Evgeny Kissin is an interpreter who tends to shoot from the hip in the big Romantic masterpieces, resulting in many moments of genius rubbing up against baffling gaucheries. Fortunately, nearly everything comes together for Kissin in his late-1990s recordings of Schumann’s Kreisleriana and C major Fantasy. The latter virtually explodes in the face of Kissin’s ardent, volatile virtuosity, which dwells at opposite ends of the scale from Pollini’s ironclad, symphonically inclined steadiness. Particularly noteworthy (all puns intended) are Kissin’s spectacular leaps in the second-movement coda, where he cleanly delineates the outer voices most other pianists are merely content to hit accurately. The whiplash articulation and huge dynamic range Kissin brings to Kreisleriana’s faster movements are cut from the same Dionysian cloth that shrouds the great Horowitz (Sony) and Argerich (DG) recordings. In short, the catalog claims no stromger coupling of these works, and with Kissin on top form, who can resist? [6/14/2004]
