Schubert: Piano Works

Album review

Schubert's valedictory Piano Sonata in B flat major, D. 960, is a vast work that has challenged the greatest of pianists specializing in Austro-Germanic Romantic repertoire. It has the "heavenly length" Schumann admired in the composer's Symphony No. 9 in C major (slightly less long but no less heavenly in this performance, which eliminates the marked repeat in the first movement), and it's made up of quiet, circumspect, but very subtle moments that are difficult to keep in balance as part of any larger structure. Fine versions are available from the likes of Alfred Brendel, Leon Fleisher, and Rudolf Serkin, but this one by Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan merits consideration. Barnatan appreciates Schubert's quietness and his use of the naïve: putting too much emphasis or shaping on his little melodies, such as the one that opens the sonata, is fatal, for that dampens the impact of the big excursions set in motion by Schubert's very advanced use of chromatic harmony. Barnatan has a wonderful grasp of the large ebb and flow of Schubert's music. His readings are definitely on the laid-back side, and at times some listeners will wish for sharper contrasts. This is especially true in the last of the four Impromptus, D. 935, which juxtaposes sharp, Brahmsian cross-rhythms in its outer sections with a central waltz of mysterious radiance -- except the mystery is lost in Barnatan's too-cool performance. The Impromptus are, however, an ideal CD pairing for the big B flat sonata; they are large pieces (really not very impromptu) in which Schubert worked out some of the extended harmonic schemes of the final sonata group. The recording is made on an uncommonly sweet-sounding, almost melancholy 1904 Steinway piano that fits Barnatan's style. Sample some other performances if you like to hear Schubert with a bit more oomph, but this version of the B flat sonata will continue to reveal the work's deeper secrets on repeated hearings.

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