Can Cakmur - Schubert + Beethoven - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]

The ongoing Schubert + series, produced by pianist Can Çakmur, has revealed an exceptional Schubertian. Now in it's sixth instalment, the series juxtaposes Schubert's works with those of composers he inspired. This latest program shines a spotlight on Robert Schumann. Schumann held Schubert in the highest esteem and was one of the first to recognise him as one of the most visionary composers to have ever lived, and this alone would have justified this coupling. However, Çakmur delves deeper, using the program as a springboard for a philosophical discussion about naturalism within German Romanticism.The program features Schubert's brilliant Sonata in D major, D. 850, composed in 1825 in the spa town of Bad Gastein. It's composition amidst the Alpine scenery likely sparked his imagination, echoing the themes of millers, hunters, forests, and mountains prevalent in his songs. Robert Schumann's Waldszenen (Forest Scenes) continues this thread of inspiration. In these nine miniatures, Schumann returns to the happy and simple lyricism reminiscent of early works like Kinderszenen. The program concludes with Schumann's Three Phantasiestücke, Op. 111, included, according to Çakmur, for the uncanny similarity between it's second piece and the slow movement of Schubert's Sonata.This program promises a compelling journey into the heart of German Romanticism, guided by Can Çakmur through the works of two of it's most pivotal figures.

Three years after recording Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang (arranged by Liszt), pianist Can Çakmur launches a new series called Schubert. Describing the Viennese composer as Incha con-stant companionInch in his life, Çakmur's aim here is to juxtapose his complete major piano solo compositions with works by other composers that were inspired by his music, thus providing the opportunity to see these works in a new light. While making up a near complete anthology of Schubert's completed major piano music, each disc is also intended as a self-sufficient recital. In this first instalment, two sonatas by Schubert, respectively D 537 and D 959, are juxtaposed with Arnold Schoenberg's Three Pieces op. 11. The reason for this combination is that, firstly, the same theme is shared but treated differently in Schubert's sonatas, and secondly, Schubert and Schoenberg seemingly sharing the same conception where the natural flow and direction of the music appear consciously deconstructed. With different means and a hundred years apart, both Schubert and Schoenberg, the former with his aversion to formal boundaries, the latter with his efforts against the natural tendencies of Western harmony, managed to strengthen the subjective expression of their music.

For his series called Schubert+, pianist Can cakmur juxtaposes the complete major piano solo compositions by the Viennese composer with works by others who were inspired by his music, thus providing the opportunity to see these works in a new light. While making up a near complete anthology of Schubert's completed major piano music, each disc is also intended as a self-contained recital. In this third instalment, cakmur presents not only a work by the 20th-century composer Ernst Krenek but also Krenek's completion of an unfinished sonata by Schubert. In the process, Krenek assimilated the Schubertian language so well that the result is astonishing. As cakmur says, 'I would find it difficult to spot where Schubert ends and Krenek begins if it wasn't specified in the score.' Krenek, whose career spanned more than seven decades, was a prolific composer who embraced a host of styles. For his Second Piano Sonata, composed in the 1920s, he pays homage to Schubert by adopting some of his techniques, though the music owes much more to early 20th-century Paris than to 19th-century Vienna. A fascinating and neglected work to be discovered through the prism of Schubert.