Schubert & Hüttenbrenner

Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow have already established themselves in the Schubert discography with their world class recordings of Schubert's piano works. Goldstone, in particular, has a reputation for being one of Schubert's greatest champions. The caliber of his interpretations is simply phenomenal. Beyond this, when Clemmow joins Goldstone to form their illustrious piano duo, we have been given an ambrosia of world premiere piano arrangements: Mendelssohn's 3rd, Dvorak's 9th, Tchaikovsky's 4th, his Romeo and Juliet overture, Grieg's piano concerto, and now these exquisite rarities of Schubert.

Following the success of her Odradek debut, Splinters, pianist Mariann Marczi pays tribute to the genius of Schubert. With his Moments musicaux, Schubert set the standard for a whole genre: dancing, evocative miniatures, each offering a brief snapshot of some vignette or character, like a succession of colourful pictures in a slide show. Like Schubert, Hüttenbrenner studied with Salieri and was influenced by Beethoven; the theme from the slow movement of his String Quartet No. 1 is audibly related to the Allegretto from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. Schubert particularly loved that symphony, but chose his friend’s theme as the basis for his set of Variations on a theme by Hüttenbrenner.

Prominent in the German Romantic imagination, the figure of the wanderer was also taken up by Franz Schubert. He composed a lied of that name, the theme of which was later to be found in his virtuosic Fantasy in C major, later aptly dubbed the "Wanderer-Fantasie". A tireless wanderer himself, Franz Liszt transcribed Schubert's lied for piano and presented several versions of the Fantasy in C, including one for piano and orchestra and another for two pianos. Here Sylviane Deferne presents the rarest of Liszt's transcriptions of the "Wanderer-Fantasie", the one for solo piano, with the last movement completely rewritten by the composer. Two works by Schubert complete the program: the 4 Impromptus Op.142, written a year before his death, and a rarely recorded early work, the Variations on a theme by Anselm Hüttenbrenner.

The French pianist, Michel (Jean Jacques) Dalberto, was born into non-musical family, but he began playing the piano before his 4th birthday. At age 12 he was studying with Vlado Perlemuter (piano) Jean Hubeau (chamber music) at the Paris Conservatoire. He later studied with Raymond Trourard. In 1975 he won the Clara Haskil Competition and the Salzburg Mozart Competition, and in 1978 he captured the 1st prize at the Leeds Competition, where he played a W.A. Mozart's Piano Concerto (No. 25 K. 503) in the final round, the only first-prize winner ever to do so.