Clara Schumann

Beatrice Rana combines Clara Wieck-Schumann and Robert Schumann's piano concertos with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin In an interview with the New York Times, Rana, who called the piano concerto by Clara Wieck "a genius work in many ways," said: "I think that it's very, very underestimated - the intellectual value of this concerto in the history of music. It's fascinating to see that she conceived of this music free from any limitations; that as a teenager she composed an uninterrupted concerto with no breaks between the movements.

Despite the new attention given to the music of Clara Schumann, and the fact that her husband not only encouraged but actually goaded her as a song composer, Clara Schumann's lieder remain underrepresented on recordings. This release from the German audiophile label MDG, featuring one female and one male singer, is one of the few complete sets of her songs available, and perhaps the only one where each song is sung in its original key. The complete cycle is a recommended way to hear her songs, for they come from various parts of her career and offer insights into her creative development, both as tied to Robert Schumann and as separate from him.

The acclaimed British pianist, Benjamin Grosvenor, still only 30 and yet a well-established favourite of critics and audiences around the globe, takes Robert Schumann’s haunting Kreisleriana as his starting point in his new album, Schumann & Brahms. This eight-movement work portrays the mercurial personality of the fictional Johannes Kreisler, created by E. T. A. Hoffmann: Kreisler’s highs and lows, and his dreamy nature, clearly mirror Schumann’s own tragic manic-depressive tendencies. Grosvenor responds to the composer’s autobiographical honesty with playing of sublime tenderness, dazzling variety, and imaginative empathy.

A lot has been written about the multifaceted relationship between Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Maria Sournatcheva opens another audio chapter in this story. Together with the pianist Aleksandr Shaikin, this principal oboist from Winterthur explores the musical interrelations waiting for discovery in the chamber music of the three and very particularly in some of their songs. In the process she brings to light so many a veritable surprise. The critics showered superlatives on Maria Sournatcheva in their reviews of her debut SACD featuring oboe concertos by Russian composers, which even brought her an ECHO Klassik award.

For the 200th anniversary of Clara Schumann’s birth, Isata Kanneh-Mason takes us on a journey through the composer’s extraordinary life with her stunning debut album on Decca Classics. Isata will be joining forces with an all-female line-up to champion the significance of women musicians throughout the years, and their influence on the classical musical canon. The recording features Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, written at the age of fourteen, performed by the composer at Leipzig Gewandhaus two years later under the baton of Felix Mendelssohn.

The album Solitude features music of Robert Schumann and Clara Schumann. Dutch violinist Niek Baar and American pianist Ben Kim tell us: “Robert Schumann brought us together as duo partners and as friends. His writing, obsessively swinging between fiery turmoil and tender longing, gave us a common language to communicate with one another”. On this recording, Robert Schumann's Violin Sonatas Nos. 2 & 3 are paired with Clara Schumann's 3 Romances, Op. 22. Listening to her romances, we note that Clara quotes Robert's Violin Sonata No. 1. This romantic gesture underlines the artistic bond between Clara and Robert Schumann.