About the Album

This album brings together three of Robert Schumann's most intimate and imaginative solo piano works: the volatile Kreisleriana, the grand and emotional Fantasie in C, and the poetic, inward-looking Arabeske.

A constant voice throughout this recording is Clara Schumann. Her presence shaped Robert’s creative vision, not only as his muse and confidante but as an artistic equal. This interpretation seeks to honor Clara’s influence as a guiding emotional thread, drawing out the dialogues between tenderness and turbulence, reflection and fervor.

These works reveal Robert's Romantic psyche at its most unguarded — literary, virtuosic, and deeply human.

“Schumann has been a lifelong fascination — a companion in thought and feeling. Every phrase and melody is a conversation, every silence a hesitation of the soul. His world shaped mine: how I hear, how I play, and how I believe music should speak.”

Robert Poortinga