This Naxos recording has put together a beautiful presentation by two accomplished musicians who complement each other so perfectly. Nishizaki Takako delivers a spirited, lively, and peppy performance which pairs very well with Jando, who also delivers the right light and spritely touch for these early (pre-sturm and drang), Beethoven pieces. Nishizaki's renditions are an excellent and enjoyable way to round out your Beethoven repertoire, Here the piano provides the niches for Nishizaki's winning, sweet violin sound that delightfully reaches us with it's charm and beauty.

Naxos best of Schumann features the fantastic Piano Quintet in E flat. The Scherzo-Trio is included here on this CD. Also on this CD is the Manfred Overture, selections from two of his Symphonies, solo piano music, and of course part of his famous Piano Concerto in A minor.

The 12 Transcendental Etudes are the ultimate test of quasi-orchestral virtuosity and of the capacity to achieve nobility and true eloquence. Jandó perhaps lacks diabolic frisson in the more ferocious numbers but his performances, overall, aren't disfigured by willful, sensational attributes or hysteria. No-1 is an impressive, dramatically pointed, curtain-raiser, and he can hell-raise with assurance in 'Mazeppa'. His 'Feux follets' hardly sparks with the brilliance of, say, some of the full-blooded accounts of certain Russian artists, but even when it hardly modulates from study to tone-poem it's still more than capable (higher praise than you might think where such intricacy is concerned). He flashes an impressive rapier at the start of 'Eroica' and there's plenty of swagger and facility in the so-called 'Appassionata' étude. 'Chasse-neige', too, proceeds with a fine sense of it's menacing start to a howling, elemental uproar before returning to distant thunder. Jandó is less assured in introspection, yet it has to be said that all-encompassing versions of the Transcendental Etudes are hard to come by. Jandó is impressively recorded.