BaL 28.02.14 - Schubert: Piano Sonata no 20 in A D959

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

0930
Building a Library
Sarah Walker gets to grips with available recordings of Schubert's late, great A major Piano Sonata D959, and makes a personal recommendation. The sonata is the second of a remarkable trio of piano sonatas from the last months of Schubert's short life, an astonishingly fertile period which produced a string of his greatest masterpieces. But as with both its fellows, the A major sonata, with its novelties of form and extreme length, struggled to gain acceptance until well into the twentieth century. Ever since then, many of the world's pre-eminent pianists have attempted to meet its challenges.


Available versions:-


Leif Ove Andsnes
Claudio Arrau (download)
Vladimir Ashkenazy (download)
Paul Badura-Skoda
Daniel Barenboim
Inon Barnatan
Malcolm Bilson
Jonathan Biss
Jorge Bolet
Alfred Brendel (studio & live & DVDs)
Philippe Cassard
Shura Cherkassky (studio & live)
Gabriel Chodos
Imogen Cooper
William Corbett-Jones
Todd Crow
John Damgaard
Severin von Eckardstein
Michael Endres
Christoph Eschenbach
Meira Farkas
Anthony Goldstone
Martin Helmchen
Jeno Jandó
Hisako Kawamura
Wilhelm Kempff
Walter Klien
Evgeni Koroliov
Michael Korstick
Anton Kuerti
Paul Lewis
Hans Leygraf (download)
Radu Lupu
Elena Margolina
Alan Marks
John O'Conor
Gerhard Oppitz
Jean Claude Pennetier
Murray Perahia
Alfredo Perl (download)
Alain Planés (download)
Maurizio Pollini
Daniel Rohm
Jerome Rose
Charles Rosen
Victor Rosenbaum
Andreas Staier (download)
Andras Schiff
Artur Schnabel
Daniel Tong
Mitsuko Uchida
Christoph Ullrich
Jan Vermeulen
Stefan Vladar
Shai Wosner
Christian Zacharias (2 versions)
Dieter Zechlin (download)

[Barbirollians]

Solomon !

[aeolium]

Thanks for the excellent list, EA, but the R3 blurb seems to be referring to a different Schubert A major sonata, the D959. The sonata D664 is from 1819, nine years before Schubert's death. I assume it is the D664 that is under review a week Saturday?

Ed: there is a fine version of the earlier sonata by Ingrid Haebler, still available I think.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b053zr20

I too thought there was inconsistency here. We may know more after tomorrow's programme.

[richardfinegold]

Solomon !

I hope Alpie won't have to re type for D. 959.
For the earlier Sonata my favorite is Kempff, and for D959 it's Brendel .

[aeolium]

D959 was last reviewed on BaL in 2006 (Iain Burnside chose Brendel). I'm not sure when D664 was last done, or if it has been at all on its own.

[waldo]

I would have thought it was D959 they are reviewing. It seems much more likely they have got the number wrong (a slight error) than the whole, detailed blurb, which points quite clearly to the later work.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Now fully sorted (see heading and OP)

[aeolium]

Great stuff, EA . But should our discussion follow the same either/or lines?

Solomon is very good in D664, and Lupu is wonderful in both sonatas (and all his Schubert recordings).

[MickyD]

Don't forget to add the wonderful Andreas Staier to the list, EA!

[waldo]

0930

OR

0930
Building a Library
Sarah Walker gets to grips with available recordings of Schubert's late, great A major Piano Sonata D595.....

D595? A third possible recording?!

[Nick Armstrong]

I would have thought it was D959 they are reviewing.

Yes - 'late, great' must refer to D959. The work experience intern in charge of the website has obviously overdosed on alcopops.

I love what Pollini does with the hair-raising pauses and dislocations of the melody in the last movement - he seems to conjure terrifying emptiness more than anyone I've heard playing it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

D595? A third possible recording?!

I was thinking of Mozart's 27th Piano Concerto.

[HighlandDougie]

Don't forget to add the wonderful Andreas Staier to the list, EA!

Especially in that astonishing passage in the slow movement (what I always think of as Schubert having a bit of a breakdown), where a modern concert grand sometimes seems to be just too powerful for the music. The smaller scale of AS's instrument works perfectly - and his is a fine interpretation.

[waldo]

I love what Pollini does with the hair-raising pauses and dislocations of the melody in the last movement - he seems to conjure terrifying emptiness more than anyone I've heard playing it.[/COLOR]

I like Pollini, too, but I've never really thought of this last movement as terrifying etc. Despite darker episodes, I've always thought the final movement was largely consoling in tone........unlike the finale of D958.

(Are you definitely thinking of the final movement? Not the andantino?)