Credits:

Tessa Uys, Ben Schoeman

Description:

The new project from the SOMMRECORDINGS label is a complete collection of Beethovens symphonies, arranged by Franz Xaver Scharwenka, scheduled to span six volumes.Volume 1 features Beethovens Symphony No. 3, Eroica, as its centerpiece, along with Schumanns rarely heard Six Etudes in Canon Form. The arranger, Franz Xaver Scharwenka, was a Polish-German composer. His older brother, Ludwig Philipp Scharwenka, was also a well-known composer. The brothers studied piano in Berlin under Theodor Krak, a pupil of Czerny, and this arrangement is a magnificent work that conveys the deep reverence for the music characteristic of a direct disciple of Beethoven (Czerny had studied directly under Beethoven). The other Schumann piece is an arrangement by Debussy; the original work, written for the pedal piano (a piano with a pedal keyboard) and making extensive use of counterpoint, has been flawless