Schubert

Not 'just another Schubert recording, but a major artistic achievement’ [Christian Girardin, harmonia mundi] Matthias Goerne is totally invested in the recording and editing process. Vol. 9 (the last one in the series) is due out towards the end of 2014. Future recordings will include Brahms with Christophe Eschenbach and Mahler (arr. Berio) Early Songs to be recorded in September 2014 with Josep Pons and the BBCSO.

For her 10th anniversary with Berlin Classics, the US pianist Claire Huangci presents herself and her label with a weighty recording project, Schubert's late sonatas D 894, D 958, D 959 and D 960, as well as the Three Piano Pieces D 946 and a selection of songs from Schwanengesang. She accompanies the baritone Thomas E. Bauer in four of the songs, and plays two in an arrangement by Franz Liszt. To be heard in a box with 3 albums under the title META. META stands for the importance of Schubert's music in Claire Huangci's personal and musical life. It is Schubert's compositions, which she has played since her earliest youth, "that show my development, that reflect unconscious emotions", as she writes in the booklet. Schubert's music is "the music I would like to take with me to a desert island. Schubert has accompanied me through all times", especially the late sonatas, which are at the centre of the META box.

Martin Helmchen begins a complete recording of Schubert's piano sonatas, with four double albums to be released between now and 2028, the bicentenary of the composer's death. The German pianist has spent his musical life with Schubert as a companion. Having played all of his major works, he decided it was time to embark on this adventure. In his view, Schubert demands from the performer "constant virtuosity that is never needlessly complex, set against sober interiority, the exuberant joy of the Ländler, and bouts of dramatic madness".

The Gramophone-award winning partnership of Gerald Finley and Julius Drake turns to perhaps the most celebrated song-cycle of them all. Schubert’s Winterreise is a masterpiece of despair, astonishing in its bleakness and enthrallingly mesmerizing as the journey continues. Finley brings all his considerable dramatic powers to his performance—and all but submerges them under the ice.