Schumann: Complete Works for Piano Trio

“You have to have the courage to embrace darkness and, with Schumann, be able to leap from heaven to hell in a tenth of a second,” says violinist Antje Weithaas. This double album brings together Schumann’s complete works for piano trio: the three Piano Trios, Opp. 63, 80 and 110, as well as the Fantasiestücke, Op. 88. Throughout these works, passion and intimacy, lyrical introspection and restless energy are in constant dialogue. Begun in 1842 as Schumann’s first work for piano trio and revised before its publication in 1850, the Fantasiestücke form a poetically distilled counterpart to the three numbered trios.

For this new Deutsche Grammophon recording, violinist Antje Weithaas is joined by cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and pianist Dénes Várjon. All three have established international careers as soloists while consistently placing chamber music at the heart of their artistic work. With a shared musical language developed in concert and deepened in the studio, they follow every sudden shift in mood, bringing Schumann’s hidden ideas and the ever-changing dialogue between the three voices vividly to the fore. Released in the year of Antje Weithaas’s 60th birthday, this album presents a portrait of Schumann’s music that is at once powerful and vulnerable, restless and deeply personal.