György Kurtág, Robert Schumann, Kim Kashkashian, Robert Levin, Eduard Brunner

Hommage à R. Sch. sets three works by György Kurtág beside three late chamber works by Robert Schumann, the composer Kurtág addresses in the title piece. Violist Kim Kashkashian is at the centre of the programme, joined by pianist Robert Levin and clarinettist Eduard Brunner. The pairing is built on a shared trio scoring: Kurtág's Hommage à R. Sch. op. 15d and Schumann's Märchenerzählungen op. 132 are both written for clarinet, viola and piano.

The recordings were made over three sessions, in August 1992 and in May and September 1994, in the Kammermusiksaal of the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn. Peter Laenger was the engineer and Manfred Eicher produced, and ECM released the disc in October 1995. Levin was already her duo partner on ECM, on Elegies (1986) and the Hindemith sonatas (1988). The booklet essay is by Hartmut Lück, who quotes Kurtág's own account of his lineage: "My mother tongue is Bartók, and Bartók's mother tongue was Beethoven."

The disc opens with Kashkashian alone in Kurtág's nine pieces for solo viola, short movements that include memorials to friends, a letter to Vera and an Hommage à John Cage. Jelek (Signs) op. 5 follows, six short movements that swing between fast and slow tempos, from Agitato to Adagio. In Hommage à R. Sch. the piano and clarinet enter. Its six movements are labelled with figures from Schumann's imaginary world, Kreisler, Eusebius, Florestan and Meister Raro, and the long closing Abschied has Raro discovering Guillaume de Machaut. Schumann then appears in person, with the four Märchenbilder op. 113 for viola and piano, the Fantasiestücke op. 73 with Brunner, and the trio Märchenerzählungen to close.

Writing on Between Sound and Space in 2010, Tyran Grillo called it a "brilliantly realized album". He heard in Jelek "the rich, heady double stops of Kim Kashkashian's faultless phrasing". He also noted how the running order keeps the viola at the centre so that the other instruments "seem to flank it from all sides". ECM's press notes for the disc quote the New York Daily News describing Kashkashian as "the best violist in the world".

This is the CD edition, ECM New Series 1508, first released in 1995.