Schumann: Piano Quartet; Piano Trio No. 3; Fantasiestücke, Op. 88

Featuring

Anthony Marwood
Richard Lester
Susan Tomes
Thomas Riebl
The Florestan Trio
Robert Schumann

Did you know?

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Schumann deliberately tried to dissolve the boundaries between successive movements in his works, a technique he may have borrowed from Beethoven's 'Emperor' Concerto.

Critical Reception

Schumann's Piano Quartet Op. 47 was far less popular than his famous Piano Quintet Op. 44 during his lifetime, with his wife Clara Schumann not performing the Quartet publicly until 1849.

Compositional Technique

In the Piano Quartet Op. 47, Schumann instructs the cellist to tune the lowest string down a whole-tone to B flat, creating a long drone that adds mystery to the slow movement's closing bars.

Composition History

By the time Schumann completed the Piano Quartet Op. 47 in November 1842, he had produced five large-scale chamber works in six months, leading to 'nervous weakness'.

Composer Biography

As an 18-year-old law student, Robert Schumann formed a piano quartet at Leipzig University, where evenings involved drinking Bavarian beer and playing chamber music.

Performer Biography

The Florestan Trio, the performers on this album, received Britain's Royal Philharmonic Society Award for chamber music in 2000, the first piano trio to do so.

Composition History

Schumann composed a Piano Quartet in C minor in 1828, but was thrown into emotional turmoil by the news of Schubert's untimely death while working on it.