ECM New Series Releases Yuuko Shiokawa & András Schiff's New Recording of Brahms & Schumann

After tackling the sonatas for violin and piano of Bach, Busoni and Beethoven in 2017 – a “thoughtfully determined and subtly interconnected programme” according to Stradmagazine –, the duo of Yuuko Shiokawa and András Schiff returns with striking renditions of Brahms’s Violin Sonata No. 1 and Schumann’s Violin Sonata No. 2. When the violinist and pianist made their first joint appearance on the label with the 2000 recording of Schubert’s C major fantasy for violin and piano, Gramophone magazine was in awe with their performance, raving how “from the start, there's an air of magic,” and calling the renditions “interpretations of rare penetration and individuality: a must for the Schubert section in your collection.” Now turning their gaze to the Schubert-admirer Schumann and his contemporary Brahms, the duo offers a deeper look into core repertory of Romantic chamber music.

Brahms’s First Violin Sonata in G major, known as the “Regenliedsonate” (Rain Sonata)”, with its final movement incorporating motifs from his two songs “Regenlied” (Rain Song) and “Nachklang” (Lingering Sound), is presented in an evocative guise. In his liner note, Wolfgang Stähr notes how, from those two previous songs, “Brahms adopts not only the theme, but also the “rainy,” onomatopoeic, dripping piano accompaniment. He had given these two poetically and melodically linked songs to his lifelong friend Clara Schumann for her 54th birthday.” In an overwhelmed response, she wrote she couldn’t believe “that anyone feels about this tune as rapturously and wistfully as I do.” The motif from the “Regenlied” appears twice, its triple d in dotted rhythm opening both the first and the third movement, bringing the overreaching theme full circle.

The Brahms sonata stands in an inviting juxtaposition with Schumann’s at times vigorously driving Sonata in D minor. Completed almost 30 years prior, in 1851, the sonata was premièred by Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim in 1853 – the link between Clara Schumann and Brahms kept well maintained. That same year, Brahms and Schumann, together with Albert Dietrich, composed the collaborative F-A-E Sonata, whose c minor scherzo, contributed by Brahms, was most likely inspired by the second movement in b minor of this Schumann sonata.

Devoting themselves completely to the music of these composer-friends, Yuuko Shiokawa and András Schiff once again display their own rare duo understanding throughout their third collective undertaking for ECM’s New Series. Recorded at the Auditorio Stelio Molo in Lugano, the album was produced by Manfred Eicher.

The recording can be viewed in both the context of the duo’s longstanding collaborative partnership in chamber music and Schiff’s more recent deeper foray into the music of Brahms, which includes the 2020 recording of the composer’s clarinet sonatas alongside Jörg Widmann and the critically acclaimed 2021 recording of Brahms’s piano concertos with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (“A vibrant new recording - Mr. Schiff and the outstanding players make [the concertos] sound intimate and human-scale.” – New York Times