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

[vinteuil]

I frequently buy recordings as a result of hearing BaL - much less frequently the "chosen one". The programme is valuable to me when it discusses performing and/or recording features that I wasn't aware of ... and when I hear samples of recordings that most make me sit up and listen. Even when these are prefaced by a comment to the effect "This, on the other hand, is definitely NOT how I would wish to hear the work ... "

...

Yes, I feel it is often the 'non-chosen' I choose.

I usually like David Owen Norris's style and approach, tho' he can fall victim to his own wayward tendencies. This is one BaL where there shd deffo be separate categories for 'period piano' and 'hopelessly anachronistic non-period-piano' styles...


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[Eine Alpensinfonie]

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

I don't have any Schubert piano sonata recordings, but I do have the volumes in sheet music form, which is perfect for me, as they are more playable than the sonatas of certain other composers, so I can play them on a modern piano, omit exposition repeats and even miss out a few notes, with having to anticipate disapproving sneers. And if I do perform one or more in public, I'd have bigger issues on my mind.

[visualnickmos]

I don't think anyone has mentioned Richter..... (I love the way he smashes the thing out, as if his very existence depends on it)
Is he a 'no no' on these sacred boards?

[silvestrione]

I don't think anyone has mentioned Richter..... (I love the way he smashes the thing out, as if his very existence depends on it)
Is he a 'no no' on these sacred boards?

We referred to Richter early on, as likely to be found idiosyncratic (very, very slow 1st movement, with the repeat). I'm puzzled by your characterisation, 'smashes'....a joke?

Someone above mentions the 'first Pollini'. There's only one, isn't there? In my view his recording does not equal his live performance, which I heard in 1975 (I think) and again recently, both sublime.

[visualnickmos]

We referred to Richter early on, as likely to be found idiosyncratic (very, very slow 1st movement, with the repeat). I'm puzzled by your characterisation, 'smashes'....a joke?

Someone above mentions the 'first Pollini'. There's only one, isn't there? In my view his recording does not equal his live performance, which I heard in 1975 (I think) and again recently, both sublime.

Yes - but not a particularly good one!
I find that Radu Lupu (Decca) is excellent in this work. This is NOT a joke!

[Nick Armstrong]

Someone above mentions the 'first Pollini'. There's only one, isn't there?

I mentioned that, lazily assuming that the 2013 issue of Schubert by Pollini on DG consisted of more recent 'revisits' by Pollini - not a simple reissue of the old recordings. Apologies for any confusion.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Re Richter, when compiling the list, I wasn't sure how many versions he recorded, but there do appear to be at least two.

[Petrushka]

Brendel also included this Sonata in his farewell recital in 2008 and issued on the Decca label.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

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".

This is interesting reading. I've been looking at these bars, and they do seem incongruous. If an exposition really must be repeated for the benefit of the inattentive ones, surely it should be made as painless as possible? This is like a cut-and-paste from a different work.

[Richard Tarleton]

Brendel also included this Sonata in his farewell recital in 2008 and issued on the Decca label.

He did indeed - I have it filed under Lieder

[richardfinegold]

I don't think anyone has mentioned Richter..... (I love the way he smashes the thing out, as if his very existence depends on it)
Is he a 'no no' on these sacred boards?

Refer back to #6 and #7. I also0 love the smashing chords, so reminiscent of his Pictures at an Exhibition, but that was why I referred to it as "idiosyncratic"

[Petrushka]

He did indeed - I have it filed under Lieder

It's been a busy day - I somehow seem to have missed an entire page of comments

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

disapproving sneers

If an exposition really must be repeated for the benefit of the inattentive ones, surely it should be made as painless as possible?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]