Schumann: Theme with Variations in E flat major WoO 24 ('Geistervariationen') (Ghost variations)

Last year Matthias Kirschnereit won the ECHO Klassic. For Schumann’s anniversary year he has chosen works covering the composer’s entire career and pays special attention to Schumann’s short, fleeting miniatures. This CD includes the world-premiere recording of Ahnung which was only discovered in 2006.

Sono Luminus is proud to announce the latest project from Michael Lewin, 'Piano Phantoms', following the popular and critical success of 'If I Were a Bird' (DSL92103). This creative new recording is a collection of 18 piano pieces by a mixture of famous and lesser-known composers, each inspired by phantoms, goblins, ghosts and the spirit world. This program includes eight world premiere recordings.

Mr Lewin commented, “It was a great pleasure to make a second theme recording for Sono Luminus. The entire process is so exciting— musical discoveries, the unearthing of new repertoire, creating a wonderful and interesting program, learning and performing the music, then finally, recording in the beautiful Sono Luminus studios in Virginia. The response to our first disc together, If I Were a Bird, has been warm and gratifying, and I hope that our listeners will also enjoy this slightly more shadowy cast of characters!”

Michael Lewin enjoys a distinguished international reputation as one of America’s most abundantly gifted and charismatic concert pianists, performing to acclamation in 30 countries. Commanding a repertoire of 40 piano concertos, Michael Lewin has appeared as soloist many major orchestras. He has premiered two Concertos by David Kocsis and performed Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue over 50 times.

Lewin’s career was launched with top prizes in the Franz Liszt International Piano Competition in the Netherlands, the American Pianists Association Award and the William Kapell International Competition. Following his notable New York recital debut in Lincoln Center, The New York Times wrote that “his immense technique and ability qualify him eminently for success.” Since then he has played widely in solo recitals, with orchestras, and as a chamber musician.

'Piano Phantoms' is a tour-de-force of virtuoso pianism and imaginative musicianship. Michael Lewin’s artistic tone-painting, control of tone colours and ability to tell stories through sound gives unique life to each ghost and goblin.

A decade after his highly acclaimed ‘In Concert’ album (4721192), master pianist András Schiff continues his documentation of Robert Schumann’s music in a specially-priced 2-CD set recorded in Germany at Neumarkt’s Reutstadl.

The repertoire includes Papillons op. 2, the Piano Sonata No 1 in F sharp minor op. 11, Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) op. 15, the Fantasy in C major op. 17, Waldszenen (Forest Scenes) op. 82, and the Thema mit Variationen, also known as Geistervariationen. Schiff’s recording presents a revelatory reinvestigation of this enormously influential Romantic music. Schiff, one of the greatest pianists of our era, traces the development of Schumann’s piano music, from the early Papillons, written when Schumann was 19, all the way to the final Geistervariationen, “ghost variations” which the composer believed were dictated to him by angels. The Fantasy in C Major is heard with alternate endings: as well as the official published version, Schiff includes a preliminary one he finds more musically convincing. The pianist gives his thoughts on the matter in a very interesting note in the CD booklet which also gives background information by Wolf-Dieter Seiffert on each of the compositions.

András Schiff, born in Budapest in 1953, puts a strong focus on cyclic performances of the important piano works by the masters from Bach to Bártok. His wide-ranging discography on ECM includes works by Schumann, Schubert, Janáček, Bach, Mozart and many others.

Schiff's complete Beethoven sonata cycle, performed in 15 major musical centres worldwide, was completed in April 2009. He works annually with his own chamber orchestra, the Cappella Andrea Barca, the Philharmonia and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Schiff records exclusively for ECM New Series. His many best-selling albums for the label include his acclaimed account of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations (4721852).

Munich based pianist Dina Ugorgska has carefully selected this highly emotional inwardly oriented programme with the purpose of fathoming and inwardly reflecting the moods of “late” Schumann. She also bridges the gap to an earlier work, Op.16.

The final disc of the complete works for piano and piano chamber music, confirms Eric Lesage as THE specialist in Schumann’s repertoire. The harvest of outstanding reviews, for his recordings as much as for his numerous concerts across the globe, promises a brilliant future for this latest reference, which ends by the alpha and omega of his pianistic creation. It opens on the Rhine, in Mannheim, with the charming Variations on the name ‘Abegg’ , of 1830, and closes in Düsseldorf with the mysterious variations, called Geistervariationen, composed and copied out in February 1854, just before and immediately after his attempted suicide in the Rhine, leading to his permanent internment in Endenich (Bonn), facing the sacred river of the Germans…

To mark the 200th birthday of Robert Schumann in 2010, this new recording includes a unique program of the great German Romantic composer’s late piano works.

This release also marks the 70th birthday of Christoph Eschenbach – one of the great musicians of our times. This CD features him both as pianist and as conductor, together with his long-time musical protégé and close friend, pianist Tzimon Barto.

Together, they perform a new Schumann “piano concerto arrangement”: Eschenbach has coupled his elder compatriot’s concertante rarities Op. 92 and Op. 134, on the model of a three-movement piano concerto, in which the “Geistervariationen” for piano solo take the function of a slow middle movement.

Schumann’s piano output contains only 2 sonatas (3 if the Op.14 concerto without orchestra is included), the reason for this is that he was not at all comfortable working within the classical structures, preferring freer structures. The masterpieces – the Fantasy Op.17, the Humoreske Op.20, Carnaval, Pappilons, Kreisleriana and the Symphonic Etudes rank among the greatest works in the piano repertoire. The torrent of imagination and emotion Schumann poured into these works is extraordinary by any standards.

These 13 CDs contain his entire output for solo piano, plus his only completed piano concerto (again his problem with classical forms lead him to abandon 2 other piano concertos), which has become one of the best loved piano concertos in the repertoire.