Eric Le Sage

Mozart’s piano concertos form a set that is not just exceptional but absolutely unique in the history of music: from No. 9 to No. 27, all are definitive masterpieces. According to H.C. Robbins Landon, an eminent specialist in the composer’s life and work, ‘It is above all their immense stylistic diversity that places Mozart’s piano concertos above and beyond those of his contemporaries’. What these scores also share is their position at a crossroads for strongly impacting influences: that of the symphony, encouraging Mozart to make lavish use of the orchestra; the wind bands of the Imperial court, shaping his enhanced role for the woodwinds; and the influence of the opera, whose styles he worked into these concertos, often treating the dialogue between piano and orchestra as if they were stage characters. In this new recording, Eric Le Sage is joined by the Gävle Symfoniorkester to perform the 17th and 24th concertos for piano and orchestra by the Salzburg composer.

Julian Prégardien decided to record the Dichterliebe cycle after he came across the new Bärenreiter edition; he went on to explore the work in concerts with his constant accompanist, Eric Le Sage, inserting other works by Robert and also by Clara Schumann, whose bicentenary is celebrated in 2019. When Clara played the Dichterliebe in the 1860s, she used to slip extracts from Kreisleriana between the songs. Prégardien asked Eric Le Sage to record the same extracts on a Blüthner piano of 1856, the year of Robert’s death, and also to include Romances composed by both Robert and Clara at a time when their future marriage was still uncertain.

Flautist Emmanuel Pahud and pianist Eric Le Sage play arrangements of short pieces and songs by four German composers of the mid-19th century: Robert Schumann and his wife Clara (born Clara Wieck), and Felix Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny.

Robert Schumann - Eric Le Sage - The Complete Solo Piano Music
13xCD | EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 2,76 GB | Full Artwork: 281 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Alpha # ALPHA 813 | Country/Year: France 2012
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic, Piano

A great Romantic journey Winner of Prix de l'Académie Charles Cros, this set brings together Robert Schumann's complete works for solo piano. This great cycle benefited from having been recorded in the unique acoustics of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, by the same recording engineer, Jean-Marc Laisné. Sales of the 13 CDs comprising this set have exceeded 20,000 copies round the world. This complete recording is now acknowledged as a reference and, at the same time, an important step in the artistic life of pianist Eric le Sage.