Concerto in A minor, Op. 129, 'Concert Piece' for cello and piano (urtext, ed. Knight); Robert Schumann (Peters)

In her first Urtext edition for Edition Peters, internationally renowned cellist Josephine Knight reveals Robert Schumann's original version of his Cello Concerto in A minor Op. 129 - a piece he actually called a 'Concert Piece' - removing generations of inauthentic editorial interventions enacted since his death. This version of the Cello Concerto that is routinely heard today is so far from Schumann's original conception of the work - not only in details of phrasing and articulation, but also featuring a different ending with a bold final flourish from the cello. This is the only available modern scholarly edition of the work as Schumann originally conceived it, and restores the text from October 1850, based on the composer's manuscript held in the Biblioteka Jagiellonska in Krakow. It is presented in a beautifully printed edition for cello with Schumann's original piano reduction. Matching orchestral material is also available from the publisher.

'My ultimate wish,' says the editor, 'is to give performers both access to, and confidence that they are playing from, an edition which is a true representation of the piece in its original form, no matter how much more difficult this might be. I found that incorporating the changes enabled the piece to take on a completely different character - one that is lighter and happier, even ''cheerful'', as Schumann himself described the work.'