Up to 30% off Brilliant Classics

Spanning four CDs and featuring many a rousing performance, this release is dedicated to a fascinating yet largely unexplored facet of Robert Schumann’s output: his secular choral music. Written during the period 1840–50 and scored for men’s, women’s and a variety of mixed voices (with or without accompaniment), the music draws on a rich choice of texts by poets such as Rückert and Burns.While some of the early songs are humoristic in character, many of the later ones – including the Drei Männerchöre – are politically oriented, reflecting the revolutionary spirit of their age.

The works also represent a veritable lesson in different types of choral texture; Schumann was able to try out many of these on the two amateur groups he was in charge of directing. From the colourful use of solo voices in Drei Gedichte Op.29 to the unusual intertwining of two choruses in Vier doppelchörige Gesänge Op.141, the compilation reveals a composer intent on pushing boundaries.

That Schumann regarded choral music as an essential part of his oeuvre is revealed in various letters of the period, and yet the scepticism with which many of these late works have been greeted – due, in part, to the composer’s concurrent mental decline – has done little to increase their popularity. Highly accessible and often profoundly affecting, they deserve to be performed more often; with Schumann’s melodic and dramatic genius in full evidence, these committed readings are a must-have for both the Romantic enthusiast and choral music aficionado.

Schumann’s piano output contains only 2 sonatas (3 if the Op.14 concerto without orchestra is included), the reason for this is that he was not at all comfortable working within the classical structures, preferring freer structures. The masterpieces – the Fantasy Op.17, the Humoreske Op.20, Carnaval, Pappilons, Kreisleriana and the Symphonic Etudes rank among the greatest works in the piano repertoire. The torrent of imagination and emotion Schumann poured into these works is extraordinary by any standards.

These 13 CDs contain his entire output for solo piano, plus his only completed piano concerto (again his problem with classical forms lead him to abandon 2 other piano concertos), which has become one of the best loved piano concertos in the repertoire.

In celebration of the Schumann-year 2010.

Robert Schumann wrote his oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri on Persian fairy tales, a rather unusual subject in a period when oratorios were mainly based on biblical history.

As always in Schumann’s case his way of treating the form is highly original and imaginative. Rather than keeping in the tradition of separate sections of recitative, aria and choruses, he blended the form in a continuous stream of action, in which motives related to persons or situations were the main dramatic features. In this he paved the way for Richard Wagner’s musical dramas.

Wonderful soloists: Julia Faulkner, Florence Quivar and others, and the oldest (and some say best…) orchestra of Germany, Staatskapelle Dresden, conducted by the late Giuseppe Sinopoli.

Complete text of the oratorio included in the booklet.

An original programme featuring works for cello and piano by Schumann, arrangements of works written originally for other instruments.

Schumann himself left the choice of instrument open for some of his works: the clarinet, oboe and cello often changed roles.

The Romanzen Op. 94 were originally for oboe and piano, but work very well played on the cello, as arranged by the famous 19th century cellist Grützmacher. Also the violin sonata Op. 105 fares excellently through the golden, melancholy sonorities of the cello.

Schumann lived his whole life under the spell of the great Johann Sebastian Bach, and as a tribute to Bach’s genius Schumann added a piano part to the famous Cello Suites.

This is the second issue of Schumann transcriptions for cello by the duo Francesco Dillon/Emanuele Torquati. Their earlier issue BC 94060 received enthusiastic comment in the international press: “comes across with vibrant conviction” (Musicweb International).

This collection provides a complete account of Robert Schumann’s works for viola and piano. Schumann was a real innovator, who would often explore new instrumental combinations, sometimes bringing neglected or forgotten instruments back into the limelight. The works on this recording show just how many different moods the composer could evoke using the unusual combination of viola and piano, from the changeable nature of the Fantasiestücke Op.73 and the array of emotions portrayed in the Märchenbilder Op.113 to the passion of the Adagio and Allegro Op.70 and finally the intricacies of the Märchenerzählungen Op.132, with a little help from the clarinet.

The successful partnership of violist Lorenzo Falconi and pianist Sara Bacchini has been described by acclaimed performer, Pier Narciso Masi, as ‘a real Duo, in the most complete sense of the word. Their profound understanding of chamber music is supported by considerable talent, sensitivity and personality, and they are great communicators.’ They are joined for the recording by clarinettist Darlo Goracci.

Mariana Izman was born in Moldavia in 1979. Taking up the piano at the age of just 6, she graduated with honours in 2002 from the Conservatory of Amsterdam. A year prior to her graduation, she won the third prize at the 2001 YPF National Piano Competition. She performs regularly both in the Netherlands and internationally. Mariana Izman’s recital includes two of Schumann’s most famous works for piano. Davidsbündlertänze,

which consists of 18 character pieces, was composed in 1837, just after his reconciliation with Clara Wieck following a disastrous attempt to ask her father’s permission to marry her. Papillons Op.2 dates from 1832.

Schumann appended programmatic descriptions to the numbers based on the masked ball scene from Jean Paul’s novel Flegeljahre. Both use material from some earlier polonaises for piano four-hands. Although an early work, the Third Sonata had a long and complicated gestation. It started out in life as a ‘Concerto without Orchestra’ in 1835 and the slow movement is a set of variations on a theme by Clara.

Schumann started work on at least three piano concertos, but only one, the A minor Concerto Op.54, itself a merging of two originally separate works, survives. Constantly reworked, as were the other two sonatas, the Third Sonata was finally published with a scherzo in 1853, three years before Schumann’s death.

New recording: one of a series of releases from Brilliant Classics featuring outstanding young artists who have won the principal prizes at the Young Pianist Foundation’s National Piano Competition.