Andras Schiff

Sir András Schiff born 21 December 1953 is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist and conductor, who has received numerous major awards and honors, including the Grammy Award, Gramophone Award, Mozart Medal, and Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in her 2014 Birthday Honours for services to music.

This 9-disc set includes the mature solo piano concertos in performances by Andras Schiff and the Salzburg Camerata Academica under Sandor Vegh. The piano sound is notably more recessed than in other versions, giving more attention to the orchestral half of the musical dialog. Additionally, the Bosendorfer piano used by Schiff produces a sound that will not be confused with a modern Steinway.

Two great artists, pianist András Schiff and composer/clarinettist Jörg Widmann, join forces for the first time on record, performing Brahms’s late masterpieces, the clarinet sonatas op. 120, written in 1894. In between the sonatas Schiff plays Widmann’s evocative Intermezzi for piano. As Jörg Widmann explains in a programme note, these are works inspired by his friendship with András Schiff and by a shared love of Brahms, to whom they pay tribute. The album was recorded at Neumarkt’s Historischer Reitstadel.

As a young pianist, András Schiff earned wide esteem for his 1980s recordings of the major keyboard works of J.S. Bach; in recent years, as part of his long term relationship with ECM, he has gone back to Bach as a sage veteran, earning more acclaim for his New Series recordings of the Goldberg Variations (2003) and the six Partitas (2009). Now, using his own Steinway, Schiff turns his focus to the 48 preludes and fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier, making studio recordings in Lugano of both books for this 4-CD set.