Robert Schumann - Clara Schumann

Clara & Robert Schumann

Sophie Wang & Florian Glemser

Label: CAvi
Format: CD
Barcode: 4260085534838

Catalog number: AVI 8553483
Releasedate: 13-05-22

- SOPHIE WANG is winner of the CHIMEI Culture Foundation Taiwan in 2016 and 2017 and plays an instrument of . Gagliano von 1775 (Napoli), a generous loan from the CHIMEI foundation.

CLARA & ROBERT SCHUMANN

"Are Schumann’s late works the product of a household where a physically and mentally declining composer and his wife, who refused to admit that reality, were living in a stuffy atmosphere? Or was Schumann’s Düsseldorf circle a fruitful terrain that gave rise to magnificent masterpieces because these close, talented friends – Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, Albert Dietrich, Johannes Brahms, and Joseph Joachim – continually inspired one another?

For this recording, Sophie and I have chosen a programme that attempts to answer those questions. All the chamber music works on this CD are from the period between 1849 and 1854, thus stemming from the Schumanns’ time in Düsseldorf.

The personal and musical connections between Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and Joseph Joachim are intrinsically present in all these works. Those biographical relationships are interesting for us as interpreters because they give rise to special moods we can sense in the music. We want to fathom them, to feel them, and to make them palpable for the listener: this is one of the most exciting projects we have ever undertaken as performers.

Clara Schumann: Three Romances op.22

“You can look forward to what is about to arrive,” Johannes Brahms promised Joseph Joachim, who received a copy of Clara Schumann’s Three Romances op.22 fresh off the press in January 1856, as a belated Christmas present. Clara had composed these three pieces in the summer of 1853. Robert had always found it difficult to accept his wife’s professional success. Although he took her seriously and appreciated her comments as a competent interlocutor, he regarded her first and foremost as a housewife and as the mother of their children. He nevertheless encouraged her to compose her own works, and she was always the first to judge his.

After a long hiatus, Clara composed several works in 1853, including these three romances for violin and piano. They show her at the height of her musical inspiration: these are three pieces brimming with charm, melodic nuance, ..."
© 2021 Florian Glemser