Robert Schumann

Sony Classical ORIGINALS offer listeners outstanding enjoyment, authentically recapturing the fascination of legendary recordings from the age of long-playing records and preserving worthwhile releases from two labels with particularly long and distinguished traditions: RCA Red Seal and Columbia Masterworks. These superb recordings by great artists have enjoyed international acclaim ever since they were first released. Showered with critical plaudits, they are part of the 20th century’s cultural legacy. All have been remastered and carefully restored using the latest studio technology in order to reproduce the original interpretations as faithfully as possible. The CD covers are taken over from the original LPs. The original introductions and LP labels are also reproduced in full, making Sony Classical ORIGINALS unique documents in the history of recorded sound.

Featuring original LP cover artwork in full size and reproduction of original labels in mini LP design.

Contains original liner notes in 3 languages (English, French and German) Jewel case packaging with fully coloured booklets.

The Sony Classical Originals bring together for the first time at the Mid Price the greatest recordings from across all of the labels which are part of the Sony Classical umbrella, and are a perfect starting point for any classical collector.

This sixth disc in the Naxos series of the complete Schumann Lieder features the 26 songs of Myrthen (Myrtles), which date from February of that year.

Robert Schumann’s literary interests influenced his choice of the poems he used for his songs, many of which were composed in a burst of activity during the ‘Year of Song’ 1840. Dedicated to his beloved Clara (myrtles were used for bridal wreaths), this album of exquisite songs explores themes of devotion, longing, loneliness, matrimony and maternity. His Six Poems and Requiem of August 1850 set mournful texts by Lenau, concluding with an anonymous Medieval poem ‘Héloïse's lament for Abelard’.

Born in Nagoya in Japan, Etsuko Hirose began to play the piano at the age of three and later studied with Bruno Rigutto and Nicholas Angelich. In 1999, her First prize at the Martha Argerich Competition marked the point of departure for her solo career. A previous disc of Chopin Ballades, also for Mirare, was compared favourably to Nelson Goerner and even Horowitz.

An improbable series of masks and Carnival scenes from 1843-46, played by the Czech pianist Slávka Pěchočová: the very essence of Romantic piano.

After graduating from the conservatory in Pardubice under the guidance of Martin Hršel, Slávka Pěchočová studied with Ivan Moravec. She also participated in master classes given by Nelly Akopian and, in 2002 completed the graduate programme at the Royal College of Music in London. Pěchočová has played with various orchestras, at home and abroad, conducted by Libor Pešek, Jiří Bělohlávek, Martin Turnovský, Jakub Hrůša, et al. In the summer of 2009 she was a guest soloist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall in London during the Proms. Pěchočová also pursues chamber music: she plays in the Spring duo and the Kinsky Trio Prague. Her 2010 recording of Janáček for Praga Digitals was enthusiastically received.

Daniel Marty is well known as an opera singer but on this CD his performances of works by 18th century composers are particularly illuminating. Also included are the 12 songs of Georges Migot, composed in 1950 and quite a rarity.

It’s hard to believe that Martha Argerich is now approaching her 70th birthday – on 5 June this year. She has been recording for Deutsche Grammophon for 50 years, and has made some of the greatest recordings on the label, now fully documented on The Martha Argerich Collection capboxes (Solo Recordings, Concerto Recording, Chamber Ensemble Recordings).

Three generously filled CDs (nearly 240 minutes of music) portray the incredible virtuosity, style and range of this incomparable artist. We follow her solo and concerto career that is gradually subsumed in recordings with musical partners like Nelson Freire, Stephen Kovacevich, Mischa Maisky and Gidon Kremer – Argerich’s five decades of recording with DG and Philips (Decca) are surveyed in a magnificent chronological sweep.

The outstanding Russian soloist Alexei Volodin’s first recording for Challenge Classics (CC72354), released last year, was devoted to the music Chopin. His new CD brings together piano works by three of the most influential composers of the last two centuries. Robert Schumann’s Kreisleriana was written in 18, whilst Ravel’s Miroirs and Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 5 are products of the first half of the 1900s.

Alexei Volodin was born in St. Petersburg in 1977, and began taking piano lessons there at the age of nine. A year later he moved to Moscow, and in 1994 he enrolled at the Moscow Conservatoire. During 2001 and 2002 he studied at the Theo Lieven International Piano Foundation in Como. Alexei Volodin has won several prizes at different international competitions, including First Prize at the Concours Géza Anda in Zurich in 2003.

Ravel composed the piano suite Miroirs in 1904-05 after he had joined the Société des Apaches, a group of ground-breaking young musicians, composers, music critics, poets, writers and painters, which included Igor Stravinsky, Florent Schmitt, Manuel de Falla and Maurice Delage. Miroirs is a musical tribute to them, and each of the five movements is dedicated to one of the members. Robert Schumann studied Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier intensively when working on the eight short pieces that make up his Kreisleriana, and consequently each individual movement is a prime example of formal discipline and structural coherence within the cycle as a whole. The Russian composer Alexander Scriabin’s enthusiasm for the mystic and poetic elements in the works of Wagner, Liszt, and Nietzsche led him to attempt to establish an all embracing, eternal and super human art form, and it is this philosophy that is the driving force behind music of his Piano Sonata No. 5.