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

[Barbirollians]

Well, at least we've had this discussion! I put on the Staier recording of D960 this morning and my wife remarked as she went by "I really don't see the point of playing that piece on a fortepiano". I have contacted my lawyer.

Post of the year !

[gurnemanz]

No messages for seven and a half hours.

Secretly hoping DON will spark off fresh controversies tomorrow

Think it's been a good thread meself, lots to learn from and, always a good test, lots of new listening plans.

In fact I'm suddenly reenthused for all the Schubert Sonatas , the sound of Schiff's Bosendorfer lending a certain domestic loveliness to Christmas preparations this year. ECM discs on order.

I'll help bump the total up a bit. I have recently been interested in references to two songs re D960:

In his Schubert Song Companion John Reed finds echos of Schwestergruß from 1822 ("a neglected masterpiece"), which I was listening to in Janet Baker's superb rendition. In it the poet's ghostly sister delivers a greeting from beyond the grave to her grieving brother. Reed writes: "No Schubert lover can play play this accompaniment without being reminded of the B flat piano sonata of 1928".

An online commentary on the Sonata from AllMusic makes mention of the remarkable teenage song (more of a mini drama), Szene aus Faust from 1814:

The exposition contains two other subsidiary themes, both in remote keys, and what follows also includes a remarkable self-quotation -- the links between the B flat sonata's first-movement development and an insistent six-note theme taken from a setting of the cathedral scene from Goethe's Faust, composed in December 1814, are often overlooked. However, as John Reed suggests in Schubert: The Final Years, "many a recognisable variation strays much farther from its theme!"

Gretchen is, of course, another doomed young person.

[Richard Barrett]

I'll help bump the total up a bit. I have recently been interested in references to two songs re D960:

In his Schubert Song Companion John Reed finds echos of Schwestergruß from 1822 ("a neglected masterpiece"), which I was listening to in Janet Baker's superb rendition. In it the poet's ghostly sister delivers a greeting from beyond the grave to her grieving brother. Reed writes: "No Schubert lover can play play this accompaniment without being reminded of the B flat piano sonata of 1928".

An online commentary on the Sonata from AllMusic makes mention of the remarkable teenage song (more of a mini drama), Szene aus Faust from 1814:

The exposition contains two other subsidiary themes, both in remote keys, and what follows also includes a remarkable self-quotation -- the links between the B flat sonata's first-movement development and an insistent six-note theme taken from a setting of the cathedral scene from Goethe's Faust, composed in December 1814, are often overlooked. However, as John Reed suggests in Schubert: The Final Years, "many a recognisable variation strays much farther from its theme!"

Gretchen is, of course, another doomed young person.

Very interesting, that's something I hadn't come across. Listening now to Schiff, which is really something, I think I'll be spending some considerable time with this CD in the coming weeks.

[vinteuil]

I

In his Schubert Song Companion John Reed finds echos of Schwestergruß from 1822 ("a neglected masterpiece"), which I was listening to in Janet Baker's superb rendition. In it the poet's ghostly sister delivers a greeting from beyond the grave to her grieving brother. Reed writes: "No Schubert lover can play play this accompaniment without being reminded of the B flat piano sonata of 1928".
.

... indeed from beyond the grave!

.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... indeed from beyond the grave!

Well, it is "Opus Posthumous".

[BBMmk2]

Playing Krystian Zimerman's recording now. 5 stars plus!

[Richard Barrett]

Well, it is "Opus Posthumous".

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

That's more "Sub-humus".

[Steerpike]

I have a D960 recording by one Joyce Hatto. I can't see on any of the sites providing lists, whose performance this really is.

So is this the real Hatto? My SoundHound app says it's played by Dubravka Tomsic. It's easy to find a sample of the first movement of the Tomsic recoding and it does sound very similar to Hatto except for quite heavy background hiss, whereas 'Hatto' sounds crystal clear. Tomsic's Scarlatti has been identified as the source of Hatto's issue, but no mention of Schubert D960.

Could the hiss from the Tomsic recording really have been removed so successfully, without leaving any feeling of constriction to the sound? Is the Hatto from another source of Tomsic?
If it is Tomsic, why isn't this listed anywhere?

Or could this recording be the real thing?

Steerpike

[Barbirollians]

I have a D960 recording by one Joyce Hatto. I can't see on any of the sites providing lists, whose performance this really is.

So is this the real Hatto? My SoundHound app says it's played by Dubravka Tomsic. It's easy to find a sample of the first movement of the Tomsic recoding and it does sound very similar to Hatto except for quite heavy background hiss, whereas 'Hatto' sounds crystal clear. Tomsic's Scarlatti has been identified as the source of Hatto's issue, but no mention of Schubert D960.

Could the hiss from the Tomsic recording really have been removed so successfully, without leaving any feeling of constriction to the sound? Is the Hatto from another source of Tomsic?
If it is Tomsic, why isn't this listed anywhere?

Or could this recording be the real thing?

Steerpike

I should have thought it to be very unlikely ! Especially if it is on Concert Artists or whatever they were called Barrington-Coupe's crooked outfit .

[Stanfordian]

I have a D960 recording by one Joyce Hatto. I can't see on any of the sites providing lists, whose performance this really is.

So is this the real Hatto? My SoundHound app says it's played by Dubravka Tomsic. It's easy to find a sample of the first movement of the Tomsic recoding and it does sound very similar to Hatto except for quite heavy background hiss, whereas 'Hatto' sounds crystal clear. Tomsic's Scarlatti has been identified as the source of Hatto's issue, but no mention of Schubert D960.

Could the hiss from the Tomsic recording really have been removed so successfully, without leaving any feeling of constriction to the sound? Is the Hatto from another source of Tomsic?
If it is Tomsic, why isn't this listed anywhere?

Or could this recording be the real thing?

Steerpike

Knowing what we know now, why would anyone want to listen to Hatto. Enough people have been duped!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Knowing what we know now, why would anyone want to listen to Hatto. Enough people have been duped!

But people might want to listen to Dubravka Tomsic.

[gurnemanz]

... indeed from beyond the grave!

.

Whoops. I'm getting on a bit. Born in 1849.

[Stanfordian]

But people might want to listen to Dubravka Tomsic.

Hiya ferney,

Well, I suppose some might!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But it's only just that recordings that received such enthusiastic reviews when heard under fake attribution should be heard with the real performers' names credited.