Jörg Müller

This is surely a Winterreise too far. The finest interpreters – including, among tenors, Peter Schreier, Ian Bostridge and Christoph Prégardien – make the wanderer’s inner and outer journey through the snowbound landscape a cathartic experience. Hans Jörg Mammel, whose career has been largely in early music, musters a generalised sensitivity but never grips or haunts the imagination.

For many decades the orchestras of the German broadcasting service SWR have worked together with many famous musicians from all over the world, including the outstanding pianists selected for this collection, among them Clara Haskil, Jörg Demus, Paul Badura-Skoda, Alicia de Larrocha, Wilhelm Backhaus, and Géza Anda. Furthermore, Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau (1903-1991) is regarded as one of the supreme keyboard masters of the 20th century and must feature in any comparative survey of performances of the central repertoire from Beethoven to Brahms.