Franz Peter Schubert

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.

Shybayeva ‘impresses with a solid sense of form and imaginative and rich colouring of her playing’. NRC Handelsblad reviewing a recital

Hanna Shybayava was born in Belarus in 1979. A student of Naum Grubert, she won the 2001 YPF National Piano Competition and has attended masterclasses with Murray Perahia and Emanuel Ax. Her recital on this Brilliant Classics disc is of two of Schubert’s greatest sonatas.

The A minor Sonata D784 dates from 1823. The period from 1821 to 1825 saw Schubert start and abandon many sonatas and symphonies – struggling to establish his mature and individual voice. Many of these unfinished works provide a fascinating view into the mind of this intense and private artist. The huge torso of the C major Sonata D840 – consisting of the first two movements, half the scherzo, and a finale that breaks off without warning to nothing – is a prime example. The Seventh and Eighth Symphonies (the latter being the famous ‘Unfinished’), though fragmentary, point the way to Schubert’s mature style, free of the influence of Haydn and Mozart, and, most importantly a voice that was as unique and powerful as Beethoven’s. The piano-writing is almost orchestral. It is unflashy, stark, and with constantly changing moods. The A major Sonata D959 was started and completed along with its companion sonatas D958 and 960 in September 1828.

It is an austere work, and on a large scale, with a pensive menuetto in place of the traditional scherzo, and a brooding, wintry finale, obsessive almost in its gloom – very much in the spirit of Winterreise. Less than two months after completing the work, Schubert was dead. Originally intended for dedication to Hummel, the three sonatas were not published until 1838, a year after Hummel’s death. The publisher Diabelli dedicated them to Schumann.

A fine collection of some of the most wonderful short romantic pieces composed for piano – perfect for dinner parties!

No one wrote better for four hands at one piano than Schubert – not even Mozart. This recording contains a work with little or no competition - Variations in A flat major. Widely regarded as one of Britain’s leading piano duos, Piano 4 Hands are regular performers at London’s Wigmore Hall, South Bank Centre and Fairfield Halls.

Sinn Yang began giving solo recitals at the age of 13 and has had numerous successes in competitions. Indeed the making of this CD is the result of winning the 2008 violin competition “Sound and Explanation – Conveying Works in Music and Word”.

The national and international commitments of this quartet have taken these artists to virtually all the leading concert venues in Europe, USA, Canada, Africa and South Korea. Since 2003, the quartet has had its own festival in Füssen.

This duo recital was recorded at the 1977 Schwetzinger Festival. The works include Prokofiev Sonata No.1 and Beethoven Sonata No.10. The Russian violinist Gidon Kremer was a major artist of the 20th century and the piano accompaniments are played his long-time colleague and collaborator Oleg Maisenberg.

This Mid-Price five CD set is an extensive collection of popular orchestral classical compositions and concertos, the “jewels” of classical music. The works include the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, Brandenburg Concerto No.4 and Mozart Piano Concerto No.4. The artists are well known and include the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.