BaL 16.12.17 - Schubert: Piano Sonata no. 21 in B flat D960

**Barbirollians** · 07-12-17, 10:09

Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View Post

0930
Building a Library - live. David Owen Norris joins Andrew to explore recordings of Schubert's Piano Sonata in B flat D960.
Schubert's last sonata, perhaps his greatest achievement in the form, has a feeling of tranquility and ease - the ease of a composer who is relaxed in his ability to express his ideas and emotions. This sonata was to be Schubert's last, and the flow and majesty of the first movement spring from the hymn-like breadth of the opening theme.

Available versions:

Valery Afanassiev
Géza Anda
Leif Ove Andsnes
Claudio Arrau (download)
Paul Badura-Skoda
Daniel Barenboim DG
Daniel Barenboim Erato
Inon Barnatan
Sebastian Benda
Paul Berkowitz
Malcolm Bilson
Tessa Birnie (download)
Camiel Boomsma
Sodi Braide
Alfred Brendel
Alfred Brendel
Rudolf Buchbinder (download)
Fabrizio Chiovetta
Gabriel Chodos (download)
Imogen Cooper
William Corbett-Jones (download)
Todd Crow (download)
Clifford Curzon
Clifford Curzon
Jörg Ewald Dähler (download)
Massimiliano Damerini
John Damgaard (download)
Dora Deliyska
Marta Deyanova
Shani Diluka
Barry Douglas
Nami Ejiri
Michael Endres
Kemp English
Eduard Erdmann
Christoph Eschenbach
Meira Farkas
Vladimir Feltsman
Sergio Fiorentino (download)
Annie Fischer
Leon Fleisher
Claude Frank
Anthony Goldstone
Richard Goode (download)
Ralf Gothoni (download)
Ingrid Haebler
Andreas Haefliger
Hideyo Harada
Clara Haskil
Myra Hess
Ian Hobson (download)
Vladimir Horowitz (download)
Vladimir Horowitz
Mieczyslaw Horszowski
Stephen Hough
Naoyuki Inoue (download)
Kei Itoh (download)
Jeno Jando
Gilbert Kalish
Miyuji Kaneko (download)
Howard Karp (download)
Cyprien Katsaris
Nina Kavtaradze
Wilhelm Kempff
Evgeny Kissin
Michael Korstick
Stephen Kovacevich (download)
Semion Kruchin
Florian Krumpock (download)
Anton Kuerti
Nikolaus Lahusen
Alicia de Larrocha
Risto Lauriala
Trudelies Leonhardt
George Emmanuel Lazaridis
Adam Laloum (download)
Dejan Lazic
Wolfgang Leibnitz (download)
Elisabeth Leonskaja
David Levine (download)
Paul Lewis
Hans Leygraf (download)
Stefan Litwin
Radu Lupu
Anna Malikova
Alan Marks
Oleg Marshev
Yury Martynov
Benjamin Moser
Tatiana Nikolayeva
Gerhard Oppitz
Frederic d’Oria-Nicolas
Jorge Federico Osorio
Hans Palsson
Denis Pascal
Murray Perahia (download)
Javier Perianes
Alfredo Perl
Maria Perrotta (download)
Joshua Pierce (download)
Maria João Pires
Alain Planés (download)
Maurizio Pollini
Menahem Pressler
Menahem Pressler (DVD)
Andrew Rangell
Sviatoslav Richter
Sviatoslav Richter
Bernard Roberts
Jerome Rose
Peter Rösel (download)
Victor Rosenbaum (download)
Carol Rosenberger
Arthur Rowe
Piotr Salajczyk
András Schiff
András Schiff
Alexander Schimpf
Artur Schnabel
Gilbert Schuchter
Rudolf Serkin
Russell Sherman
Grigory Sokolov (download)
Jouni Somero (download
Martin Stadtfeld
Emmanuel Strosser (download)
Aki Takahashi (download)
Marco Tezza (download)
Hugh Tinney
Fou Ts’ong
Mitsuko Uchida
Christoph Ullrich
Jan Vermeulen
Lars Vogt
Klára Würtz
Zhu Xiao-Mei (download)
Christian Zacharias
Boris Zarankin
Juana Zayas
Krystian Zimerman

Top work EA - I do not envy the reviewer.

Brendel , A.Fischer, Pires, Perahia, Kovacevich and Leon Fleisher here will probably see me out . Leon Fleisher's recording is probably my favourite but whether that also has some association with the fact that it was his first recording of music for two hands since the 1950s I think after his treatment with botox for his dystonia I don't know but I find the recording very moving.

**BBMmk2** · 07-12-17, 10:10

I do not have any whatsoever Schubert piano sonatas in my collection! Shame on me!

**Bryn** · 07-12-17, 10:19

A shame. Two of my favourites, Gulda and Staier appear to be out of the catalogue at the moment.

**Richard Tarleton** · 07-12-17, 11:00

I have two versions - one with the first movement repeat (Uchida) and one without (Brendel 1971). The latter is the one I've lived with for decades. I daresay DON will have something to say on this subject, which people have discussed before on this forum

. The second time bar came as a shock the first time I heard it, and I have to say still does, perhaps it was/is meant to? In conversation with Martin Meyer [with apologies to Mr Brendel for this brief, out-of-context extract, but I recommend the original]:

Martin Meyer: Another question that you have often been asked: I have to ask it, because I think that the few bars which introduce the repeat.....possibly do have a function.
AB: And what in your opinion is the function of those transition bars?
MM: That the material at this juncture should, as it were, be threatened by dissonance, even destroyed.
AB: That would not only destroy the material but also the atmosphere of the movement....These transitional bars seem unconnected with anythng else in the sonata. If, either thematically or psychologically, they pointed to something elswewhere, then I would welcome them. But as that is not the case I do not play the repeat....there are many other reasons...." [which he goes on to elaborate, on p. 127-8 of The Veil of Order. First movement already very long, with moderato tempo not fundamentally different to the moderato tempo of the second movement...repeat signs options, not commands.....]
MM:...why [did Schubert take] the trouble to compose these bars?
AB:...[at some length, with reference to the sketches, but an extract]...But the fact is that the jerky rhythm which suddenly appears there is used nowhere else, whereas on the whole this sonata is arranged so harmoniously and lucidly in all its component parts...one has already taken in an extended exposition of the motifs and themes, considerably longer than, for example, the Hammerklavier sonata, to mention another B flat major sonata, and it is quite enough to hear it twice; three times, to me, is decidedly too many...

Basically, for some reason, Schubert got it wrong, on this occasion.....

Also much discussion of this work in AB's collection of essays and lectures, "Music, Sense and Nonsense".

**richardfinegold** · 07-12-17, 11:07

Originally posted by Brassbandmaestro View Post

I do not have any whatsoever Schubert piano sonatas in my collection! Shame on me!

You must rectify that, BBm. The last 3 Schubert Sonatas in particular are incredible but they all are worth having.
My first recordings were borrowing the Schnabel lps from my University Library. It wasn’t until much later that I purchased
Walter Klien on Vox, a set that I listened to recently after randomly pulling it off the shelf and which I found pretty competitive. Richter has long been my favorite but his view is pretty idiosyncratic. Brendel is a deeply felt and stunningly recorded, perhaps the most detailed and natural sounding analog recording of a piano that I know of. Uchida and Schiff are somewhat disappointing in this work; in different ways they both seem to overthink it, and Uchida sounds stiff and unnatural to boot. I have Kempff but haven’t heard it in a while, so perhaps I’ll give it a go. Brendel is my current choice.

**silvestrione** · 07-12-17, 12:38

Originally posted by richardfinegold View Post

Brendel is a deeply felt and stunningly recorded, perhaps the most detailed and natural sounding analog recording of a piano that I know of.

Ah, good, not just me then! I've long marvelled over the quality of the recording of the piano in those Philips analogue recordings of Brendel in Schubert and Liszt.

However, in this sonata, as far as interpretation goes, I've always preferred Schnabel, and now Zimerman. I've listened to Richter a lot as well, but I agree it's going to be too idiosyncratic for many.

**Richard Barrett** · 07-12-17, 12:56

Originally posted by Bryn View Post

A shame. Two of my favourites, Gulda and Staier appear to be out of the catalogue at the moment.

Staier is certainly the one for me. Brendel is completely ruled out on account of his not playing the complete piece.

**teamsaint** · 07-12-17, 13:00

Originally posted by Brassbandmaestro View Post

I do not have any whatsoever Schubert piano sonatas in my collection! Shame on me!

But it's nice to be the target market ?

**HighlandDougie** · 07-12-17, 13:16

"0930

Building a Library - live. David Owen Norris joins Andrew to explore recordings of Schubert's Piano Sonata in B flat D960."

The horror, the horror! A two-fer (bad enough) but with my least favourite reviewer. As I foresee even greater playing to the gallery with a captive audience - even when that audience is, what's FHG's term again, "Noddy", I fear that their joint thoughts on this most sublime piece of music will need to pass me by (Arcadi Volodos, live, in August, the best of the many performances I've heard over the years - I hope a recording appears sometime).

**Richard Tarleton** · 07-12-17, 13:33

Originally posted by Richard Barrett View Post

Staier is certainly the one for me. Brendel is completely ruled out on account of his not playing the complete piece.

Richard - just asking - would you engage at all with Brendel's reasoning (see also #5 )? I'm just reading his essay on the late sonatas in Music, Sense and Nonsense, pp 149 onwards, where he discusses other repeats as well as this one. I'm not even remotely qualified to argue this with you, but I do find Brendel's reasoning (centering around the original sketch, that fortissimo trill, and the length of the movement with the repeat) quite persuasive.

Presumably as the BAL is a twofer, we'll have a good cop/bad cop routine around the repeat. If they agree, there's no point in both of them!

**ferneyhoughgeliebte** · 07-12-17, 13:54

Originally posted by Richard Tarleton View Post

Basically, for some reason, Schubert got it wrong, on this occasion.....

I just thought I'd mention that you've typed "Schubert" instead of "Brendel" here, Richard.

**Richard Barrett** · 07-12-17, 13:56

Originally posted by Richard Tarleton View Post

Richard - just asking - would you engage at all with Brendel's reasoning

I just disagree with it. He has his own ideas about why the first-time passage is not an essential or even desirable part of the music and why the repeat makes the movement too long, but, leaving aside the question of how sacrosanct to regard a composer's score, my personal position is that I do think this passage is indispensable, and I don't think the repeat makes it too long. Therefore I'm just not interested in any performance without the repeat; it's simply not the piece as I understand it but an inappropriately truncated version of it. I'm not particularly convinced by the arguments on either side presented in your #5 and I'm not sure I'd even want to try to put into words what I think the "function" of the disputed passage might be; for me it's self-evidently part of the structural/expressive identity of the music and removing it serves no useful purpose at all - it's up to Brendel to justify his deviation from Schubert's score and I don't think he (or anyone else) can do so except by saying effectively "I just don't like it", in which case why not chop up all the music you play and retain only the bits you like. Or write your own.

**Nick Armstrong** · 07-12-17, 14:09

Originally posted by Richard Tarleton View Post

there's no point in both of them!

Correct!

**MickyD** · 07-12-17, 15:16

Staier for me, too...I happily got hold of it when it was still in the catalogue. Now it is fetching silly prices on the marketplace.

BaL 16.12.17 - Schubert: Piano Sonata no. 21 in B flat D960

BaL 16.12.17 - Schubert: Piano Sonata no. 21 in B flat D960

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