"Klara Min about Schumann: “I learned to love him in time more than any other composers, most firmly, closely and freely to my heart.”Schumann was the first composer who used the word Arabesque to name one of his works. It showed new artistic possibilities in piano music accessible to non-professional players. The title ‘Kreisleriana’ is borrowed from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novels and reflects the closeness of Schumann to the kindred spirit and thought of the Romantic writers. As source of inspiration for the work ‘Carnaval’ the composer used scenes of a masked ball derived from a literary work by J.P.F. Richter.Klara Min about Schumann: “I learned to love him in time more than any other composers, most firmly, closely and freely to my heart.”

"Bach's three sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord (BWV 1027-1029) were written around the year 1740. At those time Bach was Thomaskantor in Leipzig and also director of the Collegium Musicum, a chamber music society. Hille Perl was born in 1965 as daughter of a musicologist and harpsichordist. She studied viola da gamba with some of the leading experts in the field of historically informed performance. For more than 30 years she is travelling around the world, playing con certs and recording CDs ( more than 25) with different groups or soloizing, mostly in the field of 17th and 18th century music. Michael Behringer, born in 1956, studied church music, harpsichord and organ playing. He is travelling the world extensively, giving concerts with Jordi Savall, Musica Antiqua Koln, Hesperion XX, Freiburger Barockensemble and many more."

Bach’s partitas BWV 825-830 are a set of six harpsichord suites that became well-known as “Clavier-Übung I”, published in 1731. They are the last set of suites that Bach composed, and the most demanding, compared with the French and the English Suites. Trevor Pinnock, born in 1946, is a famous British harpsichordist and conductor. He is one of the pioneers of the modern revival of early music performance, founding The English Concert in 1972 and the European Brandenburg Ensemble in 2006. He appears as a guest conductor with many of the world's leading symphony orchestras as well as giving solo harpsichord and chamber music recitals worldwide. Apart from his concert activities he is now focusing on teaching and giving masterclasses.

After Songs of Yearning"" (HC16080), the current Invitation au Voyage is the second album with Thomas Wise and Baritone Giorgos Kanaris to be published by Hänssler Classic. Giorgos Kanaris is a recitalist as well as an opera singer. Together with the conductor and pianist Thomas Wise he has given numerous recitals with works including Schumanns Dichterliebe and Liederkreis, Schuberts Schwanengesang, Winterreise and Die schöne Müllerin, Ravels Don Quichotte à Dulcinée and songs by Richard Strauss and Hans Pfitzner.

The young pianist glows with enthusiasmbut then proves that for all this vigor and exuberance, she also has a keen sense of what lies between the notes and a sensitive awareness of tempo. remarked the press. From surveying the complete works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, it can be established that of the more than 600 compositions he left for posterity, about a sixth were dedicated to the piano. In contrast to the other two masters of Viennese classical music, Haydn and Beethoven, Mozarts music for solo piano was less of a field for formal experimentation or for expression of individual musical soliloquy. Mozart wrote his piano sonatas mostly for quite specific practical purposes, whether for performance on his travels, for musical events among a smaller circle of people, or as exercise material for his students.

Very little is known today about the personal life of composer Antonio Salieri, if only because he left very few private documents to posterity. An autobiography of the composer, presented to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde among other papers by his grandson Eduard Rumfeld in 1865, is lost. To learn more of Salieri, then, it is necessary to refer to sources such as diaries and letters by close friends. One rewarding source has proved to be the diary of Joseph Rosenbaum, who married the daughter of Salieris teacher Florian Leopold Gassmann and was on friendly terms with the artist for many years. This recording seeks to bring us closer to Salieri the man with works that he composed for performance among friends. They show the composer in quite a different light from the operatic works that he wrote to enhance the prestige of the Viennese court.

To many ears, combining the words "music" and "Hungary" often awakens some pretty jaded stereotypes: images of violin and cimbalom as typical instruments and the Gypsy violinist plying his trade by evoking wistfulness and passion among the audience. Today, the word "Gypsy" is frowned upon, since among a resident population it conjures up the picture of those mistrusted travellers who enjoy the freedom of the open road: the epitome of Gypsy romanticism. This is a touchy subject! The present album should therefore be judged for its "Hungarian influenced" piano music, the composers and their Hungarian affinities.

Two of the greatest practitioners of High Romantic art song were, not surprisingly, also exceptional opera composers: Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and Richard Strauss (1864-1949). While the former cultivated all-encompassing music dramas to the near exclusion of everything else, the latter worked successfully in genres ranging from chamber music to grand symphonies. German lieder attained a relative highpoint in the work of Franz Schubert, whose 600+ individual songs and organic song cycles deserve pride of place. However, that achievement must not overshadow the later evolution of the genre in generations from Mendelssohn to Schoenberg.

This album includes Romantic Mandolin Moments with works from Astor Piazzolla, Niccolo Paganini, Valdo Preema, Enrico Marucelli and others - played by Detlef Tewes (mandolin) and Boris Bjorn Bagger (guitar)