Piano Recital I – Eva Virsik

Slovak pianist Eva Virsik, who has been settled in America for a long period of time, wants to present to the audience in Bratislava the lesser-performed works of Robert Schumann. The musical portrait of the German composer will be represented by four works from his numerous piano works, which are imbued with hidden meanings or cryptograms. One would look in vain for a reference to flying butterflies behind the composition Papillons. Symbolically, it relates to men's bow ties and the story of two boys seeking the hand of the same girl at a ball. The three-beat rhythm refers to the dancing fun. The eight-movement Kreisleriana is already associated by its title with the novels about the bandmaster Johann Kreisler by the German writer and musician E. T. A. Hoffmann. Many critics rank the fantasia among the highlights of Schumann's oeuvre.