With a magazine
Casa Schumann. A Dialogue for Three Voices: Robert, Clara and Johannes Brahms
- Label
- Suonare Records
- Year
- 2026
- Catalogue number
- SNR 341
Issue 341 of Suonare News, October 2026, offers a previously unreleased recording by the pianist and composer Maria Gabriella Mariani, centred on one of the crucial junctures of nineteenth-century piano literature: the aesthetic and biographical bond between Robert Schumann, Clara Wieck and Johannes Brahms.
The programme opens with the complete Bunte Blätter Op. 99 by Robert Schumann. This collection of fourteen pieces, written over a long span of time and gathered only in 1851, is an emblematic example of Schumann's art of the fragment, where extreme formal concision coexists with dense harmonic and psychological complexity.
The musicological core of the album lies, however, in the treatment of variation form through a rigorous mirror reading. Mariani sets the Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann Op. 20 by Clara Wieck (1853) beside the Sixteen Variations Op. 9 by Johannes Brahms (1854). Both cycles grow from the same thematic nucleus — the fourth movement (the opening leaf of the album) of the Albumblätter from Schumann's Op. 99 — and offer a masterly demonstration of how two different sensibilities reworked the same generating cell at a time of deep creative and personal crisis for their shared mentor.
Recorded at Studio G&G on a Steinway D 274 piano (Ditta Alfonsi), the disc documents an interpretative approach founded on analytical rigour and polyphonic control, restoring a full critical profile to a catalogue of high historical value.
The magazine also includes “CD of the month: an exclusive interview with the pianist Maria Gabriella Mariani”.
Filippo Michelangeli introduces the album
“It so happens that the October issue of Suonare News, on newsstands throughout Italy this month, comes with a previously unreleased CD of great quality featuring the Neapolitan pianist Maria Gabriella Mariani. It holds a special invitation to ‘Casa Schumann’: Robert's Bunte Blätter Op. 99, the Variations on a Theme by Schumann Op. 20 by his wife, Clara Wieck, and the Sixteen Variations on a Theme by Schumann Op. 9 by the young ‘colleague’ and family friend Johannes Brahms.
It is a simply splendid CD, for the powerful inspiration of the works it presents and for the pianistic mastery and musical inspiration of Maria Gabriella Mariani, a true apostle of Schumann, who for an hour will give us the illusion of entering one of the most coveted musical salons of the nineteenth century. […]”Filippo Michelangeli, editor of Suonare News and Amadeus, in a post shared on Maria Gabriella Mariani's Facebook page, October 2026 · Translated from the Italian · Read the post on Facebook
Tracks
Maria Gabriella Mariani, piano
| No. | Track | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Robert Schumann (1810-1856), Bunte Blätter Op. 99 | ||
| 1 | Drei Stücklein: I. Nicht schnell, mit Innigkeit | 1:53 |
| 2 | Drei Stücklein: II. Sehr rasch | 0:52 |
| 3 | Drei Stücklein: III. Frisch | 1:00 |
| 4 | Albumblätter: I. Ziemlich langsam | 1:45 |
| 5 | Albumblätter: II. Schnell | 0:43 |
| 6 | Albumblätter: III. Ziemlich langsam, sehr gesangvoll | 1:21 |
| 7 | Albumblätter: IV. Sehr langsam | 1:30 |
| 8 | Albumblätter: V. Langsam | 0:54 |
| 9 | Novelette: Lebhaft | 2:42 |
| 10 | Präludium: Energisch | 1:24 |
| 11 | Marsch: Sehr getragen | 6:42 |
| 12 | Abendmusik: Im Menuetttempo | 3:36 |
| 13 | Scherzo: Lebhaft | 4:57 |
| 14 | Geschwindmarsch: Sehr markiert | 3:14 |
| Clara Wieck Schumann (1819-1896) | ||
| 15 | Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann Op. 20 | 10:49 |
| Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) | ||
| 16 | Sixteen Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann Op. 9 | 16:32 |
Total duration: 60:13
Credits
- Production: © ℗ Michelangeli Editore, Milan 2026
- Piano: Steinway & Sons model D 274 Grand Piano (Ditta Alfonsi, Rome)
- Recording: Studio G&G, Ardea, 26-27 June 2026
- Sound engineer: Giovanni Caruso
- Photographs: Pasqualino Farinaccio
