Chopin: Grand Duo for Cello and Piano (on themes from Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable)

“In the Rococo Variations [Brantelid] is magnetic throughout, characterising each variation compellingly, with rubato finely controlled. His spontaneity in the little cadenza-like links is most persuasive too and that leads to an impulsive account of the last variation and the coda, with flawless double stopping.” (Gramophone)

Frédéric Chopin had been living in Paris only a matter of months when he was commissioned by the publisher Schlesinger in 1831 to write a work based on themes from Meyerbeer’s opera Robert le Diable, which had premiered some weeks earlier. The result was the Grand Duo for cello and piano. For assistance with the cello part, Chopin turned to a new acquaintance, the cellist Auguste Franchomme, who subsequently became a close friend and for whom he composed the Sonata in G minor 14 years later. The G minor Trio dates from 1828-29 and was dedicated to Prince Antoni Radziwill, an arts patron and amateur cellist. Chopin composed it in Poland but the work remained unpublished until 1833, by which time the composer was already living in Paris.

Andreas Brantelid (b. 1987), one of Scandinavia’s leading cellists, is quickly establishing an international reputation. Winner of a 2008 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and a current member of the BBC’s New Generation Artist scheme, Brantelid was nominated for the European Concert Hall Organization’s "Rising Star" scheme in 2008-2009 and has performed in, among others, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Musikverein Vienna, Palais des Beaux Arts Brussels and Philharmonie Cologne.

Brantelid, who made his solo debut with orchestra at the age of 14 with the Royal Danish Orchestra, Copenhagen in the Elgar Cello Concerto, has since appeared with all the major orchestras in Scandinavia. He is the first Scandinavian to win 1st Prize in the Eurovision Young Musicians Competition (2006) and in the Paulo International Cello Competition (2007) and was Danish Radio’s “Artist in Residence, 2007.”

Brantelid made his Wigmore Hall debut in 2008 with the Swedish pianist Bengt Forsberg, with whom he collaborates regularly. He also performs frequently at important festivals including Risør and Bergen in Norway, Kuhmo in Finland and the City of London and Cheltenham Festivals in the UK.

He has been invited to join the New York Lincoln Center’s 'Chamber Music Society Two' programme for three seasons from 2009/10, with his first appearance in December 2009. Also this season, he performs with the Gothenburg and Hamburg symphonies, BBC Philharmonic and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. He makes his debut at Carnegie Hall, gives recitals in London, Paris and the world premiere of Niels Rosing-Schow’s Cello Concerto with the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Pianist Marianna Shirinyan hails from Yerevan, Armenia, where she began her piano studies before moving to Hamburg to work with Mathias Weber. She has also studied chamber music with Thomas Brandis and Maria Egelhof and is currently at the Musikhochschule Lübeck studying with Konrad Elserm, having won several competitions along the way in Germany, Spain, Italy and Denmark, most recently the annual prize of the Danish Music Critics’ Association in 2009. Shirinyan is establishing herself on the international stage as a soloist and chamber musician, working with such artists as Christian Altenburger, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Boris Baraz, Thomas Brandis, Wolfgang Bötcher, Ana Chumachenko, Ivry Gitlis, Ida Haendel, Midori and Pavel Vernikov and closely involved with the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival as a coach for piano chamber music at its Orchestral Academy. Marianna Shirinyan has been a member of the Esbjerg Ensemble in Denmark since 2003.

Vilde Frang, the young Norwegian violinist and protégée of Anne Sophie Mutter, made her debut at the age of 10 with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and was subsequently engaged by Mariss Jansons to perform with the Oslo Philharmonic. She has since performed extensively in Scandinavia, the UK, Germany, Switzerland and the Baltic countries and has appeared at international festivals in Verbier, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Lucerne. Frang has performed in concert with Martha Argerich, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and Maxim Vengerov and has toured Europe and the United States with Anne-Sophie Mutter and Camerata Salzburg. The winner of a 2007 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and of the 2009 Norwegian Soloist award, Frang recently signed with EMI Classics. Her debut release, scheduled for January 2010, features the Sibelius Violin Concerto and three Humoresques and Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln and conductor Thomas Søndergård.

On this recording, Sofronitsky performs on copies of two of Chopin’s favourite pianos; a Conrad Graf piano ca. 1819 and a Pleyel piano of 1830.

This delightful release draws the Chopin bicentenary year to a close with a recording of the complete chamber works of Chopin. In this recording the musicians use the first French edition of Chopin’s work from the collection of the Historical-Literary Society and the Polish Library in Paris. The Pleyel piano used dates from 1845 and once fully renovated was donated to the society in 2006 and is on permanent display devoted to the composer.

Chopin is universally acclaimed as one of the most original and innovative composers of music for the piano, especially in the romantic and lyrical field. Much of his music is deeply patriotic and infused with a love of his native Poland. 2010 marks the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

Whilst it is well known that Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, born in 1810, left his native country of Poland for Paris at 21, never to return, it may be interesting to speculate how much he knew about the country of his immediate forefathers before he left. His grandfather, François, came from a peasant-family which had established itself in the Vosges growing vines. It was in Marainville that Chopin’s father, Nicolas, was born in 1771. It was by chance that the landowner was a Polish Count whose Polish steward befriended him and offered him the chance to improve his prospects in Poland. Thus it was, aged 16, he departed intending it only as a temporary visit but a letter home three years later shows that he was staying to avoid conscription in to the Revolutionary army. His life did certainly improve in Poland, first as a clerk and then in the Polish Guard where he rose to the rank of Captain. He became a children’s tutor for aristocratic families where his knowledge of French proved highly valuable. It was in the service of a Count on an estate near Warsaw that he met his wife and Ludwika was born in 1807 followed by Fryderyk three years later on 1st March. The family then moved to Warsaw where Nicolas became the teacher for French language and literature in the new high school. Two further daughters were born of which one died of consumption at the age of 14.

Although his father taught French he increased his reputation by adopting the language and culture of Poland and this dual national inheritance was crucial in forming the young Chopin’s views and future career. When the boy was only five the final defeat of Napoleon meant that Warsaw was to suffer under the oppressive rule of Russia. As with all prodigies Chopin took to music early, even crying with emotion when his mother played the piano or sang to him. At the age of six he was given a thorough basic knowledge of the music of Bach and the Viennese Classics. He seems to have taught himself how to play the piano and his teacher would write down his improvisations for him. His first to be published in 1817 was a polonaise in G minor (CD 8 [2]). It was dedicated to a Countess, the daughter of his godparents and similar such acts gave him access to the aristocratic salons where his father’s native tongue rather than Polish was spoken, being the language of culture. His music also impressed the military commander of the occupying forces, the Tsar’s brother, who arranged for a march of Chopin’s to be orchestrated and played by his band.

Besides his musical education his other studies took place at the high school where his father taught and he obtained his diploma in 1826.

Before that he had taken lessons with Jósef Elsner who, amongst other things, taught him how to write out his own compositions. His first work given an Opus number was the Rondo (CD 13 [8]) which was published in 1825. The Sonata Op. 4 (CD 13 [1]-[4]) followed in 1828 but Chopin’s real interest at this time were the dance forms of the mazurka and polonaise together with the Rondo. With Elsner he also completed his first Nocturne (later published as Op. 72 No. 1, CD 6 [12]). It was in this year that he had first experience of foreign travel when a zoology professor and friend of his father’s, took him to Berlin. On his return journey he was able to try out the first movement of his piano trio with Prince Antonin Radziwill, a cellist; he was to be the dedicatee of the work. He also completed the first two studies of Op. 10 (CD 10 [2&3]).

The Berlin experience clearly whetted Chopin’s appetite for more as Warsaw, under Russian rule, gave him little chance to hear the latest music although there were the occasional visits by Hummel and Paganini.

In July 1829, after completing his final exams at the Conservatory he set off with three friends for Vienna. He wanted to see his publisher, Tobias Haslinger, and it was he who was the mastermind in arranging two concerts for him. These were immensely successful particularly those pieces which allowed his improvisatory skills to shine. He returned home in August via Prague and Dresden.

Although his concerts at home were successful and he was now regarded as a burgeoning national figure he craved the international life which only a move to a major city would bring. In November the following year he returned to Vienna but the succeeding eight months were frustrating. His two concerts were not successful and no more works were published. It was natural for him, with his French ancestry and knowledge, to desire to go to Paris and he eventually arrived there in September 1831.

He quickly established himself and was immediately recognised as a pianist of quality by his fellows including Liszt and Mendelssohn; the famous remark “Hats off, a genius” by Schumann appeared in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung that December. The local Parisians were less forthcoming and his concerts were financially not successful; so he limited his performances and found that he was just as able to obtain both fame and fortune by not appearing before the public. He was supported by the aristocracy whose judgements were based more on musicality and not the mere technical wizardry of the spectacular virtuosos who used this for effect whereas the musical content was comparatively limited.

For the next few years he both toured – primarily Germany – and wrote; his compositions of this time included all the dance forms he made famous together with nocturnes, preludes and studies many of them being his popular compositions in those styles. In August 1835 he met his parents for the last time in Karlsbad; they returned to Poland whilst he went on to Dresden where he joined the family whose three sons had been at school with Chopin; one of the daughters, Maria, aged 16, took a fancy to Chopin and, even though there were nine years between them, he did not dismiss the idea of a relationship as he was struck by her youth and beauty. A present of his Waltz “L’Adieu” (Op, 69 No, 1, CD 9 [12]) was made to her on his departure for Leipzig where Mendelssohn introduced him to Schumann and Clara Wieck, whom he regarded as ‘the only woman in Germany who can play my music’. On visiting Heidelberg he became ill – indeed he struggled with ill health throughout his life – and rumours of his death appeared in newspapers in Warsaw. The following year he took up the pursuit of Maria and proposed marriage in September; although the parents liked him their opposition grew probably on the grounds of his health and the engagement was terminated in the summer of 1837.

The keyboard instrument that we now call the piano was undergoing a major part of its development and Chopin, through his friendship with a major manufacturer, Pleyel, was a pivotal influence in this; he and Pleyel came to London and visited John Broadwood, the manufacturer who had supplied Beethoven with a number of pianos.

In late 1836 Liszt introduced Chopin to the novelist Baroness Aurore Dudevant who was immediately attracted to him. Chopin, on the other hand, thought her, who had been brought up as a boy, too masculine in appearance and manner. She was six years older and already had had numerous lovers and one husband by whom she had had two children. She had left him five years earlier as she had inherited considerable wealth including an estate and chateau to which she now invited Chopin.

Gradually she wore down his reticence and finally seduced him, this was the start of the nine year affair with the Baroness whose pen name was George Sand. Her son, Maurice, suffered from rheumatic fever and had been recommended a warmer climate so for the winter of 1838 they went to Palma, Majorca. They had to leave when Chopin, who had been for some years suffering from latent tuberculosis, became seriously ill. Their relationship became more of a friendship with Sand acting like a mother.

In May 1839 he finally went to her estate and chateau and was entranced, it was the only country house in which he ever made a permanent home.

Several productive years followed but in 1846 Sand’s children and an adopted daughter showed open hostility towards Chopin and his friends and a family crisis developed; the relationship was finally terminated when Sand’s daughter, Solange, became pregnant, not by her then fiancé, whom Chopin liked, but by another man whom Sand preferred and who, in the end, married the girl.

The last years of Chopin’s life were marked by few compositions caused, no doubt, by the loss of the tranquil atmosphere of earlier years and his rapidly worsening health. There was a brief revival of his activity as a concert pianist but the Paris Revolution of February 1848 terminated that as well as his teaching engagements. He took up a long-standing invitation to visit Britain giving some concerts including one attended by Queen Victoria. Besides London he visited Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh before returning to France. Throughout his time in France he never contacted his father’s relations in the Vosges, not even now, when he needed assistance. He turned to his family by asking his sister, Ludwika, to come with her husband; she nursed him through his last two painful months, dying on 17 October 1849 aged only 39. After a funeral at the Madeleine, attended by nearly 3000 people, at which his own funeral march from the B flat minor sonata in an orchestral arrangement was played, he was buried at the cemetery of Père-Lachaise.

A completely reworked version of the 1999 DG Edition, now split between DG and Decca recordings.

17 CDs, non-limited, in capbox.

Pollini recordings backbone of collection (Etudes, Sonatas, Polonaises, Scherzos)

New DG Highlights: Zimerman's Concertos, Blechacz's Preludes, Pires's Nocturnes

New from Decca: Arrau - Piano Works with orchestra, Ashkenazy - Mazurkas and Waltzes.

Available for the Chopin 200th anniversary in March 2010.