Your Top Three Schubert Piano Sonatas

[Florestan]

My list, not likely to change any time soon:

1. D960
2. D850
3. D664

Have at it.

[(poco) Sforzando]

My list, not likely to change any time soon:

1. D960
2. D850
3. D664

Have at it.

I'm never very good at these D numbers, so I had to look all those up. Mine:

D959 in A, especially for the wild modulatory slow movement.
D845 in A minor. When playing it, I always have an irresistible urge to accelerate the coda of the 1st movement to Presto.
D840 in C, the Unfinished. In my opinion one of the greatest of them all, and least played as far as I can see.

As for D960 in B-flat, I find it much more interesting to play than to listen to. Perhaps because some pianists like Richter take the opening movement at an Adagio, rather than Molto moderato.

[Holden]

To me D960 is a masterpiece so it would top my list. I also like both of the A minor works (D784 and D845) as I've played both of them. I'd also have to add D894, especially when it's in the hands of someone like Richter.

[Brian]

D840 in C, the Unfinished. In my opinion one of the greatest of them all, and least played as far as I can see.

Have you heard the completion by Ernst Krenek? I listened a few times recently and agreed with the performer on the album (Can Cakmur) that it is very, very difficult to hear where the Schubert ends. But I am less familiar with the truncated version that omits the various fragmentary sketches.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Have you heard the completion by Ernst Krenek? I listened a few times recently and agreed with the performer on the album (Can Cakmur) that it is very, very difficult to hear where the Schubert ends. But I am less familiar with the truncated version that omits the various fragmentary sketches.

I know there are fragments of a scherzo and finale. They are in the published score, and I haven't heard what Krenek does. But like the B minor symphony, Bruckner 9, and Mahler 10, I prefer to play/hear just the completed movements.

[Maestro267]

I'll be baffled if most people don't just choose the last three monumental, transcendental works.

[Jo498]

D 840 is a fascinating piece and there are several completions but I fear it's too strange for me to become a top favorite.

My clear favorite is D 959 and I'd probably pick boringly D 958 and 960 but I might as well take D 894 (that can take the Richterian slowing down a bit better than D 960, I think) or 845 as I never found D 960 as exceptional as some do. I don't like D 850 that much, because of the "banging" in the first movement (Schubert does that better in the Wandererfantasie) and the long and relaxed finale.

Schubert had not really figured out how to do finales, IMO; he wrote either a "tarantella of death" (as in 958 or "Death & Maiden") or blew an early/middle Beethoven rondo up to twice its size which nevertheless often feels too light for the rest of the sonata. In the piano sonatas the rondo in D 959 seems the most convincing to me because this sonata is a bit lighter overall, the main melody glorious and Schubert rounds it off with a cyclic return to a first movement theme.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I'll be baffled if most people don't just choose the last three monumental, transcendental works.

Probably most do, but I rate D840 as being just as monumental and transcendental.

[(poco) Sforzando]

D 840 is a fascinating piece and there are several completions but I fear it's too strange for me to become a top favorite.

My clear favorite is D 959 and I'd probably pick boringly D 958 and 960 but I might as well take D 894 (that can take the Richterian slowing down a bit better than D 960, I think) or 845 as I never found D 960 as exceptional as some do. I don't like D 850 that much, because of the "banging" in the first movement (Schubert does that better in the Wandererfantasie) and the long and relaxed finale.

I like the tarantella in 958 a lot, though I agree he often had a finale problem. What is so strange about 840? I'd say if you want strange, go to the slow movement from 959.

[Mandryka]

D 840 is a fascinating piece and there are several completions but I fear it's too strange for me to become a top favorite.

 

Well I think 960 is no less strange.


I posted a comment from Christian Tetzlaff about the big G major quartet which seems to me right about how to approach Schubert's strangeness -- like Beethoven's strangeness in fact

"When one creates such a quartet in which nothing is left of the conventions or of this assurance that there are certain limits within which one as an artist or a human being operates, knowing that he then will not go over the edge – when one completely breaks through this, I could imagine that one is so horrified of oneself that one practically has to compose such a conclusion. To say: I've just said all of that, but life of course goes on anyway. Now it's over. And a smile lingers after this struggling: OK, so that's what it means to be human. But an angel might perhaps laugh at it. That is how I imagine it."

[Mandryka]

. What is so strange about 840? I'd say if you want strange, go to the slow movement from 959.

If you play it like Richter in 1961, and you're used to listening to music which moves forward a la Beethoven, then it's strange.

[Mandryka]

My list, not likely to change any time soon:

1. D960
2. D850
3. D664

Have at it.

664 is very sweet. The second movement of 850 is just magic to me, I'm not sure why though -- it just touches my G spot.

[Florestan]

The second movement of 850 is just magic to me, I'm not sure why though -- it just touches my G spot.

For me it's the third. Playing in my head ever since I first heard decades ago. Valid also for D960/1 and D664/1.

[André]

D 959
D 894
D 960

I'm not a fan of ultra slow tempo + exposition repeat in 960.  Rêverie, perkiness, angst and agitation inhabit most of the sonatas. A balance between these elements is essential, as Schubert seems to switch moods and be in a different frame of mind in every movement.   

[Jo498]

There must have been reasons why Schubert didn't finish D 840, despite most of the 3rd and 4th movements already written so it seems fair to say that it is more strange/special (just like the  b minor unfinished symphony is more special than the Great C major).
I got 3 different completions/fragmentary recordings beyond the 2 mvmt by Serkin: Richter, Kontarsky, Pludermacher, but it's been a while that I listened to the piece, so I cannot say more about it.