Weilerstein Duo - Complete Sonatas of Schumann - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

As keyboards became more powerful during the nineteenth century, so demand for piano duet arrangements increased dramatically. Robert Schumann, already a keen duet player, wrote for the burgeoning market, though largely for the salon and not the concert stage. He almost always supervised the arrangements of his music but the Overture to Hermann and Dorothea is rare in that he arranged it himself. Symphony No. 3 'Rhenish' was arranged by his esteemed colleague and disciple Carl Reinecke, while the Overture to Scenes from Goethe's Faust was the work of his brother-in-law Woldemar Bargiel.

Demand for piano duet material in the nineteenth century was such that the market expanded to an unparalleled extent. The preparation of an easily playable four-hand piano reduction was of critical importance to a work's dissemination and Robert Schumann, himself a keen duet performer, wrote for the medium with enthusiasm. He arranged his Symphony No. 2 himself, aided by his wife Clara, expending considerable time and effort on the work. The overtures show the variety of arrangers involved, such as his brother-in-law Woldemar Bargiel and the organist Robert Pfretaschner, both of whom Schumann held in the highest regard.

Geister Duo take their name from Robert Schumann's last piano work, the Geistervariationen, whose theme Brahms, a close friend of the Schumanns, used to compose his own Variations Op.23 for piano four hands. This recording proposes a bridge between these two composers. The record is rounded out with Dvorák's Bohemian Forests (Aus Dem Böhmerwalde). A relatively unknown work, it is for the duo, a masterpieces full of folk inspiration and rich in a variety of colors of the twilight of the 19th century.