Brahms Schumann Gade Sebastian Manz & Herbert Schuch

• Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897): Clarinet Sonata No. 1, Op. 120:
• 1 Brahms: Clarinet Sonata No. 1, Op. 120: I. Allegro appassionato 07:45
• 2 Brahms: Clarinet Sonata No. 1, Op. 120: II. Andante un poco Adagio 05:05
• 3 Brahms: Clarinet Sonata No. 1, Op. 120: III. Allegretto grazioso 04:24
• 4 Brahms: Clarinet Sonata No. 1, Op. 120: IV. Vivace 05:02
• Niels Wilhelm Gade (1817 - 1890): Fantasy Pieces, Op. 43:
• 5 Gade: Fantasy Pieces, Op. 43: No. 1, Andantino con moto 02:15
• 6 Gade: Fantasy Pieces, Op. 43: No. 2, Allegro vivace 02:19
• 7 Gade: Fantasy Pieces, Op. 43: No. 3, Ballade 04:19
• 8 Gade: Fantasy Pieces, Op. 43: No. 4, Allegro molto vivace 03:19
• Robert Schumann (1810 - 1865): Fantasy Pieces, Op. 73:
• 9 Schumann: Fantasy Pieces, Op. 73: No. 1, Zart und mit Ausdruck 03:51
• 10 Schumann: Fantasy Pieces, Op. 73: No. 2, Lebhaft, leicht 03:29
• 11 Schumann: Fantasy Pieces, Op. 73: No. 3, Rasch und mit Feuer 04:04
• Johannes Brahms: Clarinet Sonata No. 2, Op. 120:
• 12 Brahms: Clarinet Sonata No. 2, Op. 120: I. Allegro amabile 08:24
• 13 Brahms: Clarinet Sonata No. 2, Op. 120: II. Allegro appassionato 05:20
• 14 Brahms: Clarinet Sonata No. 2, Op. 120: III. Andante con moto 06:55
• Total Runtime 01:06:31

Info for Brahms Schumann Gade

An orgy of timbre: On his latest album "Brahms | Schumann | Gade", the clarinet virtuoso and three-time ECHO Classic winner Sebastian Manz devotes himself to three absolute opera magna of the clarinet repertoire. The focus on the chamber music core repertoire makes this album project stand out clearly from the artist's previous discography. Without distractions or programmatic embellishments, Sebastian Manz completely serves the artistic content of these timeless masterpieces in this album.

The clarinet sonatas by Johannes Brahms are popular with listeners and performers alike. The complexity and depth of Brahms' sonatas meets here with a courageous performer who strikes musical gold in his dive through the complex compositional substance. The result is a recording that sounds anything but monotonous. Manz himself says it more resembles a "spontaneous and risky orgy of timbre".

Like Brahms' sonatas, Robert Schumann's Fantasiestücke are full of detail and thematic connections. It takes years of extensive study for such a work to grow to maturity in an artist. As a child, Sebastian Manz found it difficult to find an approach to these pieces. But, at the latest during his studies, the initial indifference gave way to enthusiasm. In this recording, Manz now reaps the fruits of this maturing process. In the Fantasiestücke Op. 43 by the Danish composer Niels Wilhelm Gades, there is a clear relationship to those by Schumann, for the composers knew each other personally.

He will be accompanied on the piano by ECHO prize winner Herbert Schuch. The pianist, who comes from Romania and now lives in Germany, is an enthusiastic chamber musician, but also performs with the best orchestras in the world. This musical partnership is characterised by far-reaching musical diversity, as both performers are willing to surrender to the moment and the guidance of artistic interaction. Together they inspire with recordings in which one can hear that time and space have been left for spontaneous musical qualities. The thoughts and emotions of the performers thus come to the fore unfiltered. In addition, large-scale takes preserve the musical flow and their naturalness.

The choice of the wood-panelled Angelika Kaufmann Hall in Schwarzenberg, Austria, as the recording location was also quite deliberate. Its intimate setting is home to, among others, the Schubertiade, the most important Schubert festival in the world. The crystal-clear acoustics of the timeless wooden architecture in the midst of graceful nature offer the ideal conditions for "creating a recording that is capable of reproducing the music in all its facets". The Steinway D grand piano turned out to be a stroke of luck. The "old lady", as she is affectionately called in Schwarzenberg, is about 100 years old. The not so brilliant, but very sweet sound is very characteristic of the time and gives an idea of the sound characteristics Brahms must have worked with when composing.

Sebastian Manz, clarinet
Herbert Schuch, piano

Sebastian Manz
international soloist, chamber musician and solo clarinetist with the SWR Symphony Orchestra, had his big breakthrough with his sensational success at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich in September 2008. He wins not only first prize in the Clarinet category, which had not been awarded for forty years, but also the coveted Audience Prize and other special prizes. With his partner Martin Klett at the piano, he had also won the German Music Competition just a few months before. Since then, he was awarded thrice with the ECHO Classic Award for his outstanding album releases. For his recording A Bernstein Story from 2019 he received the OPUS Classic Award in October 2020.

In season 2020/2021 Sebastian Manz performs as a soloist with the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra, the Bochum Symphony Orchestra, the Hessian State Orchestra Wiesbaden and the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra. He is also invited to Japan by the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra as well as by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York, USA. As part of a new recording of Copland’s clarinet concerto (Berlin Classics), he will be touring with the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn and chief conductor Case Scaglione. On the chamber music field, he gives performances together with Robert Neumann, Felix Klieser, Martin Klett and Sebastian Studnitzky as well as with ensembles as the Boulanger Trio, the Danish String Quartet and the Armida Quartett among others. He will be playing at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and several festivals as the prestigious festival Heidelberger Frühling, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and the festival Musikalischer Sommer Ostfriesland. In Spring 2021 he is invited to the winter festival of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York.

Sebastian Manz demonstrates a unique talent for arranging and composing on his albums and at his concerts. His discography includes numerous awards underscoring Manz’ intuition for details and overarching concepts. The album A Bernstein Story, released in 2019 (Berlin Classics) as a collaboration with Sebastian Studnitzky, presents arrangements as well as original compositions of both musicians and is placed in between classical and jazz music. Manz’ new album with clarinet concertos from Carl Nielsen and Magnus Lindberg was released in the beginning of September 2020 on Berlin Classics and received enthusiastic reviews. For this recording, Magnus Lindberg conducts his clarinet concerto himself.

Being the grandson of the Russian violinist Boris Goldstein and the son of two pianists, born in Hanover in 1986, Manz’s musical roots are in his German-Russian family background. He begins singing in a boys’ choir at the age of six. He first learns the piano, which he plays very well, but soon concentrates on the clarinet after listening to Benny Goodman’s recording of Carl Maria von Weber’s E flat major Concerto, which fascinates him and awakes a longing for the instrument. Among his most important teachers and supporters are the acclaimed clarinetists Sabine Meyer and Rainer Wehle.

Herbert Schuch
The pianist Herbert Schuch has gained a reputation as being among the most interesting musicians of his generation with his strikingly conceived concert programmes and CD recordings. In 2013, he received the ECHO Klassik award for his recording of the piano concerto by Viktor Ullmann and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the WDR Sinfonieorchester conducted by Olari Elts. In 2014, he issued the fascinating solo CD “invocation” with works by Bach, Liszt, Messiaen, Murail and Ravel, which engages with the sound of bells. He could be heard with this programme in piano recitals at the Salzburg Festival and the Stuttgart Musikfest, and in the Frauenkirche in Dresden and the Philharmonie in Berlin, among other venues. A piano-duet CD with Gülru Ensari, featuring works by Brahms, Hindemith, Stravinsky and Özkan Manav, was issued in early 2017.

Herbert Schuch has worked with a number of renowned orchestras, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Camerata Salzburg, the Residentie Orkest Den Haag, the Bamberg Symphony, the Dresden Philharmonic and the radio orchestras of hr, MDR, WDR, NDR Hannover and Danish Radio. He appears regularly as guest at festivals such as the Heidelberger Frühling, the Kissinger Sommer, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Ruhr Piano Festival and the Salzburg Festival. Among the conductors with whom he has enjoyed successful associations are Pierre Boulez, Andrey Boreyko, Douglas Boyd, Lawrence Foster, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Jakub Hrusa, Jun Märkl, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jonathan Nott, Markus Poschner, Michael Sanderling and Alexander Vedernikov.

Recently, Herbert Schuch played with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra under Valery Gergiev in the Gasteig in Munich, with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in the Berlin Philharmonie, with the Camerata Salzburg, with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana and with the National Youth Orchestra of Germany on a European tour. He also made his début with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., at the Salzburg Easter Festival and at the Festival Radio France Occitanie Montpellier. In addition, he gave concerts with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Festival Strings Lucerne and the RAI National Symphony Orchestra.

His schedule for the 17/18 season includes fresh invitations to play with the WDR Sinfonieorchester and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, as well as his début in the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. As a child, Herbert Schuch also played violin for 10 years and has been an enthusiastic chamber musician ever since. In the summer of 2017, he undertook a trio tour with violinist Julia Fischer and cellist Daniel Müller-Schott.

Herbert Schuch was born in Timișoara, Romania, in 1979. He had his first piano lessons in his native city, before his family moved to Germany in 1988, where he has lived since. He continued his musical studies with Kurt Hantsch and then with Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Recently, Herbert Schuch has been especially influenced by his encounters and work with Alfred Brendel. He created an international stir when he won three major competitions in just one year: the Casagrande Competition, the London International Piano Competition and the International Beethoven Competition in Vienna.

In addition to his performance activities, Herbert Schuch is also involved in the organization “Rhapsody in School,” founded by Lars Vogt, which promotes classical music education in schools.

This album contains no booklet.