Schubert: Piano Sonatas, D958, 959, 960
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Music CD Cover
Composer: Franz SchubertPerformer: Murray Perahia
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2003-05-13
Music Label: Sony
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- I. Allegro
- II. Adagio
- III. Menuetto. Allegro - Trio
- IV. Allegro
- I. Allegro
- II. Andantino
- III. Scherzo. Allegro vivace - Trio. Un poco pi? lento
- IV. Rondo. Allegretto
- I. Molto moderato
- II. Andante sostenuto
- III. Scherzo. Allegro vivace con delicatezza
- IV. Allegro ma non troppo
Free Music Notes for Schubert: Piano Sonatas, D958, 959, 960
Free Music Review: Playing That Can Be Deeply Felt And Understood!
Hit: 5 Stars
The first sonata to be performed on this recording is the Sonata in A major D958. This is a sonata I have performed many times because its opening theme is one of Schubert's most lyrically, warmth filled melodies. The little sonata, instead of anticipations, is filled with what seem like reminiscences of more youthful ideas. Considering who wrote it, the work is astonishingly short. At the outset Perahia reminds us of its lyricist composer with a warmly expressed tone and seamless shaping of the first subject which is actually a complete song of nineteen measures. Try singing this melody at its gentle pace, and you will immediately sense the gentle charm and musical purity. In the second subject Perahia defines its characteristic dactylic rhythm which is more of a song as well instead of what a sonata subject should be, but it is a little more Schubertian. In many performances that I have heard of its seven-bar periods, the Andante is often dull, yet Perahia executes it with sensitively judged playing. The finales first subject is characteristically conveyed by Perahia suggesting a music box, its most successful movement of the three. This sonata can become too saccharine-like and one often feels it hovering on a knife edge between the great Schubert on the left and triviality on the right. Fortunately Perahia never once allows it to lose its balance to the left. The C minor Sonata is often considered to be the least interesting. It begins with some impressive Beethoven, the rhythm carrying one back to the Egmont Overture. In the hands of Perahia the sonata always maintains enough ingenuity to make it insightful and purely respective of Schubert's musical priorities. The choric, legato theme in E flat is vastly improved, and Perahia beautifully and lyrically shapes the phrase and keeps the underlying rhythm going so that it sounds like an integral part of the movement. The studious biographer, August Reismann, whose life of the composer appeared in 1873, actually pronounces this to be the best of all the sonatas. With the possible exception of the little A major sonata, the posthumous Sonata in B flat is the most consistently sustained of them all. In the opening movement, Perahia brilliantly establishes the form, but also the spirit of the grand manner-grand also in simplicity, long lines, large planes. In the first subject, he produces its needed luscious dusky coloring, with as much Schubert himself, and comes back as the most moving and satisfying return to a reprise that the composer ever conceived for the piano. The development, one of Schubert's more characteristic, is an effective preparation for that return. Perahia captures this development's sudden, breath-catching start in C sharp minor out of F major, the lovely Episode it creates and, before the return, he captivates us with the dramatic expectation and suspense, shimmering back and forth between major and minor, distinguishing this as one of the Master's most poetic pages. The other material of the Molto moderato is almost as wonderful as the opening theme. In the Andante sostenuto, Perahia reveals the religious atmosphere where, amid all the Beethoven, one finds a gratifying momentum of its own composer. In the third movement, he conveys a strong affinity with the scherzos of the trios of Beethoven. This is praise, indeed, and implies a generous Schubertian content. Here then, in this series of sonatas we have one long tantalization. They offer us pages of deep interest, precious emotional value, beauty, and occasional flashes of the real Schubert. Throughout this recording, Perahia performs with superbly controlled levels of high powered playing, flawless in its technical accomplishments and always projecting a yielding warmth and vulnerability found in his own innate understanding of the works by Franz Schubert.
Author: Raymond Vacchino M.Mus. A.Mus. L.R.S.M. Licentiate (honorary)
Schubert: Piano Sonatas, D958, 959, 960 Poster
Perahia's up against some heavy competition from the likes of Arrau, Brendel, Pollini, as well as old-timers like Schnabel and Edwin Fischer. Even in such company he acquits himself well, playing with lean sonority that clearly etches Schubert's melodic lines and clarifies the structure of these sprawling works. In the B-flat Sonata he clearly differentiates the basic tempos of the first two movements, which can often blend into each other by pianists who just play them as two slow movements. In the great Andantino movement of the A major, he's alive to its inherent weirdness as Schubert sends a nostalgically beautiful melody off the deep end to fragmentation, then reassembles it into a broken shadow of itself. His approach here is effective, if relatively restrained as he keeps to a generally classical view of works some turn into Romantic extravaganzas. Perahia's is a worthy addition to the Schubert discography and an excellent way to get fine performances of all three of these great works in one well-recorded, neatly space-saving package. --Dan DavisClassical Music CDs
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