Schubert Piano Recordings

[Verena]

I just wanted to share it and to get any ideas you have for interesting recordings of D946.

The best I have ever heard by far is Kempff live - that recording has moments of sublime beauty:

http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Beethoven-Schubert-Johann-Sebastian/dp/B00004Y6OI/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1286645386&sr=8-4

[Drasko]

Yours maybe the only way to hear it -- they clear the archive 30 days after broadcast.

Ok, here.

[Mandryka]

I love the way he doesn't hang around. And the way he isn't frightened to use the piano percussively.

[Holden]

http://www.goear.com/files/external.swf?file=7bbb538


This is Nikolai Demidenko playing D946/2, which I am enjoying a lot at the moment. I just wanted to share it and to get any ideas you have for interesting recordings of D946.

This guy Demidenko is never disappointing live but frequently disappointing on CD I think. This Schubert CD is geat though!

As an aside, I've been looking for a program that will allow me to post excerpts from my own collection on this forum. How good is Goear in this regard? Apologies for a hijack of the thread but I suspect others are interested as well.

[George]

Ok, here.

Thanks a lot for this. An individual, enjoyable account.

[Mandryka]

As an aside, I've been looking for a program that will allow me to post excerpts from my own collection on this forum. How good is Goear in this regard? Apologies for a hijack of the thread but I suspect others are interested as well.

Well you can see it works and it's very easy and free to use.

There's a bit of a trick getting the thing to display properly. The code for the one I put here with the Demidenko is

http://www.goear.com/files/external.swf?file=7bbb538

embedded in

[flash=353,132]

and

[ /flash]

That should help you.

[Drasko]

For those interested here's Kocsis' complete beforementioned Schubert recital, my recording of internet stream, 320 kbps mp3s.

Zoltan Kocsis 04.07.2009 at l’ Eglise Notre Dame d’Auvers-sur-Oise - Schubert D899, D946 & D960

[Philoctetes]

For those interested here's Kocsis' complete beforementioned Schubert recital, my recording of internet stream, 320 kbps mp3s.

Zoltan Kocsis 04.07.2009 at l' Eglise Notre Dame d'Auvers-sur-Oise - Schubert D899, D946 & D960

[Lethevich]

What is the consensus* on Uchida's Schubert? It is often notable by its absence in much discussion, even where other high profile traversals such as Brendel or Kempff are regularly present.

*I'll settle for half-way to this

[Todd]

What is the consensus* on Uchida's Schubert? It is often notable by its absence in much discussion, even where other high profile traversals such as Brendel or Kempff are regularly present.

I don't know what the consensus really is, but her cycle is well played, well recorded, but a bit fussy and/or idiosyncratic.  I find her compelling in some of the late-middle sonatas (D845, say), but not in the early sonatas or final three.  Many pianists are better in this repertoire, and if you want a cycle or something approaching it, Kempff, Endres, Klien, Zacharias, Kuerti, Brendel, and Dalberto all have more to offer, at least to my ears.  For individual recordings, you can add Richter, Kovacevich, Lupu, Volodos, and some others to that list.

[Lethevich]

I don't know what the consensus really is, but her cycle is well played, well recorded, but a bit fussy and/or idiosyncratic.  I find her compelling in some of the late-middle sonatas (D845, say), but not in the early sonatas or final three.  Many pianists are better in this repertoire, and if you want a cycle or something approaching it, Kempff, Endres, Klien, Zacharias, Kuerti, Brendel, and Dalberto all have more to offer, at least to my ears.  For individual recordings, you can add Richter, Kovacevich, Lupu, Volodos, and some others to that list.

Thanks! It doesnt sound compatable with my current preferences. I like a granitic style of Schubert playing - either through the emotional contrasts and almost excessive power of Richter, or the sobriety of Brendel. With Brendel in particular I get the sense that he is "digging" into the music, and he offers a nice middle ground between head and heart, passionate but not in an extrovert way. It has been described with words like unsmiling, but it's so compelling and there is always wit in his playing, just not... slapstick or bear hugs.

[Mandryka]

Thanks! It doesnt sound compatable with my current preferences. I like a granitic style of Schubert playing - either through the emotional contrasts and almost excessive power of Richter, or the sobriety of Brendel. With Brendel in particular I get the sense that he is "digging" into the music, and he offers a nice middle ground between head and heart, passionate but not in an extrovert way. It has been described with words like unsmiling, but it's so compelling and there is always wit in his playing, just not... slapstick or bear hugs.

You should try Yudina and Eduard Erdman and Sofronnitsky.
The Brendel CDs  to have are the early VOX ones I think

[Lethevich]

Thanks! Yudina and Sofronitsky should be simple to hear (I have a friend who collects this kind of thing) - not sure about Erdman but I'll keep an eye out.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

What is the consensus* on Uchida's Schubert? It is often notable by its absence in much discussion, even where other high profile traversals such as Brendel or Kempff are regularly present.

*I'll settle for half-way to this

I have Uchida's impromptus and they're marvelous! She isn't a colorist like Lupu but her imagination is on fire, wringing everything she can from the music.

But this approach apparently seems to occasionally rub a Penguin reviewer the wrong way in the sonatas (but not the impromptus) and she's criticized for "over-projecting" or some such. But this sounds to me more like an issue of taste than an actual criticism, at least based on that impromptu disc I have. Penguin overall gives her sonatas a thumbs up, however.

If it's more "granitic" Schubert you're after then Andsnes is your man. I have two of his four Schubert sonata discs on EMI and his chiseled approach is very distinctive. I hear it as even more chiseled than Richter, and it's extremely entertaining if juuuuust missing out on the top spot next to Lupu and Goode.

[Mandryka]

Thanks! Yudina and Sofronitsky should be simple to hear (I have a friend who collects this kind of thing) - not sure about Erdman but I'll keep an eye out.

Erdmann's Schubert recordings are available in good sound on Tahra.  Along with Schnabel and Yudina and Sofronitsky,  he is the most interesting of the "historical" Schubert interpreters. 

Along with Richter and maybe Sokolov, the great modern Schubert sonata interpreters on record are Claudio Arrau and Valery Afanassiev. Others --  Haskil, Gilels and Annie Fischer for example -- recorded much less Schubert, though what they did set down is exciting. Kempff and Horszowski  and Brendel amd Lupu recorded a lot but although there are some high points (Kenmpff's live Klavierstueke, Horszowski's live impromptus,  Brendel's VOX D959), most of it is really just for indomitable collectors or penguinists.


Afanassiev's aesthetic is an experiment in taking the music as far as possible allong the Richter route. The result,  on ECM and Denon elsewhere, is interesting.

One problem with D960 is to do with balancing the movements -- how to balance I ans II in the face of III and IV? Too often IV is trivialised (Haskil, Schnabel) or over mannered, over emphatically played  (Richter). I think that Afanassiev's Denon D960 is the most successful I know in making sense of the whole sonata. That alone would make the interpretation a major contribution. But there are other aspects which are equally mind blowing -- Afanassiev's ability to create a complex web of phrases is wonderful and unmatched  -- and it's a unifying property of the interpretation, present in all 4 movements. With Afanassiev on Denon, the whole sonata is made of primal slime, the whole sonata is bathed in amniotic fluid.

[Mandryka]

Don't forget the Wanderer Fantasie -- it's a sonata in all but name and IMO it's Schubert's most important work for piano at least from the point of view of influence. It's a premonition of all the big romantic piano sonatas.

[DieNacht]

Though not exactly the first name you would think of as regards this composer, Horowitz in D960 on RCA is really great, without excesses and yet gripping, one of my favourites together with Yudina. I´d also like to mention Anton Kuerti´s early LP on monitor with the Wanderer and Sonata D894, the Wanderer being especially good and more varied in its phrasing than Richter´s famous EMI.

As regards the 3 Klavierstücke D946, a works that perhaps tends to be somewhat overlooked, I mostly stick to the early Brendel philips recording, rather than an early Arrau, Brendel/vox, Joeres/EMI and Rösel/eterna.

[Mandryka]

Though not exactly the first name you would think of as regards this composer, Horowitz in D960 on RCA is really great, without excesses and yet gripping, one of my favourites together with Yudina. I´d also like to mention Anton Kuerti´s early LP on monitor with the Wanderer and Sonata D894, the Wanderer being especially good and more varied in its phrasing than Richter´s famous EMI.

As regards the 3 Klavierstücke D946, a works that perhaps tends to be somewhat overlooked, I mostly stick to the early Brendel philips recording, rather than an early Arrau, Brendel/vox, Joeres/EMI and Rösel/eterna.

Which Horowitz record do you like -- the DG studio one or the 1953 Carnegie Hall record?

I haven't heard Kuerti's Wanderer. For me, I want a less hectoring style that I hear from Richter -- Ney, Virssaladze, Demidenko, Arrau are all very special in their own way.

[DieNacht]

   As regards D960, it´s the RCA from Carnegie Hall, an LP version. I think I heard a few excerpts once from the DG, but contrary to my (apparently superficial) impression, when reading some reviews on the web it turns out the most people view the DG as more eccentric and dramatic than the RCA, whereas I vaguely remember it as somewhat "timid" - I seem to be wrong.

Heard the RCA again this morning, and in the finale Horowitz does become more stormy than most other pianists, but it just adds more to the work and overall his reading is not bombastic, it´s very melodical and rather intimate. Obviously, though, my taste is rather directed towards the expressively Romantic dimension in Schubert, hence my preference for him and Yudina ... Reading the reviews has certainly made the DG more interesting to get, though  ... I´ve got

Damgaard/classico
Kempff/dg
Horowitz/rca 53
Schnabel/tim 39
B-Kovacevich/emi
Richter/brilliant
Richter/praga
Richter/eurodisc 72             
Haskil,1951/philips box set
Sofronitsky,1956/melodiya box set
Yudina/mono melodiya

but can´t say to know every recording in detail.

Concerning the Wanderer, the Richter is also a bit monotonous (?!) to me; also own the early Arrau/columbia, a David Strong/Classico and Brendel/vox, plus the mentioned and preferred Kuerti, so it is a rather limited selection. A very knowing collector I knew considered the Richter one of the best piano records ever made, and I remember having sold it to a famous, pianist member of the Koppel family dynasty of musicians ... However it is not a work that - to my impression - leaves so much room for a lot of different interpretations, on an overall scale at least.

[George]

As regards the 3 Klavierstücke D946, a works that perhaps tends to be somewhat overlooked, I mostly stick to the early Brendel philips recording, rather than an early Arrau, Brendel/vox, Joeres/EMI and Rösel/eterna.

I like Pires for D946.