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Quirine Viersen, one of Holland’s foremost cellists, and Silke Avenhaus are musical partners already for many years, forming a close unity of musical thought and emotion. This recording dates from the beginning of their partnership and offers passionate readings of Beethoven’s two late Cello Sonatas Op. 102, combined with the deeply romantic world of Schumann, in his Phantasiestücke and the fairylike Stücke im Volkston.

The combination of cello and piano has long been a popular choice among composers. Detailing a selection of works by two of the world’s greatest, this release celebrates one of music’s most enduring partnerships through showcasing some of the duo’s best literature.

The compilation covers works written towards the end of each composer’s life, and first to be presented are Beethoven’s Sonatas Op.102 Nos. 1 and 2. Completed in 1815 and therefore dating from the start of his late period, these self-contained compositions stand as the shortest and most concentrated of the composer’s duo sonatas – though the wealth of feeling that is exhibited throughout more than makes up for this. Next to be featured is Schumann’s delightful Fantasiestücke Op.73 – a set of small-scale pieces taking the style of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words. They are followed by 5 Stücke im Volkston Op.102, completed in 1878 and similarly inspired by Lieder and folksong through their use of simple yet characteristic themes.

From the intensity of Beethoven’s sonatas to the affective expression of Schumann’s creations, this collection unites some of the most spiritual and original music in the cello and piano repertoire. Quirine Viersen and Silke Avenhaus offer an authoritative interpretation that brims with colour: a valuable addition to Brilliant Classics chamber music library.

85 CD + CD Rom.

The only complete Beethoven Edition in the market.

Contains some important alterations as compared to the former Edition: Symphonies are played by the superb Staatskapelle Dresden/Herbert Blomstedt and Piano Sonatas by Alfred Brendel.

Big names: Arthur Grumiaux/Clara Haskil, Friedrich Gulda, Guarneri Quartet, Concertgebouw Orchestra/Haitink, Wiener Philharmoniker, Heinrich Schiff and many more.

Free CD-Rom contains bookletnotes, sung texts and biography in English, Italian and Spanish. Award winning set: Diapason d”Or in France.

Alfred Brendel may have disowned these recordings made for Vox Records in the dawn of his long career, but they still have the power to touch and to move, with a freshness of response that inevitably comes from a young man’s Beethoven, illuminated of course by the sovreign technique and musical intelligence that would only broaden and deepen as the years went by. Brendel has retired from performance now, but we can count ourselves lucky to have these mementoes of a performer for whom perfection and inspiration were never to be considered contradictory qualities or aims. Included in this set of superb value are the ‘named’ piano sonatas that anyone who comes to Beethoven, and to his piano music, quickly grows to love, and perhaps later to know and understand: The ‘Moonlight’ ‘Appassionata’ ‘Hammerklavier’ ‘Pathétique’ ‘Les Adieux’ ‘Tempest’ ‘Waldstein’ ‘Pastoral’.

Alfred Brendels first recording of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas are a landmark of youthful exuberance, a typically young man’s Beethoven, full of vigour, virtuosity and spontaneity. This set offers a generous selection of famous piano sonatas, all with nicknames, and therefore known by a wide audience.

The famous, near-legendary recordings from the seventies of the late Beethoven String Quartets by the LaSalle Quartet. At last, available separately, at budget price!

The Quartet was formed at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, taking its name from the LaSalle Street near the school where the four music students spent all of their time rehearsing string quartets. Upon graduation, the young musicians became quartet-in-residence at Colorado College and subsequently moved to Cincinnati where they are to this day resident string quartet of the CollegeConservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati.

Their album "The New Vienna School" containing the complete quartets of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, created a sensation in the music world, winning the Grand Prix du Disque and four other international recording awards. TIME Magazine called the album "a landmark in recorded music." This is also available on Brilliant Classics – cat no. 9016

In 1978, the LaSalle again won the Grand Prix du Disque, for this recording of the Five Late Quartets by Beethoven.

Beethoven’s piano concertos are cornerstones of the keyboard repertoire, and yet in their time they formed the subject of much cynical debate: the sounds that we are today adjusted to were difficult for the ears of concert‐goers then, and any unexpected turns in the music were deemed whimsical and purposefully audacious. Today we appreciate them as part of a continuous story that Beethoven is trying to communicate: inspiring, grand and poetic are just some of the words that come to mind when describing these works.

This release focuses on the Third and Fifth piano concertos – the former composed in 1800 and dedicated to Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (the score was still in progress when the composed debuted the piece from memory); the latter, branded the ‘Emperor’ by Beethoven’s publisher, one of his boldest and most heroic statements: a work of military atmosphere, famous for its hushed transition from the slow movement to the finale. The Fifth Piano Concerto finally achieved popularity in the second half of the nineteenth century when it was taken up by Liszt and other virtuoso soloists.

One who enjoyed a prolific career as a pianist (he won the second Clara Haskil Competition in 1972) before turning his attention to conducting in 1972, Germanborn Christoph Eschenbach is the soloist on this release.

He is a master of the German/Viennese repertoire, and is remembered for the penetrating insight of his performances; here he is his element, delivering astute readings under Henze and Ozawa respectively.

Recorded 1971 and 1973.

Includes extensive liner notes on the music as well as the artist.

For many collectors in the 1960s, the budget priced Vox Turnabout LPs of the Beethoven Sonatas and Concertos were a revelation, and introduced an amazing young talent to the public.

Alfred Brendel was born in 1931 in Wiesenberg, and won the Concorso Busoni in 1949. He studied with Edwin Fischer, Paul Baumgartner and Edward Steuermann. The Vox Beethoven recordings won the Grand Prix du Disque in 1965, and were praised by critics world-wide.

These early recordings illustrate clearly all the characteristics that would become a hallmark of Brendel’s playing. A refusal to fall back on ‘flashy’ bravura, and the intellectual rigour he brings to the Beethoven sonatas marked him out even in these early recordings as one of the very great pianists of the 20th century. Brendel retired from the musical scene in 2009 at the height of his powers, leaving a recorded legacy without parallel in the music of Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert.

‘They are lively, direct, forceful and stylish; and nowhere do they find Brendel wanting in brilliance or facility. He certainly sounds as if he enjoys playing the piano.’ Gramophone June 1964

‘This is a strikingly polished performance of the “Hammerklavier” Sonata’ Gramophone April 1962

‘Principally it is the earlier sonatas which are included here, and these benefit very much from Brendel's strong attack. But the slow movements, too, seem more fully satisfying now than they did in the last box: those of the C major and E flat Sonatas, particularly, take their rightful place as forerunners of Beethoven's adagio style to come. Again Brendel is generous with repeats’ Gramophone March 1965

‘The sonatas in this present box are most beautifully played. Particularly, perhaps, the quicker and more forthright movements; here there is a splendid rhythmic firmness, helped along by strong accents and by an effective habit of spreading an occasional chord for extra stress (this must have been clone in Beethoven's time, you would think, with harpsichord techniques still in the air). The rhythmic control is especially rewarding in contrapuntal sections of the music, where Brendel's left hand projects the whole music firmly forward’ Gramophone February 1965

Recordings made in 1962–64 for Vox.

This CD contains the three most popular Beethoven Sonatas.

‘The playing is very deeply committed, very intense, but never ponderously philosophical’Gramophone

Alfred Brendel’s first recorded cycle of the complete works for piano of Beethoven appeared in the 1960s on the Vox label. They established his reputation as a leading interpreter of the composer, and although he returned to the studio subsequently to re-record the sonatas and concertos for Philips, these early recordings have retained their freshness and originality. For many record collectors, the budget price Turnabout label provided a happy hunting ground for those who sought out unusual repertoire. The parent company Vox also had the vision to ask the relatively unknown Brendel to undertake the huge project of recording all the Beethoven Sonatas, Variations and Piano Concertos. These recordings document the artist as a young man at the outset of his extraordinary journey, and in repertoire that will always be closely associated with him. They also stand comparison with his later interpretations of Beethoven.

The genius of Beethoven is probably not most commonly associated with chamber music.

Indeed, for considerable stretches of his career he avoided the string quartet, a musical form with such an exalted status at the time; he mostly took on the challenge towards the ends of what are often regarded as his two ‘creative periods’. When he did, however, he was at the pinnacle of his chamber music abilities. The pieces in this collection can be grouped according to three distinct periods of Beethoven’s life. The first set are to some extent indebted to Haydn and Mozart – as the melancholic Op.18 No.6 shows in particular – but equally show Beethoven starting to forge a new path of his own. The (at the time) somewhat misunderstood middle set stretch the quartet form to nearsymphonic length, and add a level of virtuosity worthy of the concert hall rather than the traditionally private sphere of chamber music.

Finally, the last set transcend the composer’s previous quartets both in form and harmony to reach a level of technical abstraction that was not recognised for its brilliance until after the composer’s life – a quality audible especially in the quartet in B flat major, which Beethoven’s biographer referred to as a ‘monster of quartet music’. The pieces are performed by the Suske Quartett, a German quartet whose popularity was at its height in the 1970s, and for whom recording Beethoven was a staple of their musical life: the recording career of the group’s original line‐up both began and ended with Beethoven pieces.