One of the world’s foremost Schumann interpreters explores his late piano works

Dame Mitsuko Uchida, universally acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost Schumann interpreters, follows her last album of the composer’s music (Davidsbündlertänze and Fantasie in C) with another sublime Schumann programme.

Uchida’s latest Decca recording brings together the romantic fire and intensity of the Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor Op. 22 with two remarkable works from Schumann’s final years, Waldszenen and the Gesänge der Frühe.

Her album’s repertoire explores music created by an artist burdened by deep depression and mental illness. His Gesänge der Frühe (“Songs of Dawn”) were sketched within the space of four days in February 1854, shortly before Schumann attempted to commit suicide by throwing himself in the Rhine. The work proved to be his last complete piano composition.