Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst: Complete Works, Volume Six
Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1812–65) was one of the leading musicians of his day, a friend of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn, and for Joseph Joachim ‘the greatest violinist I ever heard’. This sixth album – in a series of seven presenting all his compositions for the first time – begins and ends with some of the most difficult music for solo violin ever composed: Ernst’s Six Polyphonic Studies and his transcription of Schubert’s song, Der Erlkönig. Between them comes less familiar fare: five Schubertian piano pieces, and two settings of Goethe.
Sherban Lupu, violin Tracks 1-12, 20
Yvonne Redman, soprano Tracks 18-19
Ian Hobson, piano Tracks 13-19
Listen To This Recording:
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Études pour le Violon à plusieurs parties (Sechs mehrstimmige Studien für Violine. Gruss an Freunde und Kunstbrüder) (1864)
- Étude I
- Étude II
- Étude III
- Étude IV
- Étude V
- Étude VI Einleitung
- Étude VI: Thema
- Étude VI Variation I
- Étude VI Variation II
- Étude VI Variation III
- Étude VI Variation IV
- Étude VI Finale
- No. 1 in A major*
- No. 2 in A flat minor*
- No. 3 in D flat major
- Romanze: An Madam Clara Schuman (1842)*
- Nocturne Posthume in A flat major (1864)*
- Lebet Wohl (before 1843)
- Der Fischer (c. 1830)
- Grand Caprice. Solo pour Violon sur Le Roi des Aulnes de F. Schubert, Op. 26 (1842)
Trois Valses non dansantes pour le Piano-forte (c. 1838)
Two Goethe Settings*
*FIRST RECORDINGS
The Sunday Times :
‘The Toccata label is seeking to represent the whole oeuvre of this little-known but not insignificant composer (1812-65). Here are first recordings of five piano pieces and two Goethe settings, but the framing main attractions are the six Etudes pour le violon à plusieurs parties and the Grand Caprice, for violin solo, on Schubert’s Erlking. The new sophistication to which Ernst brings double-stopping and single-violin polyphony is mesmerising.’
—Paul Driver, The Sunday Times