SCHUBERT, F.: 4 Impromptus / Piano piece in C major / Adagio and Rondo Concertante (Knauer, Ensemble Resonanz)

Album review

German pianist Sebastian Knauer introduces his notes for this disc by pointing to the large amount of Schubert's music that remains unknown, even to specialists. This ambitious disc is devoted to uncovering some of it, and even if it's arguably too smart for its own good in places, it's still very intelligent and never dull. Knauer is one of those pianists who finds intellect in Schubert above all, almost to the exclusion of Viennese good times. His patient, detailed set of Impromptus, D. 935, hardly have any impromptu quality at all. Knauer seems to constantly be searching for the structural significance of the notes instead of just letting them flow. With the so-called Sonate Oubliée, D 916B, however, he is in his element. This alleged forgotten sonata is a hypothesis of pianist Jörg Demus, who reasoned that two independent piano sketches from late in Schubert's life were planned as the outer movements of a C major Piano Sonata. As completed by Demus and Roland Sölder, with the Allegretto in C minor, D. 900, as a middle movement, the music doesn't convince the listener that it was intended as an eventual organic whole -- for one thing, the key of C major doesn't return until too late in the finale to balance the opening movement. However, the way Knauer gets into the material and continues to mold it is fascinating. Sample the central Allegretto, a seemingly simple thing that shortly gives way to an utterly bizarre detail, one of the little harmonic shocks that make Schubert such a pleasure. Knauer gives it just the right quizzical weight. Equally intriguing is the early Adagio and Rondo Concertante, D. 487, written as a piano quartet but containing solo and tutti markings in the score that Knauer takes to indicate possible performance as a concerto. The reasoning is once again debatable, but the execution is superb -- Knauer imagines the expansive sound a Schubert concerto might have had if he had only written one. This disc is nicely recorded, catching Knauer's sharp, edgy tone, and though it may be more of an oddity for Schubert lovers than anything else, it will be welcomed by members of that charmed group.

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