Just one new CD
this month – but it’s a good one! Irish
pianist Barry Douglas has started on a new survey of piano music by Franz Schubert (1797-1828), and Volume
1 starts with two major works, the B
flat major Piano Sonata, D960 and the ‘Wanderer’
Fantasy, D760. These two greats of the repertoire sit either side of two
transcriptions by Franz Liszt (1811-1886) of songs by Schubert,
Du bist die Ruh, and Ungeduld from Die schöne Müllerin. First
the Sonata – Douglas includes the lengthy repeat in the first movement of the
Sonata, which although long is actually really important for the architecture
of this piece, but is sadly often jettisoned for reasons of length. At just over nineteen minutes, the first
movement lasts for longer than the other three movements put together, and
sometimes the remaining movements can feel like an anticlimax. However, I really enjoy Douglas’ approach here –
Schubert can sometimes be performed with too much reverence, when in fact it
needs real depth and contrast, from almost aggression at times in the first
movement, to painful tragedy (but not sentimentality) in the slow movement, and
litheness and energy in the final movement.
His approach to the Wanderer Fantasy is similar, although perhaps the
contrasts are not quite as marked here.
But the slow second section has real delicacy here, and the Allegro final section is a real joy,
finishing off the disc in style. The
Liszt transcriptions were new to me, and were a real pleasure too. Du
bist die Ruh is such a beautiful and well known Schubert song, and Liszt
treats it with loving care, making sure the wonderful melody is still central,
and his transcription of Ungeduld is equally faithful, yet adding perhaps a
pianistic sense of urgency too. A great
start here to what will surely be a wonderful collection.
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