Clara Schumann Complete

Despite the new attention given to the music of Clara Schumann, and the fact that her husband not only encouraged but actually goaded her as a song composer, Clara Schumann's lieder remain underrepresented on recordings. This release from the German audiophile label MDG, featuring one female and one male singer, is one of the few complete sets of her songs available, and perhaps the only one where each song is sung in its original key. The complete cycle is a recommended way to hear her songs, for they come from various parts of her career and offer insights into her creative development, both as tied to Robert Schumann and as separate from him.

The Nocturne is a romantic piano piece in which a nocturnal, romantic atmosphere is expressed, where perfumed melodies float serenely over a calmly murmuring accompaniment.-Credit where credit is due: the inventor of the genre is the Irish composer John Field, who made fame as a pianist of his own works. It needed the genius of Chopin to perfect the genre to the highest artistic level: Chopin's Nocturnes are the archetypes of romantic piano music, and count among his best loved works.

The first true complete recording of Robert Schumann’s works for piano solo on 17 albums (in 15 volumes), played by Florian Uhlig, seeks for the first time to offer imaginative compilations on album (e.g. “Robert Schumann and the Sonata”, “The Young Piano Virtuoso”, “Schumann in Vienna”, “Schumann and Counterpoint”, “Variations”) containing all original works for pianoforte written between 1830 (Abegg Variations op. 1) and 1854 (Ghost Variations) according to the newest critical editions and/or first editions. Several of these albums include premiere recordings. The booklets by Joachim Draheim, who discovered and/or edited a number of the works, shed light on the biographical and musicological background to the works thus coupled.

This double CD set of Schumann’s Complete Works for Piano Trio is a welcome addition to the chamber music catalogue. The trio prove to be fine ensemble giving both stirring and satisfying performances. There is a something very natural about the musicianship on show here.

Winner of the 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 Jean-Marc Laisné. Sales of the 13 CDs comprising this set have exceeded 20,000 copies around 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.

Mark Padmore and fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout combine here to perform two of Schumann’s major cycles to words by Heine. They also throw in a selection of five Heine settings by the largely forgotten Franz Lachner (1803-90) from his Sängerfahrt (Singer’s Journey), which include the same text – ‘Im wunderschönen Monat Mai’ – with which Schumann’s Dichterliebe begins.