Robert Schumann

This CD is devoted to music for violin and piano by Robert Schumann, and includes the first two sonatas, opus 105 in A minor and opus 121 in D minor, alongside four song arrangements. The performers are the German violinist Lionel Roth, a protégé of Anne-Sophie Mutter, and the Argentinean pianist José Gallardo.

Written in 1851, Robert Schumann’s first Violin Sonata in D minor was premiered by his sister Clara and the violinist Ferdinand David a year later. Schumann himself expressed a certain amount of displeasure with the work at the time, and claimed that he wrote the Sonata No 2 in D Minor to make up for his disappointment with the earlier work. Both pieces are now staples of the chamber music repertoire. Four beautiful song settings, three of which have been arranged by the artists themselves, make a unique addition to this disc. Linus Roth studied music at the Music Academies of Zurich and Munich during which time he received major support from Anne-Sophie Mutter and her Foundation. As a soloist he has performed with many of the greatest music ensembles around the world, including with the Orchestra of Stuttgart State Opera, Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Radio Orchestras of SWR and Berlin, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and the Vienna Chamber Philharmonic. Argentinean pianist José Gallardo has won many national and international awards, and appeared at many major music events including the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival, the Asiago Festival in Italy, and the Rheingau Music Festival.

Askenase made his debut in Vienna in 1919. His pupils have included Martha Argerich and Mitsuko Uchida. These recordings date from 1951-55.

Of the Schumann recordings – ‘His playing is truthful and sympathetic……….Schiff captures Schumann’s mercurial mood changes without drawing attention to an interpreter at work’ Gramophone

The Six Studies for Pedal Piano is played in the arrangement for two pianos by Debussy. All the other pieces are for solo piano.

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

Mendelssohn was a master of improvisation on the organ and on this CD Lutz and Schmeding follow in his footsteps, performing on instruments closely linked to Mendelssohn.

Schumann said music is the language that allows one to commune with the other world. In 1834 this poet in sound, who had first thought about a literary career, founded a musical journal (Neue Zeitschrift für Musik), writing its leading articles under various pseudonyms which encapsulated the contradictory aspects of his own nature and those of his imaginary collaborators in the Davidsbündler, David’s companions struggling against the artistic Philistines, hypocrites and impostors. An “opera without text”, according to Schumann, the Davidsbündlertänze (Dances of David’s Companions), published in 1838, are pieces of exceptional harmonic and rhythmic boldness.

Schumann was one of the first composers to examine the world of childhood. In 1848, in his Album for the Young, he gathered together a series of little pieces: joyful, picturesque or melancholy, invitations to dream or nostalgic looks back at the composer’s childhood.

Dedicated to Liszt, the Fantasie, Op.17 is one of the masterpieces of romantic piano music. Fiery, grandiose and febrile, this audacious, extremely virtuosic piece was intended by Schumann as an impassioned, heart-rending outburst addressed in 1836 to Clara Wieck, whom he only succeeded in marrying four years later after months of difficulties and suffering.

Critically acclaimed Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, who records exclusively for Naïve, releases her second solo recording for the label featuring a selection of fine lieder and two major song cycles by Schumann. She is accompanied by American pianist, Daniel Blumenthal.

Following her critically praised debut solo CD of French mélodies (L’Heure exquise) multi-award winning Canadian contralto, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, returns with her second eagerly anticipated solo album on Naïve. Acknowledged as one of the foremost interpreters of her generation in the Baroque and Romantic repertoires, Lemieux ventures into the wonderfully passionate and poetic world of Schumann lieder.

The programme opens with the stunning song cycle, Liederkreis Op.39. Written in May 1840, the cycle comprises of twelve songs based on poems by Joseph Eichendorff. Though the cycle presents no intelligible narrative framework, the result is a cycle that is completely coherent, almost a dream, a masterpiece on a par with Schubert’s Winterreise, consisting of a legendary ballad, mysterious nocturnes, meditations on love, and surges of passion: Romanticism at its best! Two months later, Schumann composed Frauenliebe und Leben Op.42. The songs describe the successive stages in a woman’s life: Her first love, engagement, marriage, motherhood to the continuation of her love for her husband after his death. This very intimate cycle often expresses happiness tinged with sorrow and a feeling of tragedy pervades the work, even amidst the joys of marriage. Marie-Nicole Lemieux’s dramatic qualities suit this cycle perfectly. To complete this programme of pieces by Schumann, Lemieux has chosen some other songs by the composer – Stille Tränen, Die Löwenbraut, Loreley, Er ist’s, Widmung,Der Nussbaum – perfect for her warm contralto voice.

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.