SKU: HL.49015565

ISBN 9781423421047. 9.0x12.0x0.079 inches.

'I have always had a great fondness for the works by Schumann', Aribert Reimann once said. There exists a close relationship even beyond the music: As owner of Schumann's medical records from the mental asylum in Endenich, Reimann guarded the secret of the circumstances surrounding Schumann's last weeks and death.When the musical world celebrated Reimann's 70th birthday and commemorated the 150th anniversary of Schumann's death in 2006, Reimann decided to publish the records and comment on them in his book 'Robert Schumann in Endenich' (ED 9870).This book was presented to the public on 5 May 2006 at the Schumann Festival in Dusseldorf. For this occasion, as a musical bow to Schumann, Reimann composed the string quartet Adagio which the Heine Quartet premiered. Adagio is based on both Schumann's Endenich chorales 'Wenn mein Stundlein vorhanden ist' and 'Stark und Mittler, dein sind wir'.

SKU: HL.49033270

ISBN 9790001136860. 9.25x12.0x0.3 inches.

The Jagdquartett (Hunt Quartet), which Jorg Widmann wrote as his third string quartet in 2003, following the Choralquartett, also begins with a visible gesture. After a short signal cry from the performers, the piece starts by quoting Robert Schumann's Papillons op. 2, and for its full duration retains this gesture, these starting sounds. The degrees of recognizability do change continuously, to be sure, in the furious, racing organism of the score. The contours change into forms on another level, yet now and then the begining material returns clearly to the fore, initiated anew by a cry from the performers, and is then digested or mutated as a rhythmic study into a field of harmonic experimentation. On rare occasions, there are moments of pause - as though the musicians were testing the atmosphere, as though they were sensing the weather, so as ultimately to continue playing the quartet across the fields an forests of notes. A hunt after joyful performance, a chase, the whip cracking, after the thing to be shot, the sound, its performer, perhaps the composer himself? - A last shout, morendo, dal niente... - The victim is not the audience, at any rate.When comparing the output of string quartets from the 18th century to thetime of Schumann, it appears to have dropped considerably. Schumann composed only three complete quartets, all of them in the so-called 'chamber music year' 1842. Jorg Widmann, who counts Robert Schumann among his greatest inspirations, finished a series of five string quartets in 2005, at the same age as Schumann. The quartets in the cycle form in themselves the characters of the movements of the classical quartet. Jagdquartett represents the fast middle movement, the scherzo. Widmann's work appears rough and wild in the style of Schumann's alter ego Florestan. His hunt begins in the tempo of 'allegro vivace assai' with the final theme of Schumann's Papillons which often appears or is cited in many of Schumann's compositions. Widmann eventually dismantles the thematic material of his fierce quartet, thus skeletonising his prey.

SKU: HL.49007921

ISBN 9790001111911. 9.0x12.0x0.238 inches.

In these lieder, Robert Schumann seems to mirror his life full of crises. The composition coincides with the first signs of his illness. The picture of the drowning Ophelia evoked in the first chant conjures up the image of his suicide attempt three years later. Aribert Reimann's transcription seems to be opposed to Schumann's endeavours to make stronger use of 'the development of the accompanying instrument, the piano'. On the other hand, the complete integration of the vocal part in the musical setting of the string quartet confirms Schumann's assessment that the singing voice alone cannot 'express everything; apart from the expression of the whole, even subtle nuances of the poem shall become apparent'. These transcriptions show Reimann's sense of timbre and his many years of experience as a lied accompanist.