The third and final installment of the Schumann recording series by South Korean pianist Jimin Oh-Havenith includes Carnaval op. 9 and the Davidsbundlertanze op. 6, two summit works from the 1830s which, with their unique combination of intensity and sensitivity, are undoubtedly among Schumann's best-known piano cycles and are particularly beloved by performers and audiences alike.

Perahia has a magic touch and his electric spontaneity is naturally caught in the studio. In the works of Schumann...this quality of concentration is enormously valuable, and the results could hardly be more powerfully convincing...

-- The Penguin Guide, selecting this issue as a "key" recording

This is a DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording

Schumann, R.: 7 Lieder / Gedichte Der Konigin Maria Stuart /

Evgeny Kissin is an interpreter who tends to shoot from the hip in the big Romantic masterpieces, resulting in many moments of genius rubbing up against baffling gaucheries. Fortunately, nearly everything comes together for Kissin in his late-1990s recordings of Schumann's Kreisleriana and C major Fantasy. The latter virtually explodes in the face of Kissin's ardent, volatile virtuosity, which dwells at opposite ends of the scale from Pollini's ironclad, symphonically inclined steadiness. Particularly noteworthy (all puns intended) are Kissin's spectacular leaps in the second-movement coda, where he cleanly delineates the outer voices most other pianists are merely content to hit accurately. The whiplash articulation and huge dynamic range Kissin brings to Kreisleriana's faster movements are cut from the same Dionysian cloth that shrouds the great Horowitz (Sony) and Argerich (DG) recordings. In short, the catalog claims no stromger coupling of these works, and with Kissin on top form, who can resist? [6/14/2004] --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Robert Schumann's three Sonatas for violin and piano were all composed between 1851 and 1853. They - especially No.3 - have to some extent suffered from the same neglect and incomprehension that has been the fate of other works from this period in the composer's life, only a few years before he died in a mental institution. During the same years a number of other works for the violin saw the light, including the Violin Concerto and the Fantasy for violin and orchestra. The concertante works were written for the violinist Joseph Joachim, but it may have been a letter from Ferdinand David, concert master of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, that provided the initial impulse to compose chamber works for the violin: 'I am uncommonly fond of your Fantasiestücke for piano and clarinet; why don't you write something for violin and piano? ... How splendid it would be if you could write something of that kind, that your wife and I could play for you.' Here the performers are Ulf Wallin and Roland Pöntinen, a team who recorded their first disc for BIS in 1991, and whose partnership has been described as 'masterfully cultivated ensemble playing' on website ClassicsToday.com. Wallin's credentials in Schumann must also be regarded as firmly established, after his recently released recording of the violin concerto, the Fantasy and the arrangement for violin of the cello concerto. The reviewer in Daily Telegraph found it 'hard to imagine more sympathetic and insightful performances of these wonderful pieces', and his colleague on the German website Klassik-Heute agreed, describing Wallin as 'violinistically brilliant and musically perceptive'

SCHUMANN: Dichterliebe and Kerner-Lieder

SCHUMANN: Romances and Ballads

Martin Stegner and Tomoko Takahashi adapted romances and songs by Robert Schumann for viola and piano. All pieces mentioned date back to the year 1849. It marks a period of his work that endowed – second to the year 1840 that was decidedly characterized by song – the composer with yet another rich, though autumnal, harvest of songs.

Mit Myrten und Rosen (Complete Works for Cello and Piano)

A beautifully programmed collection anchored by the strength of Ragna Schirmer's piano. Clara and Robert Schumann borrow from each other's compositions in the early years of their great love affair in two sets of playfully intimate variations. Twenty years later, the theme is woven anew into two more sets of variations: a revisiting on the theme by Clara Schumann and one by her friend Johannes Brahms. Performing on an original Blu�thner grand piano of 1856, Ragna Schirmer's long association with the music of both Clara and Robert deepens the sense of rediscovery of these rarely recorded works for the listener.

Chopin - Schumann: Etüden

The present release is a programme of Schumann piano solos performed by Joseph Tong. The award-winning British pianist Joseph Tong enjoys a busy and varied career as soloist, duo pianist, chamber musician, Festival Director and teacher. Educated at Wells Cathedral School, Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music, Joseph made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1997 as winner of the Maisie Lewis Young Artists Award. Other notable competition successes have included the St Charles International Piano Competition in the USA, the Citta di Marsala Competition in Italy, the ISM Sheffield Competition, 1st Prize in the John Lill Awards and 3rd Prize at the Tokyo International Piano Duo Competition. An English-Speaking Union Scholarship led to a summer spent at the Ravinia Festival near Chicago where he studied with Claude Frank and played to the legendary pianist Shura Cherkassky. Joseph Tong was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in 2008 and also appointed visiting teacher at Wells Cathedral School. He is also founder and Co-Director of the Bristol International Piano Duo Festival which is held biennially at St George’s Bristol and will next take place from 27th-30th October 2016.

Classical Music

Schumann at Pier2 is not a usual concert film; it shows the 4 Symphonies of Schumann from a new perspective. Stars of the film are the conductor Paavo Jarvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and it's filmed at Pier2 a former dockyard in the harbor of Bremen.