WOLFGANG SCHNEIDERHAN

As a “wunderkind” he sat on Pietro Mascagni’s lap, he accompanied the “Dying Swan” danced by the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, and Fritz Kreisler confessed to the young violinist that he did not know what else to teach him. “No one places Schneiderhan in the company of Kreisler, Heifetz, Huberman, Szigeti or Stern, yet he was as ‘complete’ a violonist as any of them, maybe even more so", wrote the English critic Tully Potter. Wolfgang Schneiderhan’s playing was noble, balanced and sober, but at the same time intense, heartfelt and fetching. Artistic distance and immediacy of expression were not opposites for him. He attached great importance to reliable musical scores and placed himself at the service of the music – qualities that would later become important for historical performance practice. In short, a fascinating artist to be rediscovered.  

For the first time, Schneiderhan’s complete works on DG appear on 34 CDs in one box set. His repertoire ranges from Baroque to contemporary music, with Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart as his main focus. We can hear the violinist perform ravishing encore pieces as well as accompanying his wife, the soprano Irmgard Seefried. In addition to numerous CD premieres, the box contains four previously unreleased recordings. A 104-page booklet with texts by Tully Potter, Franz Fassbind, Markus Kettner and Wolfgang Schneiderhan as well as various photos and documents from the DG archive complete the portrait.