Franz Schubert Complete Works For Violin & Piano

Distilled sparingly over the course of Franz Schubert’s all too brief life, the few works that make up his output for violin and piano fascinate and intrigue, writing the episodes of a story that is undoubtedly fragmentary, yet in reality deeply unified in a mysterious yearning for elsewhere. Situated somewhere between the miniature of the lied and the large symphonic forms, these pieces open countless windows onto Schubert’s contrasted and tormented universe. Nathalia and Maria Milstein’s choice of a splendid Blüthner piano of 1857 plays a crucial role in the quest for unheard-of sound worlds on which this disc invites us.

Johanna Martzy (1924-1979) became a cult figure on the basis of a handful of recordings – but only after her premature death, an event that passed almost unnoticed. The meteoric career of this distinguished ambassadress of the Hungarian violin school in no way foretold her posthumous idolisation. And yet her historic recordings of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas and stunning readings of Schubert’s complete works for violin and piano, together with a few first-class concerto discs, make up a legacy whose scarcity has driven prices sky high. At last, collectors can stop trying to outbid one another: remastered in high definition from the original tapes, this priceless treasure trove is now available to all.