleashed a riveting, richly-nuanced account that rung with tensile strength and a sweeping sense of line.

It was a breathtaking performance, and Schein followed it with more wonders: two of Franz Schubert’s “Impromptus” from Opus 90. It’s easy to get lost in the improvisatory mists of these works, but in Schein’s hands they unfolded with powerful, clear-eyed logic – while smoldering dangerously underneath.

Fine as all this was, the evening built to an even greater climax with Robert Schumann’s fascinating “Dichterliebe” song cycle, given a beautifully detailed and sensitive reading by baritone Jerome Barry. One of the area’s most accomplished singers, Barry clearly had no fear of Schumann’s perilous emotional terrain, and sang with beauty and deep, deep conviction.