This is the second in a three-part series exploring Schumann’s concertos and piano trios on gut strings and a period piano, and as the slightly creepy cover photo spells out – shadows of violinist Isabelle Faust and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras flank Alexander Melnikov like lurking henchmen – it is the pianist’s turn to shine. Melnikov is a steely player with plenty of ideas and charisma, but even in the finessed company of the Freiburg Baroque and conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, his bracing account of the Piano Concerto is hard to love. The first moment opens with a dry punch and hurtles ahead hell-for-leather; the second movement is breezy and borderline trite, and the finale digs in its heels with laboured earthiness and a self-conscious ping at the top of each phrase. All affectations evaporate in the Trio, though, where Faust’s sound is so silvery and expressive, so simultaneously commanding and questioning, that she risks blowing the rest of the disc out of the water.
