The composer Friedrich Robert Volkmann was born 200 years ago, on 6 April 1815, in Lommatzsch near Meißen. He came from a family of choir masters in Saxony. Having completed his studies at the teacher training college in Freiberg and in Leipzig (where he was taught by Carl Ferdinand Becker, organist at St. Peter), the young musician moved via Prague to Hungary. For ten years, he had to fight financial problems nearly all day. One part of this renewed life crisis he worked into his next composition, the 2nd Trio in b minor, for piano, violin and violoncello completed in 1850 which finally marked the breakthrough for him. Franz Liszt, to whom the piece was dedicated, played it often, and the conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow performed the trio on all his concert tours. Furthermore, Volkmann’s friend, the bookseller Gustav Heckenast, established a music publishing house which proved to be very successful in spreading his works. So their creator was finally carefree in financial matters. When he died in 1883, this aroused a strong response among the populace of Budapest.

His greatest admirer, Hans von Bülow, summarised Volkmann's works: “Volkmann is a poet in the creation and a philosopher in the performance and preparation of the creations. As a result we find in his compositions alongside the depth and intimacy of the ideas that unity and purity of form which lends these ideas their fitting expression.” Volkmann’s work is mainly focused on songs and chamber music, making these two genres fill the CD from the Jubilee Edition of querstand label and giving testimony to the abilities of the composer. The opener of the CD is that Trio in b minor which saved Volkmann his place in the world of composers. Numerous works see their world premiere recording on this CD.