from the Amazon.com Web page for this album
In June of 2015, ECM New Series released a recording of pianist András Schiff playing the late works of Franz Schubert on a Hammerflügel, a fortepiano made by Franz Brodmann in 1820. This was his second ECM recording with the instrument, having previously used it for his Diabelli-Variationen recording. This past Friday ECM released his second Schubert album using that same fortepiano.
In many respects, the new album serves to complement the earlier one. Both albums are two-CD sets, and they offer broad perspectives of the Schubert keyboard repertoire. The 2015 set concludes with his final sonata, D. 960 in B-flat major. The new release offers the other two sonatas that Schubert composed during the same month, September of 1828, only a few months before his death. These are D. 958 in C minor and D. 959 in A major (and there are those that conjecture that Schubert worked on all three of these sonatas concurrently). In addition, the 2015 album includes the D. 935 set of four impromptus. The remaining works on the new collection are the D. 899 set of impromptus and the three D. 946 pieces (which are called impromptus in Otto Erich Deutsch’s catalog).
Taken together these two albums serve up a highly satisfying account of just how adventurously imaginative (not to mention almost frantically industrious) Schubert was towards the end of his short life. However, writing as one whose desire for recordings of Schubert piano music borders on the addictive, I know full well that there is no shortage of recordings that have been released of these sonatas and impromptus (that conjuncted phrase being the title of the new Schiff album). Indeed, I can even confess that, prior to these Schiff recordings, I already had several impressive accounts of all of these pieces performed on one fortepiano or another.
Nevertheless, my enthusiasm for following Schiff has not abated. If anything, it has revived, probably by virtue of the regular visits he makes to San Francisco. He is popular enough that he consistently fills Davies Symphony Hall, meaning that all of his recital performances are given on a modern grand piano. Much as I would like to hear him play his Brodmann in recital, my guess is that he does not let that instrument travel with him for any number of good reasons (one of which being that he would have to play it in a smaller space, which would not go down with the agents who arrange his tour dates).
Fortunately, the ECM recording team has done a consistently effective job of capturing the many subtleties of the Brodmann’s sounds. Thus, those familiar with Schiff’s accounts of these pieces on a modern instrument will not take long to appreciate that he can summon nuances from the Brodmann that disclose intricacies of interpretation that would not come through on a Steinway or even the Bösendorfer that Schiff tends to play in Davies. With the Brodmann keyboard under his fingers, Schiff can focus his attention on bringing “Schubert’s Schubert” to the attention of the serious listener. As one listens to the tracks on these albums more and more, one becomes more and more aware of those subtleties and discovers that a virtual trip back to the first half of the nineteenth century is well worth the attention required to get there.
The advance material I received for this new recording described it as “the latest chapter in András Schiff’s ongoing documentation of Franz Schubert’s music.” This suggests that more recordings will follow, presumably allowing Schiff to account for those earlier years in which the sophistications of late Schubert first began to take shape. I certainly hope that further recordings are coming. Too few pianists seem interested in what preceded those late works, and Schiff is likely to be the best possible advocate for those “younger” pieces.
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