Schumann: Kinderszenen, Op. 15 (Scenes from Childhood)

Leif Ove Andsnes embarks on a major project which marks a new departure for the internationally acclaimed pianist. Together with South African-born visual artist Robin Rhode he has created a special programme entitled Pictures Reframed which centres around Mussorgsky's epic piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition combining music, film and still imagery.

"There are pieces of music where you feel everything's there, everything is said" comments Andsnes. "Pictures at an Exhibition is the opposite, making it a perfect composition to experiment with as Mussorgsky's music is incredibly strong but also very open and experimental. The main thing isn't the notes themselves, but the composer's grand vision. For me therefore, the original version of the work remains almost as a sketch that is open for transformations and changes. You have this wild narrative of a person walking into an exhibition and he crashes into the first picture and is faced with various strong images and textures. Later in the cycle he becomes a part of the picture and it takes on so many aspects. Its psychologically challenging, I think."

Leif Ove Andsnes and Robin Rhode share a mutual fascination with Pictures at an Exhibition. Rhode had already been experimenting with images based on Mussorgsky's work and his 2008 digital animation "Promenade" has become the opening sequence for Pictures Reframed. With its characterful and constantly changing interplay between actor and drawing it fittingly sets the scene for the musical narrative to come. "I have always worked very closely with music" Rhode says "playing with the notion of rhythm and sound. This new project is not, therefore, so distant from my regular practice although classical music has such an intense history and that will be a difficult challenge."

Robin Rhode and Leif Ove Andsnes met for the first time in Munich in September 2007 and ideas for the programme have been evolving ever since, moving from piano to studio and back to piano. One of their early meetings took place in a derelict Berlin factory where Rhode started to draw on the bare wall - a backdrop that is often featured in his work, stemming from his introduction to art on the streets of Johannesburg. As Rhode embellished the imaginary instrument Andsnes stepped forward to perform on it, bringing another dimension to Rhode's playful and often illusionary work.

EMI Classics is pleased to announce the release of a joint recital by the legendary pianist Martha Argerich and Gidon Kremer, one of today’s most original and compelling violinists. The concert was recorded live at Berlin’s Philharmonie in December 2006. The repertoire features Schumann’s Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 in D minor and Kinderszenen, as well as Bartók’s Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 and Sonata for Solo Violin. Two encores, Fritz Kreisler’s Liebesleid and Schön Rosmarin round out the release.

“A summit of two musical giants,” wrote the Abendzeitung München, reviewing the concert. “They are chamber music’s dream couple […] The way they communicate musically cannot be surpassed by any other current duo” said the Münchner Merkur. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung summed up the concert with the words “chamber music is alive.”

Interviewed in the film, Gidon Kremer muses about his decades-long partnership with Martha Argerich: “The paradox is that, even though we are not a couple in love, we speak an intimate language through our music of the kind that is usually only spoken between couples in love. It is even possible that, through our music, we can become even more closely entwined than a couple in love can be.”

At first sight, Robert Schumann and Béla Bartók might not appear to have much in common. Schumann represented the German romantic tradition and favoured rich, full harmonies, while Bartók sought to escape from that sound world, his music tending toward “extremes of delicacy or sparseness, or of complexity or roughness, as his vision dictates.” Yet the two composers do have much in common: both were pianist-composers in whose output their own instrument retains a central place yet both had the ambition to reach out and embrace every musical genre; both Schumann and Bartok maintained a strong interest in music education and both promoted the status of music in the wider cultural sphere.

Schumann’s second sonata, in D minor Op. 121, composed in 1851, was dedicated to Ferdinand David, the dedicatee of Mendelssohn’s E-minor Violin Concerto. After Schumann’s death, the sonata was often performed by Joseph Joachim with the composer’s wife, Clara, at the piano. Kinderszenen dates from 1838, a period in which Schumann concentrated on music for solo piano. Kremer comments, “I love listening to Martha from backstage. I love the way she masterfully recreates the fragility of Schumann’s Kinderszenen. It is simply a heart-stopping experience.”

Bartók completed the first of his two violin and piano sonatas in December 1921 and the second the following year. He dedicated both to Jelly d’Arányi, a brilliant young violinist whose playing thrilled him and with whom he fell in love. In both sonatas Bartók treats the two instruments as independent but complementary – they do not share material, as the violin and piano would do in classical duo sonatas. In November of 1943, Bartók met Yehudi Menuhin when he came to play the First Sonata for him, prior to a performance. This meeting inspired the composer’s Sonata for Solo Violin, which Menuhin premiered at Carnegie Hall the following year. Although its structure is traditional and it recalls the first Bach solo sonata, having a fugue as a second movement and a fast triple-time finale, its constant rhythmic inventiveness gives the work a sense of improvisatory freedom.

For Schumann, Bach was the supreme benchmark. He saw in his great predecessor not merely a genius of the past, but a vital source for his art, and sought both inspiration and psychological stability in Bach's music. Schumann paid tribute to his mentor in many different ways: writing chorales and fugues like Bach, borrowing his themes, or playing on the four notes which form his name, B-A-C-H. This programme [being considered for BBC Music Magazine Choice], recorded on an Érard piano with an ideal timbre, is played by a passionate admirer of these two masters of the keyboard. Andreas Staier studied the piano and the harpsichord in Hanover and Amsterdam.As harpsichordist of the ensemble Musica Antiqua Köln, between 1983 and 1986, he undertook a series of international concert tours that took him all over the world. Since 1986 Andreas Staier has pursued a career as a freelance soloist and has earned an outstanding reputation as both harpsichordist and fortepianist. In the field of chamber music he has had long and fruitful partnerships with such internationally renowned artists as Christoph Prégardien, Fabio Biondi and René Jacobs. He regularly appears as a soloist in concerto repertoire with ensembles including Concerto Köln, the Freiburger Barockorchester, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and the Orchestre des Champs Elysées.Andreas Staier has made numerous CD recordings and many of which have been distinguished by international awards.

"he is one of the most important pianists of our times. He is a player of exceptional insight and vigour, yet with an agility and wit that make hearing him a constant delight." The Independent

Written during the years of their enforced separation and then their short lived marriage, this programme of music illustrates the musical affinity between both Clara and Robert Schumann. As a regular performer on the Gramola label, Natasa Veljkovic plays, as always, with a profound musical sensitivity and understanding of the music of this period.

A disciple of Jan Vermeulen and André De Groote, Piet Kuijken completed his studies at the Indiana University with Menahem Pressler. His collaborations with his father Wieland, his uncle Barthold, artists and ensembles like Marcel Ponseele, Oxalys or the Ensemble Explorations, have drawn attention to his talent, already noticed and rewarded by several magazines in France. He enters the Fuga Libera catalogue with a journey through the years 1838-39, when Schumann, madly in love with Clara, expresses his feelings in many piano masterpieces, some more famous than, others. This journey is offered on an 1850 Johann Baptist Streicher fortepiano, an instrument much appreciated by Clara and Robert Schumann. For those who doubt the value of period instruments for the great Romantic generation, here is a playing that will hopefully modify that perception.

Released to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Schumann, this well balanced recording features the talents of piano prize winning pianist, Liebrecht Vanbeckevoort. Liebrecht obtained his masters degree for piano with great distinction from the Royal Conservatory in Brussels and has a very active touring schedule.