Robert Schumann

A special luxury collector's edition of Pictures Reframed, including both a DVD and CD packaged together in an exhibition 156 pages catalogue-style hardback book with a wide selection of images from the creation and final performance version of Pictures Reframed.

Leif Ove Andsnes embarks on a major project which marks a new departure for the internationally acclaimed pianist. Together with South African-born visual artist Robin Rhode he has created a special programme entitled Pictures Reframed which centres around Mussorgsky's epic piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition combining music, film and still imagery.

"There are pieces of music where you feel everything's there, everything is said" comments Andsnes. "Pictures at an Exhibition is the opposite, making it a perfect composition to experiment with as Mussorgsky's music is incredibly strong but also very open and experimental. The main thing isn't the notes themselves, but the composer's grand vision. For me therefore, the original version of the work remains almost as a sketch that is open for transformations and changes. You have this wild narrative of a person walking into an exhibition and he crashes into the first picture and is faced with various strong images and textures. Later in the cycle he becomes a part of the picture and it takes on so many aspects. Its psychologically challenging, I think."

Leif Ove Andsnes and Robin Rhode share a mutual fascination with Pictures at an Exhibition. Rhode had already been experimenting with images based on Mussorgsky's work and his 2008 digital animation "Promenade" has become the opening sequence for Pictures Reframed. With its characterful and constantly changing interplay between actor and drawing it fittingly sets the scene for the musical narrative to come. "I have always worked very closely with music" Rhode says "playing with the notion of rhythm and sound. This new project is not, therefore, so distant from my regular practice although classical music has such an intense history and that will be a difficult challenge."

Robin Rhode and Leif Ove Andsnes met for the first time in Munich in September 2007 and ideas for the programme have been evolving ever since, moving from piano to studio and back to piano. One of their early meetings took place in a derelict Berlin factory where Rhode started to draw on the bare wall - a backdrop that is often featured in his work, stemming from his introduction to art on the streets of Johannesburg. As Rhode embellished the imaginary instrument Andsnes stepped forward to perform on it, bringing another dimension to Rhode's playful and often illusionary work.

One of the great names of 20th century Russian musical life.

Four cello concertos, sonatas, trios, and other chamber works feature in this set.

Knushevitsky is accompanied by artists such as Lev Oborin, David Oistrakh, Alexander Goldenweiser (a pupil of Arensky and a friend of Tolstoy).

The recording of the Khachaturian concerto is that of the first performance.

Extensive booklet essay by Ates Orga.

Born in 1908, Knushevitsky studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Semyon Kozolupov. He was senior to Rostropovitch and Shafran, and he graduated with a gold medal the same year as Emil Gilels took the piano honours. Joining the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra in 1929, he remained their principal cello until 1943. In 1940 he co founded one of the most famous piano trios of all time with David Oistrakh and Lev Oborin. Knushevitsky’s jet-setting life style eventually (along with his alcohol dependency) to its toll, and he suffered a heart attack, which killed him, aged 55 in 1963. Gliere, Khachaturian and Miaskovsky all wrote concertos for him, and his repertoire embraced not only the mainstream , but contemporary and rarer works such as the Strauss sonata and the Reger Suites, plus an extensive array of crowd pleasing encores such as Chopin’s op.25 C sharp minor etude ‘left hand’, transcribed by Glazunov.

His style of playing was lyrical, and had great emotional depth. Had he not succumbed to drink he would have challenged Rostropovich as the pre-eminent Russian cellist of the 20th century. As it is his reputation is considerable, and this 5CD collection allows the listener to experience his remarkable music-making.

The first of four 2-CD “Flagstad Recitals” features Kirsten Flagstad in Brahms and Schubert on CD1 as well as CD premieres of songs by Schumann (including her previously unpublished “Zum Schluss”), Strauss, Wolf and Sinding on CD2. Her great power and control placed her among those with the natural capacity for success in the ‘big’ songs with its special thrill, but there is no want of gentleness in the quieter ones. The American critic, Virgil Thomson, probably spoke for the whole audience when he wrote on Flagstad’s return to the United States in 1947: ‘Never in this writer’s concert-going lifetime has there been available any other vocal artistry of such sumptuous natural acoustics, such perfect technical control and such sound musicianship’.

"Throughout, one is stirred by the sheer beauty of the sound." Gramophone

“deeply felt … wonderfully radiant tone … very touching” [Brahms] “the operatic drama of Der Erlkönig is as memorable as the gently ravishing cantilena of Am Grabe Anselmos” The Penguin Guide to Bargain Compact Discs

"…worth having for the Wolf group alone." Gramophone

The Decca Ansermet Legacy on Eloquence continues to garner the highest plaudits from publications all around the world and the latest batch presents the maestro’s recordings of four key Austro-German Romantics: Schubert, Weber, Mendelssohn and Schumann. This 2-CD set brings together all of Ansermet’s Schumann recordings for Decca.

Ansermet’s Schumann is generally unforced and relaxed, with all but the Piano and Cello Concertos making their first international appearance on CD. In the Piano Concerto – a live radio broadcast recording with Lipatti, newly remastered for this release – Lipatti seems to drive the orchestra to new levels of excitement.

As with many of the (relatively few) concertante works Ansermet recorded, the soloists are drawn from the orchestra – as is the case with Edmund Leloir, principal horn of the OSR from 1952-77, for the Adagio and Allegro, originally for horn and piano and, for this recording, orchestrated by Ansermet. Maurice Gendron, soloist in the Cello Concerto, was one of Jacqueline du Pré’s teachers. The Schumann concerto was one of his specialties; he frequently played it when he was invited to appear with orchestras.

“Gendron's performance is instinct with poetry, and, with Ansermet, he achieves a lucidity of expression which is very taking … artistic integrity and understanding which is utterly remarkable” Gramophone

[Schumann's' Symphony No 1] “…a wonderfully light and graceful performance” Gramophone

[Lipatti's Schumann] “…a deeply moving performance. Lipatti plays con amore, almost as if aware the opportunity might never come again” Gramophone

“I would like to sing myself to death like a nightingale”, wrote Schumann in 1840, revealing a sudden passion for the lied, a genre he had hitherto disdained. Written in 1852 in a period of intense nervous suffering, the cycle of Poems of Queen Mary Stuart stands out for its austerity and exceptional concentration of resources; it might be seen as Schumann’s testament.

"it's hard to think of a more consistently pleasing example of this voice category recording today" International Record Review, February 2009

Schott-Zierotin has recorded numerous CDs and is a publisher of chamber music and is a specialist in Strauss, Lanner and Fahrbach. Georg Wagner has a lively interest in all aspects of music and has been engaged in a variety of fields including publishing, composition, performing as a percussionist and soloist and accompanist on piano and harpsichord.

The peerless Takács Quartet, recently nominated for a Gramophone award for their second disc of Brahms’s string quartets, continue their fêted exploration of the Romantic chamber music tradition with this disc of Schumann.

The Piano Quintet in E flat major is by far Schumann’s most popular chamber work and one of the most beloved works in the genre. Schumann was the first romantic composer to pair the piano with the string quartet. It was written during the composer’s ‘chamber music year’ (1842) when, ‘in the first happiness of reunion with the piano, his creative imagination took on a new lease of life’ (Joan Chisell, Robert Schumann). Schumann had been studying the string quartets of Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn, and the String Quartet in A major Op 41 No 3 demonstrates these influences, but is written in a characteristic musical language and contains many highly original strokes, particularly the casting of the Scherzo as a set of variations.

The Takács Quartet are joined by Marc-André Hamelin in an invigorating partnership that has already been widely acclaimed on the concert platform.

To the present-day listener one of the most notable aspects of European concert music in the 19th century is the degree to which it became far less the preserve of the Church and the ruling classes. Many composers working in the early years of the century, Beethoven among them, were, to a lesser or greater extent, still working as employees of the Church or the wealthy aristocratic classes. This system of patronage was soon to break down and the role of the composer took on a more professional and academic character. The new-found freedom, and the advent of Romanticism in the arts as a whole, revitalised music throughout Europe; composers began to experiment with new forms, making their music more personal and innovative. This change of musical climate is clearly illustrated in this 17-CD set made up of works from most of the great composers of the time.