Schubert: Impromptu in A flat major, D899 No. 4

As Alfred Brendel celebrates his 80th birthday on 5 January 2011, Decca is marking this momentous occasion with FOUR major catalogue releases.

He’s a legend of the piano world, revered and applauded the world over. For long an exclusive Philips Classics artist, Alfred Brendel is the recipient of the 2010 Gramophone Lifetime Achievement Award. Famed for his peerless interpretations of Viennese classics, 2011 sees Brendel celebrate his 80th birthday and for it we present four iconic sets – available at budget price for the first time.

The third release to mark Alfred Brendel’s 80th birthday, is a stunning reissue of Alfred Brendel’s digital recordings of Schubert’s major piano works recorded between 1987-88.

Including Moments Musicaux, Impromptus and the “Wanderer” fantasy, this second Schubert cycle comes in a 7CD boxed set, displaying Brendel’s impressions of the masterworks of Schubert’s last six years.

Artur Schnabel was born on 17 April, 1882 at Lipnik Górny, a suburb of the modern-day Polish town of Bielsko-Biala. At the time of his birth this town would have been known as Bielitz, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Schnabel died in 1951 at Axenstein in Switzerland.

He was the youngest of three children and when still a child the family moved to Vienna, where the young Schnabel took up studies with the legendary Theodor Leschetizsky, who also taught Paderewski and Moiseiwitsch. Schnabel remained a pupil of Leschetizsky's for seven years, from 1892 to 1897.

Schnabel's début took place in 1890 in Vienna and in 1900 he moved to Berlin, where he lived for 33 years. In 1905 he married the well-known contralto, Therese Behr, and the couple successfully toured the German provinces giving Lieder recitals.

The birth of their first son, Karl Ulrich, took place in 1909 and in 1912 a second boy, Stefan, was born. Karl Ulrich was to become a famous teacher and accomplished pianist: he features in two of the recordings in this set. A number of today's famous pianists studied with him, including Leon Fleisher and Peter Serkin. Stefan took up acting as a career and achieved a fair degree of success in both Germany and Hollywood.

Schnabel made his first recordings in 1930 of the Beethoven sonatas and concertos and, in 1933, the Schnabel family left Berlin a few months after Hitler took power. They lived in England for a while and in 1939 moved to the USA where, in 1944, Schnabel became an American citizen. Although resident in America, it was in Europe that he was more widely recognised and it was in London, for EMI, that Schnabel made virtually all of his great recordings.

This set of 8 CDs presents the incomparable Schnabel in a range of works by composers whose music he particularly admired and made a speciality of: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert.

A welcome return to the catalogue for András Schiff''s highly-acclaimed cycle of Schubert Sonatas. This reissue now includes the composer's much-loved Impromptus and Moments musicaux as well as other pieces. The booklet contains a new essay on Schubert's piano music and Schiff''s recordings by piano expert Jeremy Siepmann.

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.

Schubert’s piano sonatas span his creative life, from the No.1 D157 of 1815 to the three great sonatas of 1828 D958, 959 and 960. Schubert’s sonatas are a world away from Beethoven’s dramatic statements, and from the overtly virtuosic sonatas of Hummel and Weber. They contain some of his most profound music, the world of song never being far away. Drawing out the ever present patina of sadness, even in what sounds like ‘happy’music is essential if the performer is to understand this music. Some of his best loved works are for solo piano, and the Impromptus D899 and D935 are miniature masterworks, full of passion, drama, reflection and above all supreme lyricism.

Recordings made by Denon in the 1990s