Andreas Staier’s informed and inspired interpretations have left their mark on the discography of both the harpsichord and the fortepiano and have enabled us to see Bach, Mozart and Schubert in a completely new light. This is Staier’s first solo album of a projected series for Alpha Classics, in which he also presents his own compositions for the first time.

After a recording of Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier that earned unanimous acclaim from the press, Andreas Staier now gives us an equally poetic and flamboyant interpretation of the first book. At once architect and colourist, he constantly varies the atmospheres, unfolding an infinite palette of musical landscapes. Under his fingers, this immense cathedral in sound is revealed in all its thrilling diversity. An exhilarating experience!

With the two books of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Johann Sebastian Bach left posterity one of the most dazzling masterpieces in the history of music. Formal rigour and musical emotion meet in perfect communion. Following several outstanding recordings of other works by Bach, Andreas Staier invites us to climb this Everest once again, but starting, as it were, with the north face, the second book, and revealing its poetry, its sensibility and its daunting architecture with the utmost naturalness.

After a recording of Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier that earned unanimous acclaim from the press, Andreas Staier now gives us an equally poetic and flamboyant interpretation of the first book. At once architect and colourist, he constantly varies the atmospheres, unfolding an infinite palette of musical landscapes. Under his fingers, this immense cathedral in sound is revealed in all its thrilling diversity. An exhilarating experience!

Philippe Herreweghe directs these Schumann concertos with severity and urgency, with an impact that’s particularly strong in the opening movement of the A minor piano concerto. The soloist is Andreas Staier, who plays a mid-19th century J.B. Streicher instrument. But it’s not just the use of period instruments (this is certainly the kind of piano Schumann would have known) that proves so fascinating here; rather, it’s the minutely detailed way in which soloist and conductor interact during this performance. Note, for instance, how astutely Herreweghe’s wind players articulate the sorrowful first subject group after the soloist’s opening salvo, a passage that sets the tone for all that follows.

Bach transcribed the works of other composers and reused his own works for often educational purposes. This magnificently interpreted anthology by Andreas Staier is a delight for the ears, happiness enhanced by a splendid sound recording, and what instrument(s)!

From the mid-1810s until the end of his life, Beethoven constantly tested to the limit the forms he had inherited from Haydn and Mozart. His last two cello sonatas bear witness to this structural preoccupation, which was to open up so many new spaces . . . as do the final sets of Bagatelles, as disconcerting as they are innovative! Two genres shrewdly linked by Andreas Staier and Roel Dieltiens in these interpretations, in which eloquence merges with historically informed performance practice.

"I have composed a big sonata and variations for four hands, and the latter have met with a specially good reception here, but I do not entirely trust Hungarian taste, and I shall leave it to you and to the Viennese to decide their true merit" So wrote Franz Schubert in 1824, evoking the popular 19th-century genre for 4-hands piano that publishers were always pestering him to write for. In his brief life Schubert devoted 32 compositions to this form and the least of these pieces, be it a ländler, polonaise or march, radiates with all of his finesse and sensitivity

The eighteenth century is probably the most extraordinary period of transformation Europe has known since antiquity. Political upheavals kept pace with the innumerable inventions and discoveries of the age; every sector of the arts and of intellectual and material life was turned upside down. Between the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the revolution of 1789, music in its turn underwent a radical mutation that struck at the very heart of a well-established musical language. In this domain too, we are all children of the Age of Enlightenment: our conception of music and the way we ‘consume’ it still follows in many respects the agenda set by the eighteenth century. And it is not entirely by chance that harmonia mundi has chosen to offer you in 2011 a survey of this musical revolution which, without claiming to be exhaustive, will enable you to grasp the principal outlines of musical creation between the twilight of the Baroque and the dawn of Romanticism.

The eighteenth century is probably the most extraordinary period of transformation Europe has known since antiquity. Political upheavals kept pace with the innumerable inventions and discoveries of the age; every sector of the arts and of intellectual and material life was turned upside down. Between the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the revolution of 1789, music in its turn underwent a radical mutation that struck at the very heart of a well-established musical language. In this domain too, we are all children of the Age of Enlightenment: our conception of music and the way we ‘consume’ it still follows in many respects the agenda set by the eighteenth century. And it is not entirely by chance that harmonia mundi has chosen to offer you in 2011 a survey of this musical revolution which, without claiming to be exhaustive, will enable you to grasp the principal outlines of musical creation between the twilight of the Baroque and the dawn of Romanticism.

A good first introduction to the musical worlds of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach is the recently released 10-CD box "C.P.E. Bach Edition ", on which the German 'harmonia mundi' has compiled high-quality recordings from the past 50 years.

The eighteenth century is probably the most extraordinary period of transformation Europe has known since antiquity. Political upheavals kept pace with the innumerable inventions and discoveries of the age; every sector of the arts and of intellectual and material life was turned upside down. Between the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the revolution of 1789, music in its turn underwent a radical mutation that struck at the very heart of a well-established musical language. In this domain too, we are all children of the Age of Enlightenment: our conception of music and the way we ‘consume’ it still follows in many respects the agenda set by the eighteenth century. And it is not entirely by chance that harmonia mundi has chosen to offer you in 2011 a survey of this musical revolution which, without claiming to be exhaustive, will enable you to grasp the principal outlines of musical creation between the twilight of the Baroque and the dawn of Romanticism.

Haydn's importance in the development of both the symphony and the string quartet is well known and his works in those genres have become staples of the repertoire. However, the great composer's piano concerti are not performed nearly as often as those of Mozart or Beethoven. After listening to these glorious performances by fortepianist Andreas Staier, originally released in 2005, you will wonder why.

Julien Chauvin meets up with one of the great harpsichordists and fortepianists of our time, Andreas Staier, who is a leading interpreter of the Mozart concertos. He presents us with his vision of the Piano Concerto no.23 and its famous Adagio, ‘one of the most heart-rending slow movements ever written by Mozart… Performers often tend to take it too slowly, certainly thinking that this will accentuate the tragic side, but Julien Chauvin and I spontaneously agreed on a slightly faster tempo, which respects the basic pulse of this movement in siciliana rhythm. When you start with the right tempo, it’s amazing how the whole discourse comes together perfectly, in a very logical and simple manner’, says Staier, who plays a magnificent instrument by Christoph Kern after a 1790 fortepiano by Anton Walter, the great maker of Mozart’s time. Also on the programme is the Symphony no.40, in which, says Julien Chauvin, ‘Mozart explores types of writing that he pushes to their most extreme limits. This is the case in the finale, where we find a succession of dissonant disjunct intervals at the opening of the development which, on closer inspection, present us with the full chromatic scale (except for G natural, the symphony’s tonic). And so the twelve-note series was born!’