Schubert: Piano Sonata No. 11 in F minor, D625

“Wallisch’s solid technique and sound musicianship operate on a high level and benefit from Naxos’ top-notch engineering.” Classics Today

“Kempff's art was at its apogee at the time of his 70th birthday in the autumn of 1965; rigour and fantasy held in perfect poise. Bryce Morrison, who has provided the notes for this BBC Legends release, and who was present at this concert – and indeed many other legendary recitals, recalls: 'If I were to single out one musical experience that transcended all others, it would have to be Wilhelm Kempff's 1969 Queen Elizabeth Hall recital. At his greatest, as he undoubtedly was on this occasion, Kempff's playing seemed bathed in a numinous light or halo of sound, his choice of music by Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert seemingly improvised on the spot.' Alfred Brendel has said of Kempff, 'he was an Aeolian harp, ever ready to respond to whatever interesting wind blew his way'. It's a remark that applies especially well to Kempff's Schubert. He has said that in his early years Schubert's music was a book with seven seals. He played Schubert Lieder, but it was not until much later, after the First World War, that he entered the private world of the piano sonatas. For him, Schubert's 'heavenly length' was never lengthy if seen in proportion to the larger experience. 'If length becomes evident as longueur,' Kempff has written, 'the fault lies with the interpreter (I speak from my own experience …).' Not here. The reading is wonderfully taut yet touched with a rare ease of utterance. The enigmatic end is perfectly judged (and well 'heard' by an audience whose applause merely stutters into life). After the 'disconsolate lyricism' (BM's phrase) of the sonata, the Drei Klavierstücke offer more or less unalloyed pleasure, Kempff winging the music into life. The playing has charm, dash and magic. He once said of Schubert's piano music: 'It ought not to be subjected to the glaring lights of the concert halls, as it's the confession of an extremely vulnerable spirit. Schubert reveals his innermost secrets to us pianopianissimo.' We hear this wonderfully well in Kempff's playing of the first of his two encores, the Impromptu in G flat, where his fabled cantabile comes even more mesmerisingly into its own. An Aeolian harp indeed! At the start of the recital, Kempff provides a shrewdly voiced and somewhat Mendelssohnian account of Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue.
It's a performance to free the fingers and light the way ahead, the great work assuming the role of warm-up man with as good a grace as can be expected.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Richter's Schubert is simply in a class of its own. No pianist did more to overturn the traditional view of the composer as a blithe, unreflecting child of nature. And in this Festival Hall recital three sonatas from 1817-19 unfold with a grandeur of conception, a spirituality and a stoical timelessness that were unique to Richter. The first two movements of the A major Sonata are, on the face of it, implausibly slow: but with his mesmeric, self-communing intensity Richter convinces you for the duration of the performance that no other way is admissable. Phrases, paragraphs are shaped with calm inevitability, underpinned by the sublime, luminous simplicity of Richter's cantabile; and no pianist is more sensitive to Schubert's magical harmonic strokes or understands more surely their place in the larger scheme. As Richter conceives them, the first two movements of the A major, D664, foreshadow the rapt, philosophical contemplation of the late G major and B flat Sonatas, D894 and D960; and even the finale, projected with Richter's characteristic mastery and subtlety of rhythm, has something rarefied in its playfulness. Richter is equally lofty and far-sighted in the two lesser-known sonatas.
The BBC recording, while perhaps a shade bass-light, is warm, and does ample justice to Richter's vast dynamic and tonal palette. A bronchial March audience can intrude at the start of tracks, especially in finales. But no matter.
All but those terminally resistant to Richter's uniquely introspective, long-spanned view of the composer should acquire as a matter of urgency these visionary performances by one of the greatest Schubertians of the century.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010