Nelson Goerner has always dreamed of recording these two masterpieces of the concerto repertoire. With Kazuki Yamada, he has found the ideal partner to approach Ravel's two piano concertos with the sensitivity and poetry for which he is universally renowned. The two works, composed at the same time and both performed for the first time in 1932, are nevertheless very different: premiered in Vienna, the Concerto for the Left Hand was commissioned by the pianist Paul Wittgenstein who had lost his right arm in 1914; premiered in Paris, the Concerto in G is renowned for it's verve and it's famous pianistic interpolations. Ravel had composed the Pavane pour une infante defunte, a famous miniature of exquisite nostalgia, some 33 years earlier. The programme is completed by the Valses nobles et sentimentales; Marguerite Long, who gave the first performance of the Concerto in G, saw these eight linked pieces as a "stylistic panorama of the waltz".

For his tenth solo recording for Alpha Classics and Outhere Music, Nelson Goerner returns to a composer he particularly cherishes: Schumann, here with the Davidsbündler, his imaginary music society created to combat the Philistines, musicians considered decorative and traditionalist (such as Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti). Robert began the Davidsbündlertänze a few days after 14 August 1837, the date of his engagement to Clara. Between idyllic dreams and impassioned protests, Goerner is able to develop his full sense of narrative... In addition, he puts his sensitivity to work on Handel's 21 variations on the Chaconne in G major, published in 1735 under the title 'Suite No. 2'. Viennese sweetness and virtuoso intoxication conclude this recital with the Arabesques on 'The Blue Danube' by Johann Strauss Jr., written by the Polish composer Adolf Schulz-Evler (1852/4-1905).