Schumann: Fantasiestücke - Kreisleriana - Brahms: Theme & Variations from String Sextet No. 1 Imogen Cooper

• Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856): Fantasiestücke, Op. 12:
• 1 Fantasiestücke, Op. 12: No. 1, Des Abends 03:37
• 2 Fantasiestücke, Op. 12: No. 2, Aufschwung 03:24
• 3 Fantasiestücke, Op. 12: No. 3, Warum? 02:44
• 4 Fantasiestücke, Op. 12: No. 4, Grillen 03:45
• 5 Fantasiestücke, Op. 12: No. 5, In der Nacht 04:29
• 6 Fantasiestücke, Op. 12: No. 6, Fabel 02:46
• 7 Fantasiestücke, Op. 12: No. 7, Traumes Wirren 02:47
• 8 Fantasiestücke, Op. 12: No. 8, Ende vom Lied 05:33
• Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897):
• 9 Theme with Variations (Arr. Of String Sextet No. 1 in B-Flat Major, Op. 18: II. Andante ma moderato) 10:29
• Robert Schumann: Kreisleriana, Op. 16:
• 10 Kreisleriana, Op. 16: I. Ausserst bewegt 02:53
• 11 Kreisleriana, Op. 16: II. Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch 10:19
• 12 Kreisleriana, Op. 16: III. Sehr aufgeregt 05:19
• 13 Kreisleriana, Op. 16: IV. Sehr langsam 03:50
• 14 Kreisleriana, Op. 16: V. Sehr lebhaft 03:02
• 15 Kreisleriana, Op. 16: VI. Sehr langsam 04:38
• 16 Kreisleriana, Op. 16: VII. Sehr rasch 02:22
• 17 Kreisleriana, Op. 16: VIII. Schnell und spielend 03:16
• Total Runtime 01:15:13

Info for Schumann: Fantasiestücke - Kreisleriana - Brahms: Theme & Variations from String Sextet No. 1

This is Volume 1 in Imogen Cooper’s new series on Chandos Records, dedicated to the complete works for piano by Robert Schumann. Recognised worldwide as a pianist of virtuosity and poetic poise, Imogen Cooper has established a reputation as one of the finest interpreters of the classical and romantic repertoire. She has dazzled audiences and orchestras throughout her distinguished career, bringing to the concert platform a unique musical understanding and lyrical quality.

‘Duality, intermingling and juxtaposing identities, the dream world, the subconscious, wild humour, the supernatural, disguise, the outsider’. These are all words used by Imogen Cooper to describe the inner world of Robert Schumann. On this recording, she offers her interpretations of two works by this deeply inspired composer: Fantasiestücke and Kreisleriana. Both display in full Schumann’s extraordinary ability to express the gamut of human emotions in a highly imaginative language that draws the best from both piano and performer.

Schumann dedicated his Fantasiestücke to a young Scottish pianist by the name of Roberta Laidlaw, with whom he had a close, if brief, relationship during his eighteen-month-long separation from Clara Wieck, whom he was patiently courting. In one of the most important early studies of Schumann’s music, published in the journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Franz Brendel compared this work to ‘a landscape painting in which the foreground gains prominence in sharply delineated, clear contours while the background becomes blurred and vanishes in a limitless perspective’.

Kreisleriana was inspired by a complex character created by the writer E.T.A Hoffmann: Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler. In reflecting the complex personality of Kreisler, Schumann’s Kreisleriana seems to take on the very same alternating characteristics that are ascribed to this character. At times the music comes across as wild, eccentric, and clever, at others it displays a mood that is truly tender, lyrical, and romantic.

The last work on this disc is the solo piano arrangement which Johannes Brahms made of the Theme and Variations movement from his String Sextet, Op. 18, and dedicated to Clara Schumann. She received the manuscript of this arrangement on her forty-first birthday, 13 September 1860. She was delighted to be able to play the variations herself, as she wrote in a letter to Brahms three days later. Nonetheless, the first public performance did not take place until a concert in Frankfurt on 31 October 1865.

"Throughout this superlative recital, Imogen Cooper's artistic sensibility - highly personal, interpretatively penetrating, yet never didactic - reflects a sympathy with the music so intimate and compelling that it seems for the most part to transcend the very concept of interpretation...for me, the highpoint of this marvellous release is her playing of the Brahms transcription...Forget that old canard that Brahms is 'thick'. The sound here is positively luminous." (BBC Music Magazine)

"[in Op. 12] she relishes the haunting ebb and flow of 'Des Abends' and finds her way to the very heart of the composer in the delectably pointed romantic polyphony in the central section of 'In der Nacht'...the steadiness provides an always musicianly alternative to speed or hysteria...you remain grateful for the way Cooper tempers Schumann's hallucinatory art with her own more basic and fundamental musicianship" (Gramophone Magazine)

Imogen Cooper, piano

Imogen Cooper
Pianistically alone, Cooper commands a dynamic and colouristic range beyond the reach of most pianists. She understands that musical, like verbal, speech acquires the eloquence and continuity through the close, asymmetrical juxtaposition of extreme but varied contrasts – as in any polysyllabic word. Nowhere is this truer than in Schumann, whose own juxtaposition of emotional-psychological extremes requires a maximum of characterisation with a minimum of evidence – the art that conceals art. Cooper’s gifts in this department are unmistakable even before she reaches the end of the first, brief piece in the Davidsbündlertänze. And as she begins, so she continues. Every piece in this recital is a study in portraiture worthy of Schumann's beloved ETA Hoffman. Variety and organic momentum (structure, in short, in a sea of diversity) go hand in hand.

Regarded as one of the finest interpreters of Classical and Romantic repertoire, Imogen Cooper is internationally renowned for her virtuosity and lyricism. Recent and future concerto performances include the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle, Sydney Symphony with Simone Young and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard. This season she will perform lieder recitals with Mark Padmore, including at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and a series of solo recitals at the Wigmore Hall in London, focussing on Haydn and Beethoven.


Imogen has a widespread international career and has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Budapest Festival, NHK and London Symphony Orchestras. She has also undertaken tours with the Camerata Salzburg, Australian and Orpheus Chamber Orchestras. She has played at the BBC Proms and with all the major British orchestras, including particularly close relationships with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Britten Sinfonia, play/directing. Her recital appearances have included Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York, Singapore, Paris, Vienna, Prague and the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg. 


As a supporter of new music, Imogen has premiered two works at the Cheltenham International Festival; Traced Overhead by Thomas Adès (1996) and Decorated Skin by Deirdre Gribbin (2003). In 1996, she also collaborated with members of the Berliner Philharmoniker in the premiere of the quintet, Voices for Angels, written by the ensemble’s viola player, Brett Dean.

Imogen is a committed chamber musician and performs regularly with Henning Kraggerud and Adrian Brendel. As a Lieder recitalist, she has had a long collaboration with Wolfgang Holzmair in both the concert hall and recording studio. Her discography also includes Mozart Concertos with the Royal Northern Sinfonia (Avie), a solo recital at the Wigmore Hall (Wigmore Live) and a cycle of solo works by Schubert recorded live and released under the label ‘Schubert Live’. Her recent recordings for Chandos Records feature music by Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Wagner and Robert and Clara Schumann.


Imogen received a CBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours in 2007 and was the recipient of an award from the Royal Philharmonic Society the following year. In 1997 she was awarded Honorary Membership of the Royal Academy of Music and in 1999 she was made a Doctor of Music at Exeter University. Imogen was the Humanitas Visiting Professor in Classical Music and Music Education at the University of Oxford for 2012-13. The Imogen Cooper Music Trust was founded in 2015, to support young pianists at the cusp of their careers, and give them time in an environment of peace and beauty.

Booklet for Schumann: Fantasiestücke - Kreisleriana - Brahms: Theme & Variations from String Sextet No. 1