Two composers, separated by more than a century, a continent and an entirely different sound idiom, brought together on one cd: it is a gamble that could turn out just as artificial as illuminating. With Gülçin Aslanova it turns out to be the latter. Her choice to couple the Davidsbündlertänze of Robert Schumann (1810-1856) with the 12 Miniatures of Azerbaijani composer Fikret Amirov (1922–1984) may look like a curiosity at first glance, but gains persuasive force upon listening: two worlds that, despite all distance, turn out to share what really matters: intimacy, narrative voice and a deep trust in the simplicity of the miniature.
Following this cd I also spoke with Gülçin Aslanova. Her explanation sheds interesting light on some choices that stand out upon listening and at the same time provides insight into the personal stories behind this programme.
Schumann's op. 6 is one of the most personal confessions in nineteenth-century piano literature. Written in 1837, the year of his engagement to Clara Wieck, the cycle is saturated with the inner conflict between Florestan and Eusebius – the two self-images with which Schumann gave a name to his impatience and his dreaminess. Each of the eighteen dances is "signed" by one of the two (or both) figures. Schumann even lets the cycle begin with a quotation from a mazurka by Clara Wieck – a wink before the first note of his own is heard. Aslanova chooses the rarer first edition of 1838, with the epigraphs and character names that fell away in later editions. For her this is not merely a historical choice: she regards the Davidsbündlertänze as a strongly autobiographical work and feels closer in the first version to the experiences underlying the music.
Musically too, that first version yields some details that are meaningful to her. In the original edition the cycle is divided into two books and the ninth dance closes the first part with a final measure that disappeared in the second version, whereby the development becomes less emphatically interrupted. Also the tied high note at the beginning of the work, which connects the opening with Clara's mazurka, is absent in the later version. Small details, says Aslanova, but they make the music "more ordinary" – something you really shouldn't say about Schumann.
What immediately strikes one is how much Aslanova resists the temptation to make Florestan louder than necessary. Her Florestan is impulsive without becoming theatrical, her Eusebius intimate without lapsing into vagueness. Especially in the long seventh piece, "Nicht schnell, mit äußerst starker Empfindung", she displays a sense of long lines and of the silences between phrases that not every pianist allows themselves. The final piece, which Schumann himself once wrote about with pride, takes on something touchingly restrained in her hands – no apotheosis, rather a hushed farewell.
That this pianist feels at home in Schumann is no surprise: her affinity is no accident – in the early 2000s she immersed herself in Tübingen, with support of a DAAD grant, in his early piano work. Her bond with the Davidsbündlertänze goes back even further, however. At the Baku Music Academy her professor recommended she study the work. She began it without ever having heard it: YouTube didn't exist yet and nowhere – not at home, not at the academy and not even in the state library – could she find a recording. She therefore read everything she could find about the work. That search fueled her interest in Schumann and eventually even led to her learning German. When the opportunity later arose to record a cd, she wanted to capture precisely this work.
Moreover, she studied song interpretation in Stuttgart, and that background you can hear: there is a lyricism in her approach that extends beyond purely pianistic rhetoric. Whoever places this Davidsbündlertänze alongside classical references such as Wilhelm Kempff – with his unparalleled sense of architecture and the interplay between Florestan and Eusebius – or alongside the restrained, narrative readings of Radu Lupu and Mitsuko Uchida, hears in Aslanova a related kind of restraint: not an interpretation that shakes these established names, but one that convinces in its own right.
Amirov's 12 Miniatures (1955) form a surprisingly natural sequel. The composer, whose name in the West remains chiefly associated with his symphonic arrangements of the mugam – the centuries-old, strongly improvised modal music tradition of Azerbaijan – saw the piano itself as a sounding board of nature and of the soul, in which, in his own words, the history of oriental music is as it were enclosed in overtones. You hear that notion again: the miniatures build on his experience with the tar, the traditional Azerbaijani plucked instrument that also plays a central role in the mugam.
With this recording Aslanova deliberately wanted to draw attention to the lesser-known piano music of Amirov. Her personal involvement with Amirov's music goes back to her student days, when she helped her English teacher write an article about Amirov. In doing so she discovered that one of the teachers at her academy had once given Amirov piano lessons. That direct connection with a composer she could never meet herself made an impression on her.
Remarkably, her own acquaintance with the tar came much later, in Germany. Her son, born in Germany, wanted to learn to play the tar several years ago and is currently doing so online. Aslanova sits beside him and helps him, which led her to immerse herself anew in the instrument and its sonic world. That unexpected detour gave her, in her own words, a new access to Amirov's music, and you hear that in her playing: ornaments that "speak" instead of being finished decoratively, whereby the boundary between improvised folk music and notated art music fades effortlessly. The Toccata and the concluding March, on the other hand, receive sufficient rhythm and resilience to avoid sinking into exoticism.
I must admit that this discovery in particular has stayed with me most from this cd: Amirov is hardly known to us, and precisely for that reason his music surprises so pleasantly – colorful, melodious, and with a language of its own that never sounds exotic for exoticism's sake. These 12 Miniatures certainly make one very curious about the rest of his oeuvre.
The recording, made on a Steingraeber & Söhne concert grand piano model E in the Steingraeber Haus in Bayreuth, is warm and generous without becoming hazy. The recording technique follows Aslanova closely, down to her finest pedal work and touch nuances, without ever becoming obtrusively near – precisely what both Schumann's intimacy and Amirov's colorfulness need.
One blemish on the whole is the playing time: just under 49 minutes is on the short side for a release in 2026. With Amirov's other piano works, or if necessary a second Schumann cycle, this program could easily have been expanded to a full 65 to 70 minutes – a missed opportunity to give this already so successful twosome a bit more body.
Aslanova was aware of this. She considered adding Schumann's Novelette in F-sharp minor, no. 8 from op. 21, or Amirov's Variations for piano, but feared that both options would push Amirov too much into the background: the Novelette would overshadow Amirov, while the Variations would break the closed form of the miniatures cycle. She therefore chose to add nothing merely to artificially extend the playing time.
Even after this recording, Aslanova is already looking ahead. Currently she is studying Schumann's eight Novelettes op. 21, together with Granados' Escenas románticas and Allegro de concierto, and a piano arrangement of Kara Karayev's symphonic sketches Don Quichot – originally film music from 1957, later reworked by the composer himself into symphonic pieces and arranged for piano by his son Faradsch Karayev. A combination with Granados, she says, could well turn out to be particularly interesting.
That said, this cd is much more than a curiosity: it is small proof that two distant worlds, in the right hands, always seemed to know each other – and that Gülçin Aslanova has those hands.
