Schubert: Piano Music (2007)

This superb recording stands out from the crowd of reinterpretations of the three masterful piano sonatas from the end of Schubert's life. It is part of a group that contains many of them -- the group that attempts to strip away the veneer of innocence from Schubert and rediscover him as an intense, inward, rather experimental figure awed by Beethoven's achievements in much the same way as was Brahms. Yet it transcends the great majority of the available recordings of the Piano Sonata in A major, D. 959, in whatever style, ... Read More

This superb recording stands out from the crowd of reinterpretations of the three masterful piano sonatas from the end of Schubert's life. It is part of a group that contains many of them -- the group that attempts to strip away the veneer of innocence from Schubert and rediscover him as an intense, inward, rather experimental figure awed by Beethoven's achievements in much the same way as was Brahms. Yet it transcends the great majority of the available recordings of the Piano Sonata in A major, D. 959, in whatever style, with its sheer musicality. There is a great deal of detail in Zacharias' performance -- hear the tension generated in the sonata's opening bars as the pianist atomizes it into a sequence of small events, with those occurring in the left hand given equal weight with those in the right. The balance between the hands is exquisitely controlled through the entire movement, and the way Zacharias manages to fuse what seems like a progression of sudden impulses into a larger framework is... Read Less