The struggle between momentary inspiration and the great Forms’ moral needs cost Schumann, in time, a fall into darkness. His mind, inhabited by voices, built more and more monuments to Forms which were already fossils by his time, such as the Sonata, Symphony, or Oratorio. His impulsive nature (surprised, in turn, by the continual flow of themes arising from mysterious, and at times sinister, skies) was forced into a discipline whose destiny was to justify the genius, to redeem it from its sources earned by work alone. He had the self-taught man’s shame for the easiness of his inventions. In his Hausmusik, the pieces he wrote for amateurs and for domestic use, his neurosis and his constant need for academic recognition found rest against the destructive spur etching his mind.

Niels Wilhelm Gade from Copenhagen was more popular than Brahms, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky and Bruckner during his lifetime. Between 1850 and 1890 his fourth symphony was the most performed symphony by a living composer worldwide.
Schumann and Mendelssohn valued the young colleague who came to Leipzig in 1843 on a grant. Mendelssohn conducted several world premieres.

In the 1970s and 1980s, when the listener was starved of the unusual and was happy to listen to anything off the beaten track, some of these pieces sounded more exciting than they do now. I can remember enjoying a couple of the pieces more then than now. This is partly due to Hyperion’s wonderful Romantic Piano Concerto series, which has taken us yet further off the beaten track. It should be noted that some of the works presented here by Brilliant Classics do not feature in the Hyperion series and this makes this set all the more valuable.

Considered the most important Brazilian composer next to Villa-Lobos, Camargo Guarnieri and his impact on the musical life of his country is inestimable, with a body of piano music that represents the composer’s most distinctive stylistic features. Guarnieri was a consummate improviser and many of his piano works reflect a sense of ease and intimacy, giving the impression that they were composed in a flash of instantaneous inspiration. This is particularly true of the ‘character pieces’ in this volume, from the autobiographical Improvisos and Momentos, to the intimate nostalgia of the Valsas.

Paul Dukas (1865-1935) was born in Paris, France. He was a student at the Paris Conservatory where he studied piano, harmony, and composition. He won the Prix de Rome for a counterpoint and fugue in 1886 and again in 1888 with the cantata, Velleda. He was the music critic for the Revue Hebdomadaire and Gazette des Beaux-Arts and at the same time, he was a professor of orchestration at the Conservatoire. His strong critical sense led him to destroy a number of his compositions and only allow a relatively small number of works to be published. He remained influential and respected as a teacher. Dukas’ output for the piano includes just five works: the Piano Sonata and the Variations, each of them a homage to a past master, to Beethoven and (more explicitly) to Rameau.

Cor de Groot (July 7, 1914 – May 26, 1993) was a Dutch pianist and composer. Born in Amsterdam, he studied piano with Egbert Veen and Ulferts Schults, and composition and conducting with Sem Dresden. In 1932 he graduated with highest honors, playing a piano concerto written by himself. After becoming a soloist with the Concertgebouw Orchestra he embarked on a highly successful international career. If some (though not yet all) of his recordings as a pianist have received modern reissues on CD, his own compositions have received comparatively little attention. An early Sonatina pokes fun at serial technique, before an Old Holland Suite deftly sketches a sequence of 11 Dutch landscapes and portraits. A sequence of five Homenajes documents his fondness for Spain, played here by its dedicatee Jacob Bogaart.

Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), also known as "The Father of the Pianoforte" played an essential role in the development of both piano repertoire and the instrument itself. As a composer and virtuoso pianist, his sonatas spanned the transition from Scarlatti’s keyboard style to the beginnings of the Romantic period; as a publisher and manufacturer, he was responsible for a number of developments to piano performance and construction. His music is full of wit, elegance, budding romantic emotions, brilliance and a spectacular display of virtuosity. As a teacher and pianist himself Clementi developed the piano technique in a revolutionary way, paving the way for later keyboard giants Mendelssohn, Chopin and Liszt.

Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870) was born in Prague. In 1808 he settled in Vienna where he was a pupil of Albrechtsberger and Salieri - thanks to whose commendations he became adjunct Kapellmeister to the Court Theatre from 1811 to 1813. Beethoven was so impressed by him that he entrusted him with the piano transcription of Fidelio. The approval of Beethoven and the establishment of a friendship between them that would continue over time were pivotal in those years to launching the young musician into the stream of the international concert world. Moscheles was a key figure in the transition period between the generation rooted in classicism (Hummel, Field, Cramer, Kalkbrenner, etc.) and the early romantics. His musical language may be best compared to that of Mendelssohn, his pupil and friend.

A multiplicity of cultural influences makes the figure of Edward MacDowell (1860-1908), an American pianist-composer trained for a long time in Europe, particularly original. Born in New York, he received his first lessons from Colombian, Cuban and Venezuelan musicians, including the famous pianist Teresa Carreño. At the age of seventeen, MacDowell continued his studies at the Paris Conservatory, in Antoine Marmontel's class, and then at the Frankfurt Hochschule, where he studied composition with Joachim Raff. He was listened to by Clara Schumann and Franz Liszt, and was introduced by the latter to the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig. In 1888 he returned to the United Sates where he settled in Boston, combining his work as a composer with that of a concert pianist. When he moved to New York in 1896, he also taught at Columbia University, where MacDowell was the first to create a music department. In the same year, 1896, the MacDowells bought a farm in New Hampshire, an ideal place to pursue musical creativity in a peaceful rural setting. Much of MacDowell's compositional output dates from this happy period, including two piano concertos, two orchestral suites, four symphonic poems, several piano suites, Songs, four piano sonatas and numerous piano transcriptions of 18th-century music.

Late-Romantic French piano music of unfailing elegance and wit, chosen by a rising piano star and gifted young advocate of underrated composers.

Alberto Nones executes Chopins music with restrained elegance and poise, avoiding the trappings of indulgent virtuosity or sentimentality. Instead, these performances demonstrate unencumbered fidelity to the composers directions; it is almost asif we can hear Chopins own breath between each line and phrase.

"An eagle whose wings are grown", according to his father Alessandro, the young Scarlatti left his native Naples for Venice, "escorted only by his own ability". Born in Italy in 1685, Domenico Scarlatti spent the majority of his career in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families – with the latter appointment enabling him to devote his full attention towards composing for the harpsichord. This unusual cultural background accounts for why the Italian’s music, though contemporary with that of Bach and Handel, differs so much in comparison; Spanish dance rhythms (such as the flamenco), and folk tunes with Moorish and gypsy-like flavours, indicate that day-by-day-street life was a great source of inspiration to Scarlatti.

The pianist Andrea González recovers the music of the Spanish monk Rosendo Salvado (Tui, 1814 - Rome, 1900), founder of the only monastic city in Australia and a pioneer in the defense of human rights of the aborigines. An eclectic character who negotiated with kings and popes, he lived with indigenous tribes and considered music the epicenter of his mission.