Loewe / Nicholson,Linda - Piano Music 1 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Linda Nicholson - Piano Sonatas [COMPACT DISCS] date 07/26/2011

Known in his lifetime as 'the north German Schubert', Carl Loewe (1796-1869) is remembered today chiefly as a composer of ballads. Yet there is a considerable body of piano music that is strikingly innovative in content, expression and harmony, containing the germs of ideas later taken up by composers such as Wagner and Liszt. Loewe was unquestionably a brilliantly original talent, a major figure in ushering in the Romantic era. This is the second of three recordings of Loewe's piano music, in the first ever systematic survey of Loewe's piano music; the pianist is Linda Nicholson, one of the world's leading performers on period pianos. Carl Loewe died on April 20, 1869; this recording is being released to mark the 150th anniversary of that occasion.

Known in his lifetime as 'the north German Schubert', Carl Loewe (1796-1869) is remembered today chiefly as a composer of songs and ballads. Yet there is a considerable body of piano music that is strikingly innovative in content, expression and harmony, containing the germs of ideas later taken up by composers such as Wagner and Liszt. Loewe was unquestionably a brilliantly original talent, a major figure in ushering in the Romantic era - with the remarkable Four Fantasies of 1854 heard here 'documenting' in music the contemporary emigration of German families to the United States. This third volume of Linda Nicholson's survey of his piano music on historical instruments concludes it's first-ever complete recording on any kind of piano.