SCHUMANN & MOSCHELES: 1851 Sonatas / Steven Isserlis (cello), Connie Shih (piano Erard 1851)

Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856) Violin Sonata No 2 in D minor Op 121  [32’51]
arr. Steven Isserlis (b1959)

1 Ziemlich langsam – Lebhaft [12’55]
2 Sehr lebhaft [4’04]
3 Leise, einfach [5’34]
4 Bewegt [10’18]

5 Ferdinand DAVID (1810-1873) Romanze (No 4 of 5 Salonstücke, Op 28) [3’58]
arr. Steven Isserlis (b1959)

Ignaz MOSCHELES (1794-1870) Cello Sonata in E major Op 121 [29’16]

6 Allegro espressivo e appassionato [9’21]
7 Scherzo ‘ballabile’: Allegretto quasi allegro [5’55]
8 Ballade ‘in böhmischer Weise’: Andantino [6’56]
9 Allegro vivace, ma non troppo [7’04]

10 Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856) Sängers Trost (No 1 of Fünf Lieder und Gesänge, Op 127) [2’20]
arr. Steven Isserlis (b1959)

11 Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750) & Charles GOUNOD (1818-1893) Méditation sur le premier prélude de piano de J S Bach ‘Ave Maria’ [5’06]

Steven Isserlis (cello),

Connie Shih (piano Erard 1851)

Steven Isserlis’s new album takes a single year—1851—as its starting point, the date of the French Érard piano played by Connie Shih, and of the Great Exhibition at which the instrument may well have been played, before exploring some of the music written in that year by a circle of musical friends, at the forefront of which was Robert Schumann.