Simon Trpčeski - Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms: Variations - Gramophone

Simon Trpčeski’s new Linn recording of masters of the variation is likely to inspire admiration and astonishment in equal measure. Far and away the longest of these sets is Brahms’s 1854 Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann, Op 9, which he dedicated to Clara. Trpčeski’s interpretation of this delicate, tender music is the most personal playing I have heard from him. Deeply upholstered, certainly, yet at the same time clear, ardent and heartfelt. Perhaps it’s the progression of the affects Brahms presents over the course of these 16 variations that Trpčeski finds so congenial. It doesn’t matter. What does is that this atmospheric performance is played so convincingly.