Charles Owen's 'The Young Schumann' mixes the familiar and unfamiliar. Able and musicianly-- but only up to a point-- he makes you long for greater imaginative scope. Fantasy and freedom are at the very heart of early Schumann, of mood-swings that can turn from sobriety to exuberance, from light to dark in a flash. Yet even the most fanciful ideas cannot tempt Owen away from the safe and narrow, from, as it were, a suit and tie respectability. The 'Abegg' Variations plod rather than sparkle and there is too little sense of Carnaval's infinite variety. Why such a tame and methodical opening, and where is the sense of mischief behind Pierrot's interjections? Even in the dreaming 'Eusebius' notes follow notes in dogged rather than magical succession.
 
   Again, while I am grateful for a recording of the Intermezzi Owen's literalness will hardly win new admirers for this sadly neglected work. He made me return to a long cherished LP by Grant Johannson, a distinguished student of Robert Casadesus, for a more vivid and dextrous experience.
 
   There is greater liveliness though hardly vivacity, in Papillons. There is too little reminder of Jean Paul, the novelist behind Schumann' inspiration with his startling lines concerning 'the aurora borealis sky full of crossing zig-zags' to say nothing of a 'giant boot sliding around dressed in itself.' Even the end, where the clock strikes 6.0 and revelry fades into the distance, cannot inspire Owen to a greater sense of the romantic and unpredictable.
 
   Avie's sound is admirable but here, and sadly, 'The Young Schumann' comes across as not so young.
 
Bryce Morrison