Schubert: Piano Sonata No. 13 in A major, D664

Richter conquered Paris with these Schubert scores. The last and immense Piano Sonata No.21 in B flat major, D960 (1828) stayed a long time in his repertoire chasing the 'small' sonatas. He captures the brillant ambiguity of this series of exclamations, more a cycle of impromptus than a real sonata pace Beethoven; its strict architecture opposing its instinctive imaginativeness. Richter exudes overwhelming charm over an isolated Impromptu before respecting the post-Mozartian baroque approach in the 1819 'small' A major Sonata D 664.

Recorded September 24 1972 [D960], June 10 1956, June 10-11 1962. Previously available as PR254032 [1994], CDM78726/7 [1993]

This is the eighth installment in Gerhard Oppitz’s survey of the major piano works of Schubert. Oppitz once again displays his mastery and profound understanding of the great works of the Romantic piano repertoire.

Michelangelo Carbonara is one of the most interesting and talented young Italian pianists. A student of the famous Imola Piano School he benefited from the advice of such luminaries as Dmitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleischer, Alicia de Larrocha, Menahem Pressler and Aldo Ciccolini. His recordings of the complete piano music of Ravel, Scarlatti Sonatas and piano music by Nino Rota brought him great critical acclaim in the international press.

This CD for Piano Classics presents him in music very close to his heart, the piano sonatas by Franz Schubert (he is prize winner of the Schubert International Piano Competition in Dortmund), from the early joyful sonata in E major, through the lyrical A major D664 to the grim A minor sonata D845.

Acclaimed for his Naxos recordings of music by Chopin, Liszt, Dohnányi and Rachmaninov, Eldar Nebolsin here fulfils a heartfelt ambition to record important piano works by another great Romantic composer, Franz Schubert, for the label.

The passion and pathos of the two sonatas, with their song-like melodies and adventurous harmonies, set the scene for one of Schubert’s most powerful solo piano pieces, the Wanderer Fantasy, a work so technically demanding that Schubert himself is reported to have exclaimed ‘the devil may play it!’. Based on his popular song Der Wanderer, the Fantasy is virtually a four movement sonata in its own right and a path-breaking masterpiece of the piano literature.

Vanessa Wagner studied with Jean-François Heisser and Leon Fleischer before making a series of well-regarded recordings for Lyrinx and Naïve. She moved to Nicolas Bartholomée’s Ambroisie to record Debussy and a Variations album, recommended by Classica, and now follows him to Aparte.

“Mozart and Haydn, both very human, express joy, humour and tenderness, as much as sadness, drama and tragedy; Beethoven draws us into a dialogue with the sublime; but Schubert takes us by the hand, he whispers to our innermost being, with its loneliness, its sufferings. His world is sombre, introverted and nostalgic, but sometimes it is brightened by a gentle glow of happiness – but a happiness that has become illusory and inaccessible. Joy in his works is always diffuse, never radiant. We see this in the ‘Little’ Sonata in A major D664, which is often described as a return to a haven of peace, and some people even see in it a certain joie de vivre. But its sunshine is nevertheless hazy, its smile faint, the happiness it speaks of lost and faraway.” Vanessa Wagner