Géza Anda, pianists and Schumann

In my pantheon of favourite pianists, Géza Anda and Maurizio Pollini are two who I listen to regularly.  Something common to the pianists I admire the most seems to be that I like how they play Schumann.  I just had a student ask me "what's this" as he wandered into my classroom to get a kleenex.  I said it's Géza Anda playing Schumann's Symphonic Etudes (pointing to a picture of Anda on my bulletin board).   A little later, a colleague heard Schumann's Fantasie playing and said "that's too cultured for us here".  I told him - not at all, a student just asked me what was playing earlier.  Last year, another student had asked me "what's that" when I had Perahia's recording of the Brahms' Handel Variations playing.  He actually wrote down the name of the work!

Anda died on 1976 June 13.  It was Maurizio Pollini's recording of the Symphonic Etudes that started my adoration for Schumann's music.  I ordered that CD from Templar Records in London, England when I was in grade 10.  Indeed, Schumann's Fantasie, Opus 17 is my favorite solo piano work.  In think during spring final exams in my 3rd year undergrad, Paul Robinson and Bruce Surtees were discussing Opus 17 on a Sunday afternoon (the station was CJRT - then Toronto's community station).  Bruce Surtees said the ending was like an open question.  Very beautiful and passionate - Romantic music to the core!  Many years later, my sister happened to be listening to Pollini's Symphonic Etudes CD playing and said she liked it.  So, that CD passed onto her.  My older son has been humming along to this CD as well the past few days as I return to listening to old favourites that haven't been playing very much recently!