The motto of this album will immediately make sense to anyone familiar with the music of Robert Schumann and Jean Sibelius, the two composers featured on this recording: Fire represents Schumann, while Silence belongs to Sibelius. The young Danish pianist David Munk-Nielsen, who studied in both Helsinki and Copenhagen, has a particular affinity for Sibelius and pairs him with Schumann to create a striking contrast, while also paying tribute to two composers who have accompanied him throughout his musical journey.

It is immediately apparent what an outstanding talent is emerging here. This is not the playing of a young firebrand, but of a thoughtful, deeply sensitive pianist who follows Schumann’s footsteps with remarkable insight, breathing life into his music with natural expression. He shapes pieces such as Curious Story and Frightening with great empathy. His finely nuanced touch and carefully balanced dynamics are exactly what one hopes to hear in this repertoire.

From Sibelius’s Ten Pieces, Op. 24, he has selected Nos. 1, 8, and 9, works that demonstrate beyond doubt that Sibelius was a pianist-composer of the highest order, not merely the symphonist for which he is so often remembered. The exuberant Impromptu illustrates this just as convincingly as the Fifth Impromptu from the Six Impromptus, Op. 5.

The album concludes with Schumann’s Fantasy in C major. Here, however, the young pianist occasionally allows the dynamics to become somewhat excessive and does not always sustain the long architectural lines of the movements. Even so, David Munk-Nielsen is unquestionably a name worth remembering.