"Incredible!"
"Not to be believed!"
"The surprise sensation of the year!"

Press Responses to Ann Schein's First Recordings

"Ann Schein is beyond the everyday great..."

Die Welt, Berlin

"...controlled passion and an absolute technical command..."

New York Times

"Everything was so dazzlingly played, so musically right that all one could do was sit back in gasping admiration."

The Washington Post

"She imparted a powerful grandeur...her audience went wild."

The Sun, Baltimore

To hear pianist Ann Schein perform is a voyage of discovery.

The Washington Post

What modern pianist is usually associated with Chopin-Pollini, Perahia, Ashkenazy? Well, for several hundreds people who attended the Dumbarton Concert Series over the weekend, that pianist is Ann Schein. Her all Chopin program, performed last Friday and Saturday, was simply outstanding, both in its organization and in its performance. Ms. Schein's playing brought to mind both the poetic quality which Chopin was reputed to have had, as well as the power and passion that was the trademark of Franz Liszt's playing. At the same time, her beautiful tone and the rhythmic freedom of her playing reminded one of that great Chopin master, Arthur Rubinstein, with whom Ms. Schein studied. 

WGMS, Dumbarton Concerts, Washington D.C.

If the perfect Chopin pianist did indeed exist, he or she would be both elegant and aristocratic and would combine spontaneity with effortless brilliance. Ann Schein comes close. Schein, a New Yorker with a long international career, performed Sunday with the Oregon Symphony at the Arlene Schnitzer Hall. She played Chopin's Piano Concerto, No. 2 in F Minor, a work that gives pianists plenty of opportunity to show their colors.

The three-movement concerto contains extended passages that alternate between glittering effect and soulful, expressiveness. Drama drives the piece, but graceful ornamentation makes it sing. Schein is a former student of the great Chopin player Arthur Rubinstein and it showed. A self-effacing performer, she seemed perfectly at home in the stylized 19 th-century language of poetic melancholy. Schein excelled in the slow movement. This alone was worth the concert. Her smooth cantabile phrasing spun as fine a filigree as anyone's.

Portland , Oregon

"Schein has made the Romantic literature the centerpiece of her repertoire, hardly surprising considering her teachers, Mieczyslaw Munz, Arthur Rubinstein, and Dame Myra Hess. She has lived with these major Schumann works long and intimately, and it shows in her performances as well as in her descriptive notes. With fluent keyboard technique at her disposal, Schein invests these works with poetic imagination and romantic flair. Her readings tend to be straightforward and without exaggeration, but sensitive and subtly nuanced. The recorded sound is close and vivid, adding to the enjoyment of this disc."

Fanfare Magazine

The piece d'occasion was the famous Sergei Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3, played by the winsome and world-acclaimed artist, Ann Schein. It is hoped that this commentator will be forgiven for a personal reference, but he is perhaps one of a very few in attendance at the concert to have heard a real live concert by Sergei Rachmaninoff as soloist in a production of his Concerto No. 3. It was a great, great experience, but not patently superior to that of Ann Schein. From the very beginning of her performance, she deftly drew her audience to an existential observation tower from which it witnessed a dazzling display of genius at work; a display of mastery over one of the most technically forbidding compositions in the library of piano concerti. The extended stomping, clapping and shouting at the end of the performance was a rousing tribute to the awesome artistry and talent of Ann Schein.  

Greenwich, Conn.

 Ann Schein's performance of this almost impossible piece was sensational, but there was something more - a spiritual presence.

Aspen Daily News, Aspen, CO

Ann Schein provided a consistent underpinning to the other musicians during the “Trout” quintet, setting an even tempo which controlled the pace of the several movements. But her playing also defined the emotional content of the quintet, whose inexhaustible profundities were well plumbed. The third movement in particular was presented as music of unalloyed joy.

www.allartsreview4u.com, Washington D.C.

Jessye Norman graced the Kennedy Center Concert Hall Monday night with a distinctly seasonal program. Robed in billows of purple and black, she sang, via Strauss and Berg, of youth and spring; and, for these seasons of Lent and Passover, she essayed the Catholic ecstasies of Oliver Messiaen and the brooding devotions od Ravel's "Deux Melodies Herbraiques." Her mastery of her voice is complete. Her understanding of her music is total. Her imagination encompasses a thousand timbral colors. And her generosity is inexhaustible. The usual word for a singer of her individuality and attainment is "diva," Italian for "goddess." Norman's performance suggests, instead, a priestly analogy. Certainly she sang her German love poetry with the appearance of deep feeling. But her conception of love in these songs was a Wagnerian, Masonic one. It had all to do with appetite, or even gender. The burningly intense Messiaen and Ravel were the best scores on the program. But the music was in Norman – and in Ann Schein, strong of mind, ear and hand, a glittering partner and pianist.

April 12, 1995 Washington Post

Schein' s piano delivers Romanticism - Equipped with great warmth and technique, pianist Ann Schein blazed through 100 years of Romanticism last night.

This listner revealed in the cascading octaves, graceful arpeggios, and pristine passage work. Schein had at her command all the resources that a demanding program required.

The recital opened with a buoyant performance of Schubert 's early Sonata in A Major. Composed during the happy summer that also produced the Trout Quintet, the sonata abounds in melody, and Schein delighted in the work 's tender interplay of major and minor. There was always power enough, but did it distort Schubert 's exquisite line.

Schein then ruined her attention to another towering figure of the Romantic era, Rachmaninoff. She chose two preludes and two rarely heard transcriptions, the Minuet of Bizet and the Hopak of Mussorgsky. Now out of fashion, transcriptions were still very trendy at the turn of the century when Rachmaninoff wrote them for his own use. Schooled in a tradition very close to that of the composer, Schein was obviously in her element. In fact, the pianist 's technique helped one appreciate the formidable prowess of Rachmaninoff as both arranger and performer. The first half of the recital ended with Prokofiev 's Sonata No. 3, a brilliant work in one movement that bursts with kinetic energy. The sonata oscillates between its love and disdain for the Romantic ethos. Schein tackled the craggy score with an abandon that rested on careful analysis and superb control. The second half was devoted entirely to Chopin 's Sonata No. 3 in B Minor. Fraught with technical challenges, the work also manipulates traditional form to suit the composer 's expressive needs. The Chopin selections were an ideal conclusion to a recital that honored the Romantic spirit.

Nov. 16, 1991 Jennifer Weiniger

Telegram & Gazette Reviewer

Her broad musicianship reflects the legacy of her teachers, Mieczyslaw Munz, Arthur Rubinstein, and Dame Myra Hess. With the influence of such teachers, it is no wonder that Schein is famous for her interpretations of Chopin. Throughout the 1980 season, in Lincoln Center 's Alice Tully Hall, she presented the major Chopin repertoire in the first Chopin cycle heard in New York in 35 years. Daringly, she opened with that heroic tour de force, Chopin 's Polonaise-Fantasie in A flat, Op. 61. She said that, in this, the composer portrays :the heroic – almost like the struggle between good and evil." Full ranges of color, dynamic expression, and melody were exposed. Where many recitals end, she began and then expanded. What a treat it was to hear all of the 24 Preludes of Op. 28! Each gem was presented with unaffected simplicity.

Ann Schein' s Radiant Piano Recital at Elon University

By William Thomas Walker

Ann Schein, appearing in the Portland Stat University Piano Recital Series on Saturday night, performed the music of the three "Sh 's: Schubert, Schumann and Chopin. These composers, who died prematurely at the age of 31, 46 and 39, respectively, transformed piano composition from Classical abstract sonata movements to Romantic miniature character pieces strung together like charms on a bracelet. Schein brought her Arthur Rubinstein-trained technique to Portland from the Peabody School of Music, where she teaches. Schein played the Impromptus fluidly; her left hand promoted subtle changes in harmony beneath the busy canopy of scales and arpeggios in the right hand. Schein saved her best playing for the second half of the concert. A cross between the precision of Maurizio Pollini and the creativity of Rubinstein, Schein performed Chopin 's enigmatic Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58, better than I have ever heard anyone play it. Her tone, touch and interpretation were exhilarating. The formless first movement, often criticized for its undeveloped themes, worked in Schein 's hands. The second movement Scherzo was played correctly fast, with a pensive, nocturnal slow middle section. The Largo prepared the way for one of the greatest final movements ever composed. Schein opened the Finale with a terrific crescendo of open octaves. This demonic rondo, which uses the middle range of the piano in an agonizing game of melodic tag, raged in Schein 's brilliant playing. The audience erupted in spirited applause.

Pianist shows how to ' play with heart'

By Nora Beck (Dec. 6, 1999) The Oregonian

In perusing the background of an artist, it's tempting to ascribe performance qualities to that person's teachers. So, since Ann Schein studied with Arthur Rubinstein, the vitality in her method of play­ing can be credited to him. And since she studied with Dame Myra Hess, Schein's patrician and elegant approach must come from her. And since she studied with the lesser known and yet distinguished Polish-­American Mieczyslaw Munz, the Romantic sweep in her pianism originated with him. Well, most likely the training is a factor in this veteran's art­istry; but she has long assimi­lated lessons and made of them just the contextual fabric for the totality of her amazing key­board mastery. Schein is a won­der who brought Wednesday evening's cheering audience in Auer Hall to its collective feet, this following a recital of the most demanding sort. For the dozens of young hopefuls from the IU Piano Academy who were present, what she offered should have served as a model for them. She made of every item on her program a highlight, starting with two of Schubert's Impromptus, the Nos. 2 and 3 from Opus 90, in E-Flat and G-Flat Major. To these she gave that important yet elu­sive sense of spontaneity while also emphasizing the song-like nature of the music. About 40 minutes of Schein's recital were devoted to the "Davidsbundelertan­ze" ("Dances .of the Band of David") by Schumann a set of 18 pieces that, like Chopin's Etudes, test a pianist's tech­nical abilities as well as the capacity to color performance with a wide range of moods. Schumann called them "char­acter pieces" and each, indeed, evokes an atmospheric essence. In Schein's hands, they were magic, a woven web of sug­gestive sentiments one could dream awake to. After intermission, Schein turned first to a pair of fra­grant samples from masters of Impressionism: Ravel's 1905 Sonatine and Debussy's 1904 "L'isle joyeuse." The sounds that rose from the piano here gained a luminous quality, and the crispness of touch that had marked the earlier Romantic fare switched to a more flowing nature, allowing for cascades of notes to escape from the pia­nist's fingers in rolling waves. Schein's mastery of music and instrument remained total. And that, certainly, held as she concluded with the Taran­tella from the Italian portion of Liszt's "Annees de Pelerinage," a display piece designed to test the composer's own leg­endary technique at the piano with Olympian demands in the forms of chordal passages and race-away scales and finger tricks doable only by the most proficient. Schein handled them with aplomb, as if they had been no problem at all to prepare, all just in an evening's work.

MUSIC REVIEW: ‘ANN SCHEIN RECITAL'
Pianist a remarkable talent
By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer, Bloomington, IN (June 22, 2007)

the pianist Ann Schein, whose “amazing keyboard mastery” transformed music of Schubert, Ravel, Debussy, Liszt, and – most of all – Schumann (his “Davidsbundelertanze”) into one of the most satisfying recitals I’ve ever experienced.

MUSIC BEAT
Past, present and future came together in 2007
Peter Jacobi H-T columnist (Dec.30,2007 )

It was the second time in less than a week that weather resulted in my losing out on musical pleasure. On the previous Sunday, delays in Chicago caused a late return to Indianapolis and, consequently, a missed opportunity to hear the Camerata Orchestra do the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto with pianist Ann Schein. I dearly wanted to hear this artist again, having fallen under her spell last summer when she gave an unforgettable recital in Auer Hall. A concerned music fan called the next day, expressing hope that I had been away and was not ill, since she did not see me in the Bloomington North Auditorium for that concert. I assured her I was OK. She assured me that it had been a very special occasion, a viewpoint several others have shared with me since.

Weather thwarts music, attendees more than once
Meanwhile, opera travels directly to the big screen
Peter Jacobi, H-T Reviewer (Dec. 17, 2007)

Schein revives a memory-laden Rachmaninoff
The legendry 'Rach 3' gets an airing this week at Thursday's ACO concert

Fifty years ago, at age 16, Aspen Music Festival and School artist-faculty pianist Ann Schein first performed Rachmaninoff’s third piano concerto at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. The concert launched a career that has spun off from the piece Schein describes as having everything – “drama, tenderness, beauty, fire, volcanic temperament, and color.” Since then, she has explored it countless times. “I have played it in at least forty different countries,” recalls Schein, who will play it again for the first time in five years at the 6 pm Thursday, June 29 Aspen Concert Orchestra concert. “It’s been a great friend – I love it in a way I cannot express in words. Each time I play it I think, ‘Am I going to play it again?’ So this summer is just a gift for me.” When Schein was 14, her teacher Mieczyslaw Munz taught her the piece, “telling me it would develop my hand strength and my technique, but that I would never play it,” she says. Rachmaninoff had dedicated the piece to Munz’s friend, Joseph Hoffman. It took Schein more than a year to learn it. Then, she recalls, one day Munz asked her if she would like to play it with an orchestra. And that, she says, is “what began this journey.” Two years later she played it at Peabody, and the next year – when she was 17 – she performed it for her formal concert debut, in Mexico City. In the years since, it has traveled with her around the world. From the Mexico City concert, to her many performances in London (including at the BBC Proms in Royal Albert Hall), to tours of the former Soviet Union, to an appearance at Rio de Janeiro, Rachmaninoff’s concerto helped shape her memories and perceptions of the places and people she has encountered. “The actual performing of [Rachmaninoff’s Third] in so many different circumstances gives it experience,” she says. “And I can’t really describe that.” Her debut in Mexico City, for instance, followed on the hells of a massive earthquake. “The night before I was a total basket case,” she says. “I had done it the first time with no fear, and the second time I thought, ‘What am I doing?’” At 3 am on the day she was to play the earthquake hit, and so at 11 am she went with her parents to the concert hall to see if the performance was still happening. “There was the orchestra, and the conductor,” she says. “About 1,00 people came in a state of shock, wanting to hear the music. I totally forgot my nerves because of the emotional experience of seeing all the people needing the music.”

Schein revives a memory-laden Rachmaninoff
The legendary ‘Rach 3’ gets an airing this week at Thursday’s ACO concert
BY Sysannah Luthi, Festival Focus Writer (June 26, 2006)

I can ’t figure out which is the stand-out here- Ann Schein ’s playing or pieces she chose to play. Either way, everyone wins. Ann Schein (joined by her husband, Earl Carlyss, on the violin Sonata) brings an easy confidence to modern works for piano – none of which call for (or could stand) any kind of theatricality.

The Carter Piano Sonata (1946) was new to me, and Ms Schein brings out the balanced richness of the work, a two-movement piece that exudes Carter ’s (soon-to-be-abandoned) romantic youthfulness, but also points out his interest in alternating rhythmic structures. This is a Carter you have never heard, and she does him justice. The two works here by Aaron Copland, the Piano Variations (1930) and the Violin Sonata (1946), are a study in contrasts. The variations were written when Copland was a young man, newly influenced by some of the more dour aspects of modernism. It ’s a softly phrased, meditative work that really has no hint of the Copland to come. This is not to diminish the work. Bernstein loved it, performed it many times, and both Carter and Roy Harris openly praised it. The Violin Sonata is more recognizably Copland. It was composed in Copland ’s halcyon days, and the opening chords will break your heart.

Jazz pianist John Patitucci ’s short piece, Lakes (2007) was written specifically for Ms Schein. Not quite jazz, it ’s got all of jazz ’s stops and starts, with a mildly pastoral middle section. This is an excellent gathering of works, excellently performed. I recommend this for the Carter, but the Copland makes it a keeper.

Carter: Piano Sonata; COPLAND; Variations; Violin Sonata; Patitucci; Lakes with Earl Carlyss
By Cook, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE September/October 2009

'Her dynamic range and sense of harmonic tension and release never fail to hold attention'

'Schein's intelligent musicianship and impressive technique shine through'

Collectors seeking a coupling of Carter's Piano Sonata and Copland's Piano Variations - two almost iconic works by' two unquestionably iconic American composers­ - will gain satisfaction from Ann Schein's seasoned technique, intelligent musicianship and natural affinity for the music's big-boned, declamatory keyboard idiom. To be sure, she does not consistently emphasise Carter's frequent espressivo markings or deliver his molto legato directives with the specificity of Charles Rosen and Ursula Oppens, nor match the young Winston Choi's feathery suppleness in rapid passages. Yet her wide dynamic range, contrapuntal awareness and sense of harmonic tension and release never full to hold attention. The Copland Variations receive a tightly unified, rock-solid reading that might best be described as "purposefully bleak", to paraphrase a colleague's response to Pollini's late Beethoven. A similar character emerges from the energetic and impeccably dovetailed ensemble work that Schein and her husband violinist Earl Carlyss achieve in the same composer's 1943 Violin Sonata. Lastly, John Patitucci's Lakes, written for and dedicated to Schein, evokes unassuming shades of Hindemith and Barber over its four-minute course.

Carter Piano Souall! Copland Piano Variations. Violin Sonata" P8titucd Lakes
Ann Schein pf EarI Carlyss vn
MSR Classics ® MS1321 (60' • DDD)
By Jed Distler, GRAMOPHONE, September 2009

The piano features in today's foray into the classical music world as we explore four excellent releases from the MSR Classic label. Each recording boasts performances of the highest possible quality from some of the world's leading pianists, Susan Chan, lrina Feoktistova, Sally Pinkas, and Ann Schein.

Carter, Cop/and & Patitucci - Ann Schein (MSR 1321)

Ann Schein's latest release sees her paying homage to American composer Elliott Carter, who reached the grand old age of 100 in December 2008. For this she performs his wonderful "Piano Sonata" in two movements which was written between 1945-1946.

Ann has personally known Carter for many years and has a deep love, admiration, and understanding of his work. Their relationship is a story very well told by her within the album's cover notes.

Also included on this release is the remarkable "Piano Variations" written by Aaron Copland (1900-1990) in 1930, Of this piece Leonard Bernstein, who played it passionately throughout his life, said that he found 'prophetic statement and reflective meditation in all of Copland's music'. Certainly, the striking opening consisting of the impression of a single spoken voice, represented a unique departure at the time.

The four note theme brings the work to a powerful and memorable conclusion. It is widely considered to be something of a breakthrough work that despite its clear economy radiates a mesmerising power. Here it is performed in a way that doubtless would have delighted Copland himself.

Also performed by both Ann and her husband, the violinist Earl Carlyss, is Copland's "Sonata For Violin And Piano", This was written much later in 1943. It is a largely pastoral piece in comparison and is beautifully performed here by both musicians. These are the kind of neighbours you would really like to hear playing late at night.

Lastly, Ann Schein performs "Lakes" by the renowned jazz musician John Patitucci. It is a piece that was written and dedicated to Ann herself in 2007. Inspired by the Lake District in Northern England it captures something not only of the area but also the other people that have drawn inspiration from it. Included in this observation are poets such as Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, and Wordsworth.

Patitucci captures the flowing of water, the beauty of the area, and the drama of its landscape, Of this piece, which closes the collection, Ann says, 'I am honoured and thrilled to include it in this album', Meanwhile John adds, 'I gave Ann a piece that provided an open space for her to express her wide spectrum of colours and moods from virtuosic to lyrical, pensive to visceral. I am honoured that she has connected with this piece in such a powerful way and made it her own',

The above albums expertly capture recordings of pianists at the very pinnacle of performance. Included within the selections are pieces that are immensely challenging and demanding that only the most accomplished could hope to do justice to.

MSR Classics

'Ann Schein Plays American Piano Works'

Ann Schein’s performance on this recording is exquisite.  Her execution of each work exposes the depth of understanding and the rich relationship that she possesses, as any great pianist must, with each piece.  Her method is marked by a succinctness and a certain exactness and focus that digs out and elucidates the identity of each tone.  Her stamina gives to every moment in the musical composition its freshness and intended purpose.  She is that caliber of performer who does not figure out and interpret the notes but handles them as a method-actor might handle a dramatic role – with the knowledge that the subject is a separate entity that one must inhabit rather than treat as an extension of her/his own body.  She has lived with this music and the marriage between performer and composition results not in a display of the accomplishments of the pianist or the novelty of the composition but something in between – an ideal plain where all of us desire music to reside but that is so seldom achieved.  She reaches into the realm of re-creation (not merely interpretation) that gives a physical dynamism to each musical phrase, and in turn the musical phrases behave humbly yet profoundly under her instinctive artistic guidance.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in her recording of Aaron Copland’s Piano Variations which I believe to be the zenith of the CD.  The Piano Variations do not seek to impress our senses with the virtuoso-style piano writing of a Liszt or a Rachmaninoff.  Instead they elect to speak in a more intimate nature.  However, admitting to a more introverted attitude does not necessarily admit equally to the quietude and calm that presupposes a relaxed nature.  Instead a certain unresolved anxiety dominates the dramatic nature of this work.  The moments are isolated and silence profoundly penetrates in between the quixotic successions of musical phrases initiating the dramatic tensions inherent in the musical language.  A restlessness emerges not only from the dissonant and unresolved harmonic progressions but more importantly, from the improvisatory setting of those parts.  There is no question that this sense of improvisation is an illusion, as the piece is carefully notated and organized as much as any composition must be; that is the paradox – disorder and chaos must arise out of the strictest order and discipline.  This would not be achieved, as it so masterfully is in this recording, were it not for both composer and performer.  Ann Schein gives so much life to each moment that one can hardly miss the dramatic trajectory inherent in the work.

It is so clear because it so unbelievably focused and concentrated, unlike the younger Carter’s work on this CD.  The Piano Sonata is a bit of a wandering, beastly thing.  I say beastly because of the bombastic nature of the piano writing, which is not necessarily negative.  It does however wander.  And it is saturated as opposed to concentrated.  In Copland’s Piano Variations the frames are immediately exposed, as in a play the set is defined and the characters thereafter can interact in a realistic world within a world. In some way, each moment in the Carter piece carries with it a certain rejection of what preceded it.  I am speaking of the psychological consequences.  In a sense everything is simultaneously the beginning, the middle, and the end.  It is both the antecedent and the consequent phrases.  I do not demand adherence to classical forms but such forms were not arbitrarily concocted.  They react to inherent and timeless psychological preconditions, and whatever mode or language one’s music adopts, the psychological impact on the listener must always be considered.  Play the Piano Variations after the Piano Sonata and you will clearly hear maturity and stability against a search for musical identity.  This is an early work of Carter’s, on the cusp of his musical fruition in the mid-’40s with more noteworthy works such as the Sonata for Cello and Piano and the 1st String Quartet.

The remaining works on the CD, Copland’s Sonata for Violin and Piano and the contemporary John Patitucci’s Lakes are both very sound performances.  The former is far more traditional and more in the language of Appalachian Spring than the Piano Variations.  This is not a criticism but I cannot help but be more drawn to the Variations and feel that it outshines all its companions on the recording.  Patitucci’s Lakes seems at first to be an odd addition. as the other works are from the ‘30s and ‘40s and are clearly socially and musically intertwined, while this work was written in 2007, and its composer is a jazz bassist.  The explanation, I believe, is that it was written for Ann Schein.  It is a strong and interesting work, and, though it comes across as a bit of an afterthought in the company of much more involved works, it remains a refreshing close to the CD.

© 2009 Thomas Healy
http://www.cvneweng.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=215&Itemid=48

'A wonderful disc of early twentieth century American music.'

Elliot Carter, the doyen of American avantegarde composers, turned 100 years old this year and is still composing. His warm demeanor in interviews belies the complexity of his music. However, his Piano Sonata is an early composition that leaves the listener with a quiet sense of calm, as if it’s a prelude to the complexity that pervades his later works. The first movement creates drama by alternating between contemplative chords and rapid passagework. The second movement starts with an andante section saturated with quiet stillness, which gradually intensifies into brilliant angular passagework. The work ends with a sly, witty slow section, oddly moving and fading into the distance. The pianist, Ann Schein, in her notes, claims similar elements with Chopin’s b minor Sonata, “from brilliant virtuosity, intense lyricism, infectious native rhythms to a shared use of expressive, close intervals.” She performs convincingly.

Aaron Copland’s Piano Variations is one of his signature compositions, immediately acknowledged by younger American composers (Elliot Carter, David Diamond and Leonard Bernstein) for its directness, technical command and exploratory newness. Bernstein ‘went crazy’ when he first heard the work, saying, “A new world of music had opened to me in this work – extreme, prophetic, clangorous, dissonant and intoxicating.” He said he could guarantee to “empty rooms” by playing it. Martha Graham choreographed “Dithyrambic” to the music, a dance of orgiastic abandon to the god Dionysus. The eleven minute work’s pungent four-note motif is transformed into 20 variations and a coda. It’s striking in its unvarnished emotion, frenetic dissonance and poetic interludes. Schein’s performance balances dissonance with vision.

The beautiful violin sonata combines Copland’s melodic popular music with is more modern works. The opening movement “freely sings,” the middle movement is a lyrically sad ode to a friend killed in World War II, and the final movement combines high spirits with heartfelt poignancy. Violinist Earl Carlyss, a member of the Juilliard Quartet for 20 years, plays exquisitely. John Patitucci is a jazz composer and bass player who wrote a thoughtful and dramatic short work for his friend Ann Schein called Lake, which ends the disc.

The recording is beautifully-balanced and luxurious. A wonderful disc of early twentieth century American music.

By Robert Moon, Classical CD Reviews, Audiophile Audition
http://www.audaud.com/article.php?ArticleID=6151

'Schein shines light on six classic composers'

With music, you can dwell in the present, reach back in time as well as take flights into the future.  We can hear Bach and Palestrina and, with nearly equal ease, are introduced to Adams and Cage.

The same can be said for performances and performers.  We haverecordings to prove that Myra Hess and Arthur Rubenstein were great pianists.  And, the legacy of their music and their teaching is very much alive today.

Don Hageman’s Soirées Musicales Piano Series has given his loyal audiences an exciting panoply of concerts. Young pianists, on the cutting edge of brilliance, play music of all ages. Established masters bring their own interpretations to the recital experience.

By inviting pianist Ann Schein for her long awaited debut at Soirées Musicales, great legacies continue.  Schein has had a career spanning many decades with direct links, teacher to pupil, to Dame Myra Hess and Arthur Rubenstein. Her teachers, she was one of Rubenstein’s last pupils, imparted a strength which transcends some of today’s adulation of speed and brilliance at the expense of musicality.

Schein is renowned as an interpreter of Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Liszt. Literally hundreds of her recitals and orchestral performances have received rave reviews. Finally, Dayton was able to hear her perform in the ideal setting of Shiloh Church on Hageman’s Grotrian piano.

The concert opened with Beethoven’s “Les Adieux” sonata and proceeded to Schubert’s “Wanderer” fantasy.  In both works, Schein demonstrated the power of the piano to delve deeply into the music with bombast-free clarity.  The internal rhythms and themes stood out boldly during the abrupt transitions, particularly in the Schubert.  

During the Schubert, the best ears in the audience actually heard a piano string break. Schein continued undaunted to the dramatic, and lovely, conclusion of the piece.  

At the intermission, Hageman, a noted piano technician as well as pianist, worked to repair the problem. Like a medical grand rounds, he had a cadre of supporters cheering him on as the piano was restored.

After intermission, a new focus was experienced.  Playing the works of Ravel, Debussy and Liszt, Schein brought powerful yet delicate mellifluence to the music.  In the Ravel 1905 Sonatine, the music was painted with strong glowing colors. Debussy’s L’Isle Joyeuse was given a beautiful reading full of technical éclat which seemed so easily accomplished. The cross hand passages flowed with unaccustomed delicacy, well-laced with definitive strength.    

The final programmed piece, Liszt’s Venetian Tarantella was one of the most “un-Lisztian” readings I have heard. Without the customary theatrics, the wild tarantula-bite dance seemed to be caused by a very gentle and loving spider.

As an encore, a Rachmaninoff prelude capped the evening.  Hopefully, there will be an encore performance in the near future.

By Burt Saidel, April 8, 2008 - Volume 17, No. 15, The Oakwood Register
http://www.oakwoodregister.com/archives/v17num15_040808/arts.html#top

'Pianist delivers poetic performance'

The International Piano Series on Tuesday featured virtuoso pianist Ann Schein in a concert with poetic renderings of music by French Impressionist composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy.

Ravel's "Sonatine" began as a one-movement piece written for a magazine contest and evolved into a three movement work, featuring delicate short melodies. Schein played the difficult piece with ease, stressing its delicate, intricate playfulness.

Although sharing a surface similarly to Ravel's music, Debussy's "L'isle joyeuse" was written while the composer was deeply involved with his mistress. Schein's intense interpretation boiled with both the passion and the unified beauty of the work.

Also, she managed to bring a powerful sense of unity to a rather murky "Piano Sonata," written in 1945 by Elliot Carter, who is still composing earbending music at age 101.

After a brief intermission, Schein concluded her concert with a show-stopping performance of Chopin's "Sonata No. 3 in b minor, Op. 58." In four contrastive movements, Chopin creates music that epitomizes the larger-than-life emotions of the Romantics. The coda that concludes the piece consists of a series of wrenching climaxes, each more powerful than the last. When played by a great pianist, it can bring cheering. After Schein played, the audience at the Sottile Theatre roared their approval. Schein rewarded them with an encore, a very theatrical prelude by Rachmaninoff.

The current Adams Foundation Piano Series recitalists are, from left to right, Ann Schein, James Tocco, Jon Nakamatsu, Robert DeGaetano, Ursula Oppens, Richard Contiguglia, Ian Hobson, Jeanne Stark-Iochmans, and Steven Mayer. Joshep Kalichstein is not present.

"The creation of the Adams Foundation Piano Recitals seems a singularly important event in the cultural life of our country. Dedicated to the revival of piano series in cities and smaller towns across the U.S., through the inspired leadership of the Contiguglia brothers and businessman and philanthropist, Stephen Adams, the goal and mission of the Adams Foundation is to create new audiences for classical music, and, in particular, to revive the popular piano series which were so prominent in many of our major cities over the last decades, and which have in great part disappeared ftom. our arts-scene. It is my great privilege and tbrilIing opportunity to join my brilliant colleagues in this endeavor, giving reci1als in as many venues as we can open up across the country, perfonning the timeless treasures of our great piano literature, and bringing works being written today to new ears as well We are truly on fire to add in this special way to the enrichment of our nation's cultural life and to dedicate our efforts to its continuation into the future. May our collective zeal be infectious!"

-Ann Schein

SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL REPORT

Ann Schein, an Aspen Music Festival faculty artist favorite, delivered a spellbinding recital Wednesday in Harris Hall that included Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy and Chopin's Sonata in 8 minor. The pianist did nothing flashy but instead built shining edifices of sound based on musical intelligence. What was so compelling about her work was the inevitability of the music's unfolding. It just grew like a living thing.

Once a student of Arthur Rubinstein and Myra Hess, she has been on the Aspen faculty since 1984 and taught at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, but has not pursued the international career a musician of this caliber could have had. All the better for music fans here who treasure her work and get to hear her often in chamber music.

She opened the concert with nicely detailed performances of Chopin's Polonaise-Fantasy in A-flat major and two of Schubert's Impromptus, but the centerpieces of the evening came just before and after intermission. The Schubert fantasy, a sonata in all but name, built in intensity from a simple beginning. Schein gets a big sound from the piano without overdoing it, and her fleet articulation in rapid passagework never seems designed to show off, just build to the next idea. This was especially apparent in the Chopin sonata, which replaced the B-flat minor sonata without explanation. It can blaze away in the rapid-fire scherzo and Presto finale that surrounds the famous funeral march. Under Schein's fingers, those black-dotted pages smoldered with contained fire.

Aspen Music Festival (4): Bronfman-Shaham-Harrell Trio powers through Shostakovich; pianist Ann Schein plays Chopin, Schubert. 18. 7.2008 (HS)

Schein Gives Inspiring Performance

From time to time we are reminded that, amid the realities of everyday life, there are those moments when something happens to renew the spirit.

Such an event occurred for this reviewer on Sunday, Oct. 18, in Sarah Cooke Hall, when the Heritage Concert Society presented a recital by pianist Ann Schein.

It is difficult not to sound repetitious or effusive when one is so often placed in the position of having to report on an inspired and, in this case, thrilling per­formance. Initially, the program was of some concern, because it featured only two composers - Chopin and Schumann - which some might have thought to be too narrow in scope. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Although the opening selection, the Chopin Polonaise-Fantasie Op. 61, is not one of the most often-heard pieces by this composer, it was somehow the perfect prelude to the Schumann that followed. Considered by some to be an important work, the Polonaise-Fantasie does reflect the restlessness and the spirit of Polish patriotism that underlies much of Chopin's music, but compared to his other, more well-known works, it lacks some of the passion, the heroics, the warmth, and the melodic expressiveness. The performance by Ann Schein, however, extracted everything there was to be had from the piece, which was considerable!

Schumann's Davidsbundlertanzes are a collection of short character sketches, a medium in which he created some of his most profoundly romantic works. Known as a master of short forms, Schumann's larger compositions are often per­ceived to be his lesser accomplishments, but let us not forget the incomparable Piano Concerto, the four symphonies, and the large output of chamber music.

Schumann's smaller works for the piano are some of the most important rep­resentations of German romanticism-in their harmonic and rhythmic inventive­ness and, above all, in their melodic lyricism. Hearing these pieces all together in sequence was a unique experience for many in this audience (the complete set is often done in fragments), and one was struck by the remarkable ability of Schein to capture the many changes of mood and character in a perfectly seamless evolu­tion from one episode to the next. In some of the more introspective moments, Schein literally wrong from the music that distinctive, deep melancholy that had manifested itself throughout Schumann's life. Here the composer provides an intensely personal glimpse into the mind of a tortured soul-and all that can be seen there was exquisitely understood and conveyed by this pianist.

The highlight of the afternoon was a stunning rendition of the beloved Sonata in b minor by Chopin. Your reviewer, along with many others, has heard this sonata played by numerous artists over the years, but rarely has it been given such a taste­ful, elegant, and sincere reading. This performance was infused with all the ele­ments of great music-making: absolute mastery of technique, a truly astounding control of dynamic contrast, and an unbroken continuity of musical thought. There were no a1fectations, no egoistic displays, and no deviations from the focus on the music itself. Schein goes directly to the heart of the utterance and to the hearts of her listeners as well. It was by far one of the most compelling performances of the sonata that this reviewer has ever heard.

In the words of a revered colleague: "I am going home nourished!"

And so, it appears, did the rest of the audience, after greeting the artist at a reception following the concert.

By Joanne Moryl, Heritage Villager, November 20, 2009

MEREDITH COLLEGE'S CHOPIN BICENTENNIAL SERIES FEATURED ANN SCHEIN'S INSIGHTFUL INTERPRETATION 

Keyboard and Romantic period music lovers braved ominous weather forecasts to hear noted pianist Ann Schein's recital as part of Meredith College's weeklong celebration of the Bicentennial of Frederic Chopin's birth. Ann Schein,.. is a renowned interpreter of Chopin and was featured on Meredith College's celebration of Chopin and Mendelssohn in 2005, as well as in appearances at Greensboro's Eastern Music Festival and on the Adams Foundation Series at Elon College in 2004 and 2008. 

Addressing the Jones Auditorium audience,...her comments were germane to both her relationship to the pieces and to important aspects of Chopin as a composer and a performer....She shared some of her insights into the emotional world of the two late works on the program. Of Chopin's Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61, Schein said it may come close to capturing a lost aspect of the composer, his unrivaled ability to improvise. She said contemporaries reported that many of his..improvisations far surpassed his published works. Schein perfectly captured the continuously unfolding melodic line and the piece's deeply introspective nature. Her subtle use of dynamics was perfectly judged. 

Schein said Robert Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze, Op. 6, was composed during the composer's frustratingly long wait to get permission ( from her notoriously difficult father) to marry his beloved Clara Wieck. It was meant to be an idealized "wedding gift" before their actual union....The strongly contrasted 18 pieces are divided into two books...The eighteenth section is a poetic reverie, ending in three magical bell-liked notes. Schein's performance was breathtaking. Her melding of tone color, refined dynamics and rhythmic precision conjured up the wild sound-world of Schumann. 

Ann Schein's insightful and superb interpretation of Chopin's Sonata in b minor, Op. 58, ended the ...concert. Each of its four movements were beautifully characterized, not least the endless song line of the ..Largo of the third movement...Most impressive was her ability to fit the diversity of the four movements within an overarching conception of the sonata as a whole.The audience's warm enthusiasm was rewarded with an A flat Posthumous Etude.

 
By William Thomas Walker, February 24, 2010