Hélène Desaint, Laureate of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, presents a recital with two facets that are an admirable illustration of her personality: ‘This disc was born of my fascination with Schumann. Everything about him captivates me: the tormented human being, the great reader fascinated by the fantastical and the supernatural, the brilliant and introverted composer, the poet who goes where words cannot go, the music, powerfully evocative at once of human characters or tableaux and of complex states of mind. In 1990, György Kurtág composed a trio in homage to Schumann – a way of straddling the centuries and opening up a dialogue between two styles, of reviving the imaginary figures and short contrasting forms with which we are familiar in Schumann. So it seemed an obvious idea to build a programme around these two composers. The comparison seems all the more interesting to me because I find in their music the same interiority, the same concentration (in Kurtág’s work, this density goes so far as to permeate every note), the same concision.’ (Hélène Dessaint)