Jan Ritterstaedt's interview with Jimin Oh-Havenith about her Schumann recording project

Jimin Oh-Havenith (photo: Uwe Arens), cf. https://jiminohhavenith.com

Jimin Oh-Havenith’s three previous Schumann recordings have earned top reviews from international critics. Her third album ‘wild | ‘mild, released in early October 2024, was highly acclaimed and was nominated in the category ‘solo instrument’ for the 2025 ICMA in November. Remy Franck, the ICMA jury president, wrote in Pizzicato on 4 October 2024: ‘She has completely captured Schumann’s fantastic elements and deliciously differentiates the colourful hustle and bustle in Carneval with an affectionately poetical vision. In doing so, the music retains its beautiful song-like quality.’ (cf. https://www.pizzicato.lu/)


‘For me, practising Schumann begins with allowing myself to get involved’

It takes a bit of luck to experience the pianist Jimin Oh-Havenith live in concert. The native South Korean makes herself rare on the concert stage. Instead, she regularly records new CDs. She has recorded music by Chopin, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven and many others. In 2022, she embarked on Robert Schumann’s works for the piano. Three CDs have already been released on the label audite. Jan Rittersteadt talks with her about her recording projects, her view on Schumann and his music.

How did the idea for this Schumann recording series come about?
The Schumann project came about because my husband loves Schumann more than anything and thought that Schumann was my favourite! I myself have always been a shy person when it comes to Schumann.

Why shy?
Whenever I heard Schumann, I always felt strangely moved. It wasn't pleasant for me. Quite different from other music - no matter what kind, I was always positive, but not with Schumann. I almost felt sore. It wasn't easy for me to play his music. Still, I did play his music after all, of course. You have got to play Schumann. I played the Abegg Variations when I was 13 and the great Sonata op 14 when I was 17. I was even quite successful with it. I don't know why, there must have been an unconscious access to Schumann's music that I later had to consciously bring out of myself. But after that I shelved Schumann. Then, a few years ago, my husband said: you must play Schumann really well. You should play and record Schumann! Then I said: oh no, is that necessary? (laughs). And now I can't imagine life without Schumann's music at all.

How difficult was it for you to play and record Schumann?
The process was hard. When you're young, you pick a piece that appeals to you at that moment. You start practising and you practise until you can do it or feel that you can do it. Now, on the other hand, I realise that practising and exploring the pieces is a completely different process. I need to really get involved, firstly with the piece, but also with what's behind it, this composer, this person, his life and much more. In other words, for me, practising Schumann means above all getting involved with all of this.

What exactly does this process of getting involved with Schumann look like?
Getting involved means that you feel what he may have felt, what his life, the circumstances and above all his battle and the struggle for his music were like, so that these works could be created at all. These are incredible processes. We only have the printed sheet music and think: yes, I'll play Schumann. But a work of music is not created that easily. When we see how long the process of creating some compositions took, that alone should really make our approach more serious. And Schumann also had his normal life, which was much harder and more difficult back then than ours is today. That was a completely different challenge.

So when rehearsing a piece, you try to understand and empathise with Schumann's compositional process. How else did you prepare yourself?
You don't understand this music because you read the biography, but it helps. In the end, music has to be understood from the music itself. Nevertheless: the whole thing, the life of such a composer, helps to deepen the understanding. The working process is really hard because you have to dig for so long until you find something. Being able to play the piece doesn't mean that you've found something. For me, it's like this: I have to keep working on the pieces for a long time, even if I can actually already play them.

What criteria did you use to select the pieces for the respective CDs? For the first, ‘For Clara’, it is the Piano Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor op. 11 and the Fantasy in C major op. 17.
First of all, I chose the pieces that are closely associated with Clara. That was very important to me, because I see Clara as a woman with a life for which I have great respect and admiration for how she managed to live her life. In addition, the love between the two of them, as it has been passed down from letters and diaries, is really something extraordinary that touched me deeply from the very beginning. This is where this first CD ‘For Clara’ comes from, as these pieces were created from Robert's heart, from his love. 
Then came the CD ‘inSANE’. Robert's illness is a recurring theme, it's difficult to break through. You can talk about his illness and its course, and you also know what happened. But I never heard anything about it in his music. Not in any way! I wanted to make that clear with this title: inSANE, ‘in health’, but also ‘insane’ as it is used today in English for something great, magnificent. His music is very healthy for me, there is nothing sick, on the contrary: I hardly know such a positive force as in his music and in his sound. I always have the feeling that this heart is so strong and so positive, it is so committed to life. Schumann cannot be praised highly enough.

To what extent do the Kreisleriana op. 16 and the Humoreske op. 20 on the CD ‘inSANE’ fit in with this? What characterises these two works?
With the Kreisleriana, it's simple: the character of E.T.A. Hoffmann's Kapellmeister Kreisler (in whom Schumann saw himself) was actually not ‘normal’. And in the Humoreske, Schumann wrote that he composed it ‘crying and laughing’. So, the madness fits. In a sense, being ‘normal’ is not possible for this kind of creativity and vigour. Both pieces show the beautiful, the bizarre, the grotesque and the abysmal, the sad and the fragile, so many aspects of human feeling in the densest sequence and, although it is so dense, extremely nuanced and very free. Some would find that crazy.  

And then you recorded a third CD that also takes up an aspect of Schumann's personality, with the Carnaval op. 9 and the Davidsbündlertänze op. 6. ‘wild | mild’ is the title you chose. How is that to be understood?
This has to do with his two fantasy figures: ‘Florestan the Wild, Eusebius the Mild’, as Schumann himself describes them, with their very different personalities. They are always present in his music. Eusebius is the mild, gentle and dreamy one side of his personality. The other is wild, impetuous and full of zest for action. Every person has that in them, only in his case it was naturally more extreme. Schumann manages to unite these two sides in harmony without blurring them; he shows that it is possible for these two poles to live together.

Now that you have intensively explored Schumann's piano music on these three CDs: How would you characterise Schumann's piano style?
There is this incredibly phosphorising sound. Schumann cannot shine enough. That is his expression, his feeling, his energy and his emotion. All this leads to this tremendous sound that is so full of energy that it cannot vibrate and glow enough. It is never enough, this feeling of intensity that is always on the verge of bursting or exploding. And that's not just the case with him in places, but actually throughout. Whether you can manage that is another question. It simply takes a long time to realise this special power.

Is there a favourite piece in Schumann's piano oeuvre for you, and if so, which one?
Let's put it this way: the piece I was practising was always my favourite piece at that moment! (laughs) But if I had to choose, it would be the Fantasy and the Symphonic Etudes. The Fantasy in particular has nothing controlled or restrictive about it. The piece begins like a force of nature and runs unchecked through all the emotions until the most intimate conclusion. The Symphonic Etudes, on the other hand, are incredibly restrained in their power. They move in a space all of their own, like the movement at the bottom of a deep sea: it's pretty much the opposite of fantasy. And that's what I love about Schumann.

The three Schumann CDs were produced in two different locations: the Immanuelskirche in Wuppertal and the Liebfrauen concert hall in Wernigerode. Why these two locations in particular?
You're always looking for a space that has good acoustics and suits the programme in question. The Immanuelskirche was suitable for ‘For Clara’, but I realised that I needed a different sound, a different acoustic for ‘inSANE’. I came across Wernigerode through a recommendation. And indeed, the acoustics in the Liebfrauen concert hall are better suited to my idea of the Schumann sound. That's why the second and third CDs were recorded there, and I will also record the fourth there. I have already planned Schumann 4 for 2025.

What is going to be on your next Schumann CD and what is it going to be called?
I haven’t got a title yet but the pieces: the variations. I will start with opus 1, the Abegg Variations and finish with the Ghost Variations, his last piece. The Symphonic Studies op. 13 will be in the middle. Again, it is a great thing for me to practise this programme, since it spans Schumann’s entire life. And in the last piece of the Ghost Variations, Schumann leaves all the rules behind and in a sense returns to his origins, some sort of chaos that started it all.

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