With works by Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann, this CD is dedicated entirely to the magic of musical romanticism. Two composers, two worlds of sound - united by emotional depth, imagination and a love of the piano. Lei Meng interprets Schumann's filigree Arabesque op. 18 and his passionate C major Fantasy op. 17, a musical confession full of inner drama. Schubert will perform the intimate Allegretto in C minor D 915 and the powerful, visionary Wanderer Fantasy D 760 - an orchestral masterpiece for piano. Lei Meng, born in 1991 in Harbin (China), studied at the Mozarteum Salzburg and the CNSMD in Paris, among others. She has won prizes at international competitions and has performed in Europe, China, Brazil and the USA. She has been Professor of Piano and Piano Didactics at the Mozarteum Salzburg since 2024. Her artistic versatility is reflected in numerous solo and chamber music projects. Pure romanticism - full of longing, melancholy and expressiveness. An invitation to listen and dream.

At the heart of this album from the Gould Piano Trio is Schubert's Piano Trio in E-flat major, D. 929, a late masterpiece of emotional depth and formal ingenuity. Heard here in it's complete version, the finale restores the haunting B minor passage, it's circling piano figures echoing Der Leiermann, while the Andante's cello theme weaves through the work like a recurring memory. Alongside it is the youthful Piano Trio in B-flat major, D. 28 - fresh, lyrical, and full of promise, whilst Schubert Dances - a charming new suite of waltzes, Landler and Deutscher arranged for piano trio by Brian Newbould, completes the programme and showcases Schubert's lighter side. Together, these works chart a compelling path from teenage inspiration to late-style mastery.

Both as a soloist and as a Lied pianist, Ammiel Bushakevitz has a close relationship with the music of Franz Schubert. Together with Hanssler Classics and the Athenaeum Foundation, the pianist is developing a long-term project to record Schubert's complete solo piano works. Vol. 3 includes last works of the composer.

Martin Helmchen embarks on a complete recording of Schubert's piano sonatas, with four double albums to be released between now and 2028, the bicentenary of the composer's death. He has waited until he was in his forties to embark on this adventure because, in his view, an artist needs maturity to meet the challenges posed by the radical contrasts in Schubert's sonatas: "constant virtuosity that is never needlessly complex, set against sober interiority, the exuberant joy of the Landler, and bouts of dramatic madness". Recording a complete body of work also meant studying the scores carefully and tackling the question of the movements left unfinished by the composer, should we stop at the precise point where Schubert stopped composing simply because Schubert either ran out of time or did not have enough money to buy music manuscript paper? Helmchen has chosen to complete these movements, inspired by the recordings and above all the analyses of the eminent pianist Paul Badura-Skoda. This first volume presents sonatas composed between 1815 (Schubert was 18) and 1825. The entire cycle has been recorded on a Bosendorfer piano at the Kronberg Academy.

This is the most comprehensive collection ever recorded: The Leipzig Quartet have achieved legendary status with all Franz Schubert's string quartets and fragments, string trios and the famous Trout Quintet with Christian Zacharias. Great works like the Trout, Rosamunde, and Death and the Maiden juxtaposed with fragments and early works provide deep insights into Schubert's compositional development, making this 10-CD collector's edition so appealing.

In this debut album, baritone Jonas Muller and the Tomasi Musso Guitar Duo have recorded Schubert's Winterreise. The arrangement for two guitars creates a special new three-dimensional chamber music constellation, which certainly demands a different approach to singing from the singer, who must now internalise what the piano used to bring out. This is particularly in keeping with the idea that Winterreise is not simply a collection of songs composed by a travelling French horn player, but that the existential encounter between the stranger and the hurdy-gurdy man gives rise to new songs that have never been heard before and can only be sung together.

Pianist Natalia Ehwald's debut album on Prospero Classical is dedicated entirely to the composer Franz Schubert. In addition to a selection of his (mainly early) landler and waltzes, the artist has chosen the late piano sonatas in A major, D664, and B flat major, D960. Both sonatas are characterised by their profound emotionality and unusual and pioneering harmonies. Particularly noteworthy is the fusion of lyrical melodies with complex structural elements that emphasise Schubert's singular mastery. They also show a remarkable development in form and expression, making them a high point in Schubert's oeuvre.

Sandrine Piau admits that she has always been fascinated not only by Schubert's music but also by the genre of the string quartet. "The endless quest for the pure gesture in which we lose ourselves in order to become one with each other reminds me of the aquatic ballets in old-fashioned musicals, when female swimmers formed images of perfect flowers". Thanks to the Psophos Quartet, her dream has now been realised; together they present a magnificent programme of transcriptions. "Between the hair of the bows and the texture of the voice, our instruments blend and form an imaginary Schubert quintet".

Schubert's three Sonatas for Violin and Fortepiano, Op. 137, may nod to Mozart in their delicacy, but their spirit is firmly rooted in the early Romantic imagination. Written in 1816, they seem to inhabit the intimate world of Lieder, where song-like melodies and expressive dialogues between violin and piano take centre stage. Violinist Peter Hanson and fortepianist Andrew Arthur bring these works to life on period instruments, revealing the subtle textures and nuanced interplay that modern pianos often obscure. Hanson's phrasing echoes the expressive lyricism of Schubert's vocal writing, while Arthur's fortepiano-modelled on an early 19th-century Walther & Sohn-illuminates the sonatas' delicate, shifting colours. This recording invites us to experience Schubert's Sonatas as a cycle, as they may have been heard in a Viennese salon: a journey from charm to melancholy, from innocence to reflection, all shaped by the ephemeral beauty of song.

I will always remember Johannes Martin Kranzle�s and Hilko Dumno's Winterreise journey as the most vivid I have experienced. A Winterreise of the now, where one had the feeling of actually accompanying the journey. A Winterreise in which one had the distinct feeling of walking arm in arm with the artists, in which the boundary between stage and auditorium had been removed - not through contrived pathos or deliberate artistry but through the sheer authenticity and forthright passion of these two supremely generous artists. Victor Medem, Director of the Schubertiada Vilabertran

Volume 11 of Mathieu Gaudet's complete Schubert piano sonatas cycle brings us the fascinating second book of Impromptus D. 935, including the immortal Theme and Variation in B flat major. The youthful Sonata no. 2 in C major D. 279 and the � Noble � Waltzes D. 969 round up this spectacular album, full of singing melodies, contrasting atmospheres and romantic drama.

ENDELLION STRING QUARTET PLAYS

SCHUBERT: SONGS, VOL. 3 / IAN

FANTASIES

PIANO SONATA WANDERER FANTASY