Brahms: Theme and Variations in D minor (arr. from String Sextet, Op. 18)

This is Volume 1 in Imogen Cooper’s new series on Chandos Records, dedicated to the complete works for piano by Robert Schumann. Recognised worldwide as a pianist of virtuosity and poetic poise, Imogen Cooper has established a reputation as one of the finest interpreters of the classical and romantic repertoire. She has dazzled audiences and orchestras throughout her distinguished career, bringing to the concert platform a unique musical understanding and lyrical quality.

‘Duality, intermingling and juxtaposing identities, the dream world, the subconscious, wild humour, the supernatural, disguise, the outsider’. These are all words used by Imogen Cooper to describe the inner world of Robert Schumann. On this recording, she offers her interpretations of two works by this deeply inspired composer: Fantasiestücke and Kreisleriana. Both display in full Schumann’s extraordinary ability to express the gamut of human emotions in a highly imaginative language that draws the best from both piano and performer.

Schumann dedicated his Fantasiestücke to a young Scottish pianist by the name of Roberta Laidlaw, with whom he had a close, if brief, relationship during his eighteen-month-long separation from Clara Wieck, whom he was patiently courting. In one of the most important early studies of Schumann’s music, published in the journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Franz Brendel compared this work to ‘a landscape painting in which the foreground gains prominence in sharply delineated, clear contours while the background becomes blurred and vanishes in a limitless perspective’.

Kreisleriana was inspired by a complex character created by the writer E.T.A Hoffmann: Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler. In reflecting the complex personality of Kreisler, Schumann’s Kreisleriana seems to take on the very same alternating characteristics that are ascribed to this character. At times the music comes across as wild, eccentric, and clever, at others it displays a mood that is truly tender, lyrical, and romantic.

The last work on this disc is the solo piano arrangement which Johannes Brahms made of the Theme and Variations movement from his String Sextet, Op. 18, and dedicated to Clara Schumann. She received the manuscript of this arrangement on her forty-first birthday, 13 September 1860. She was delighted to be able to play the variations herself, as she wrote in a letter to Brahms three days later. Nonetheless, the first public performance did not take place until a concert in Frankfurt on 31 October 1865.

American pianist Garrick Ohlsson, whose Complete Chopin set was acclaimed as one of the most important anniversary releases of 2010, now turns to another significant, though often overlooked, body of Romantic piano music – Brahms’s complete variations.

The coruscatingly difficult Paganini variations, a bravura display of pyrotechnic virtuosity, frequently feature in piano competitions, performed to demonstrate extraordinary technique. In this performance, Garrick Ohlsson also displays remarkable musicality.

The Variations and Fugue on a theme of Handel is one of the summits of his entire keyboard output, showing the composer at the height of his powers. This 2-disc set also contains some little-known gems, including the wonderful Variations on an Original Theme.

Ian Holtham is a distinguished Melbourne-based pianist who has a long discography of Classical and Romantic music to his credit, especially including the music of Chopin.

In this, his first release on Tall Poppies, he has chosen a program of relatively rare works from the piano repertoire. In Ian’s own words:

“The repertoire chosen for the CD is a compilation unique in piano discography and in the history of piano performance. The version of the Schubert unfinished Sonata DV 625 contains completions of the outer movements in which I have had a creative hand and which have never been recorded or performed before. My own interest in commemorative repertoire is enriched through the inclusion of Brahms’ own transcription of the second movement of the string sextet Op. 18, which was a birthday present to Clara Schumann who had expressed fond admiration for the movement in its original string format. The score of this work was only discovered well into the twentieth century. Chopin’s Rondo a la Mazurka would be the least known of all this composer’s major piano output and similarly Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, Op 6 is the most significant of all his major piano cycles, but it is also by far the least performed."

Nicolas Stavy is a magnificent interpreter of romantic repertoire. His Chopin CD issued by Paraty was very warmly received by the press.

This recording was made possible through the support of The Ivory Classics Foundation and the Council on Research and Creative Work as well as the Graduate Council for the Arts and Humanities at the University of Colorado

In September 1853, Johannes Brahms arrived for his first meeting with Robert and Clara Schumann at their home in Düseldorf. Brahms, a youthful age of twenty ("hardly more than a boy" were the words of Robert Schumann's protégé Albert Dietrich), made an immediate and powerful impression on the older master, who in October wrote his famous essay, New Paths proclaiming...

Iconic pianist Radu Lupu has been an exclusive DECCA artist for 40 years. This all-new collection brings together for the first time all of his published solo recordings for DECCA as an integral set. It features those composers with which Lupu's name has been so closely linked throughout his career and for which he has achieved worldwide acclaim: Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann.

A special bonus is the inclusion of Radu Lupu's first concerto recording - Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto - made in 1970 with the London Symphony under the direction of Lawrence Foster. It was this concerto that Lupu had played to massive acclaim when he won the 1969 Leeds Piano Competition.

2010 marks the 40th anniversary of Lupu's association with Decca and in November he celebrates his 65th birthday.

Although he has publicly expressed his dislike of the recording process and has not agreed to make any recordings in recent years, Radu Lupu continues to give recitals and perform concertos in important venues throughout the world and many of his recordings have achieved reference status.