Schumann: Waldszenen, Op. 82 (Forest Scenes)

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.

Since his debut recording released in 1997, Arcadi Volodos, is celebrated as a keyboard genius, and is without a doubt one of today’s most outstanding and internationally interesting pianists. His unlimited virtuosity along with his unique sense of timing, colour and poetry made him a romantic narrator of intensive stories.

On March 1st 2009 Volodos played at the Musikverein in Vienna, and subsequently toured the Vienna concert program in several German cities such as Essen, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Baden-Baden, Schwetzigen, and has received sensational reviews.

The new "Liaisons" Series is a double-portrait series. It always combines two composers in order to explore more thoroughly their musical worlds, the way they inspired and were inspired by, as well as to find their common denominators and bring them closer to each other. Through a thorough analysis and a careful choice of composers and their compositions on each CD, the "Liaisons" - Series offers a bright spectrum of variety and challenges the listener with every release anew. Lazic, a composer as well: his arrangement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto for piano and orchestra will see its world premiere with Atlanta Symphony and Robert Spano in October 2009.

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).

Vermeulen explains his approach to Schumann: “In this recording, I have tried to approach Schumann’s metronome markings as closely as possible. “ He performs on an instrument made by Tröndlin in Leipzig between 1830 and 1935.

June 2010 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Schumann. Schumann wrote his Woodland Scenes in just nine days, beginning on 29th December 1848. The cycle of nine short pieces offers typically schizophrenic and ephemeral visions, in which the distinction between fantasy and reality is blurred. This unique and beautifully crafted recording links these three composers by simple woodland themes.

The young Norwegian pianist Christian Ihle Hadland, a rising star internationally, makes his solo debut with a recording for Simax that pairs two of the most outstanding composers of 19th century piano music, Frédéric Chopin and Robert Schumann. Both composers are very much in the limelight this year, the 200th anniversaries of their births in 1810.

In selecting the repertoire for his debut album, Hadland wanted to focus on works by Chopin and Schumann that may not be in the constant spotlight, but still possess tremendous qualities. Some of the most elegant melodies of Chopin can be found in his Impromptus, whilst the Waldszenen of Schumann explore a profound strain of German romanticism, a fantasy-world of inns and hunters, lonely flowers, prophetic birds, shadowed valleys and haunted thickets.

26-year-old Christian Ihle Hadland is considered among the foremost Norwegian pianists today. A much sought after soloist and chamber musician, Christian is opening the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra’s season in 2010/11, as well as touring Japan and China. He has recently become Artistic Director of Norway’s International Chamber Music Festival at Stavanger (a position he holds jointly with clarinettist Martin Fröst).

This CD includes Robert Schumann’s 4 Marches Op. 76 and 4 Fugues Op. 72, as well as Clara Schumann’s 3 Preludes and Fugues Op. 16. Tobias Koch is considered one of the most versatile and distinguished keyboard artists of his generation and specializes in period performance. Here he performs on an 1852 Erard Concert Grand.