"The cellist and conductor Heinrich Schiff celebrated his 65th birthday in November 2016. . . . A pupil of Navarra and Tobias Kühne, Schiff made his debut in 1971 in Vienna and London. He performed nearly all the essential cello repertoire of the last 300 years from B to Z -- from Bach to B.A. Zimmermann -- and conducted a repertoire of compositions ranging from the Baroque period to the 21st century. He received the 'Grand Prix du Disque' [...] and the 'Deutscher Schallplattenpreis' (German Recording Prize) . . . Although the cello was initially at the center of his career, conducting became an increasingly central part of his life beginning in 1985. . . . As a conductor, Schiff held the position of music director with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Northern Sinfonia, the Musikkollegium Winterthur, and with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. . . . Heinrich Schiff died in Vienna on 23 December 2016. Thus this CD collection, originally planned for the occasion of his 65th birthday, has become his legacy. Despite his 'overfilled' everyday life due to performances, Heinrich Schiff never allowed his calling as a teacher to suffer on account of it. His pupils -- he has taught in Basle, Cologne, Salzburg and now in Vienna -- did not merely learn the high art of cello-playing from him: he prepared them, with warnings, for the well-oiled business of musical life, warning them against being too well-adjusted, a post-modern lack of orientation, artistic indifference and becoming 'affable' in a slick, streamlined way. I always admired the way in which Heinrich Schiff, in his artistic dramaturgy and his choice of repertoire, went against the capitalist market-driven, profit-orientated economy, pursuing his path unerringly and without compromise. . . . The recordings of his interpretations in this CD collection are intended as a portrait of this artist's personality, thus providing an electrifying reflection of the scale of his noble character and convictions." --Dirk Nabering; Translation: David Babcock.
Features compositions by: Johann Sebastian Bach, Francesco Geminiani, Antonio Vivaldi, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Antonín Dvořák, Anton Bruckner, Max Bruch, Gustav Mahler, Henri Vieuxtemps, Niccolò Paganini, Pyotr Iljitsch Tschaikowsky, Sergei Prokofieff, Reinhold Glière, Helmut Schiff, Dmitri Schostakowitsch, Alfred Schnittke, Witold Lutosławski, Rudi Stephan, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Friedrich Gulda, Carl Maria von Weber, Franz Schubert, Richard Strauss, Vinzenz Lachner, Claude Debussy, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Henryk Wieniawski.