Claire Mcintoah

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.

Jos van Immerseel and Claire Chevallier have enjoyed a close collaboration for many years now. Like Jos van Immerseel, Claire Chevallier loves period pianos; like him, she is a researcher and possesses her own collection of keyboard instruments.

On her most recent album, the pianist Claire Huangci made her first discographic foray into the chamber-music world of Ernest Chausson and Maurice Ravel. Her latest album creates a musical link almost back to the beginning of her professional career, to her highly acclaimed Scarlatti album, and proves yet again that she has a very close relationship with Baroque repertoire: with Johann Sebastian Bach’s varied and sparklingly virtuoso Toccatas she has taken ownership of a rarely heard collection of works, in which she presents the entire emotional spectrum of the young adult Bach.