Carl Maria Von Weber - Complete Piano Sonatas

Weber, best known for his operas today, was also a very fine pianist and he wrote a sizeable body of piano music of which the four sonatas are the centrepiece. These are perhaps the first truly �Romantic� piano sonatas and were a great influence on the succeeding generation of German composers such as Mendelssohn and Schumann; all are large scale and virtuosic and their quality makes it surprising how rarely they have been recorded. The set also includes the most important of Weber�s other piano works including the once hugely popular �Invitation to the Dance�, a work which has become better known in the orchestration of Berlioz.�These are distinguished performances, by a pianist of true romantic temper, of four works that have had more than their share of misunderstanding from performers and critics alike� (Gramophone)Garrick Ohlsson is the pianist, acclaimed for his performances of Brahms and Chopin on Hyperion. These delightful recordings were originally released on Arabesque.