Notes and Editorial Reviews
The fifth release in Leif Ove Andsnes and Ian Bostridge's Schubert project ought to be subtitled "The Incredible Shrinking Composer", since it leads off with the huge C minor "Posthumous" sonata and winds down with fragments from unfinished songs and incomplete piano pieces. While the catalog doesn't exactly lack world-class recordings of D. 958, Andsnes' interpretation runs neck and neck with the best.
In the first movement he avoids Uchida's slightly studied reverse accents and tempo fluctuations, evoking Richter's prism-like, line-oriented sonority within a more objective interpretive aesthetic. For instance, Andsnes brings out the extraordinary harmonic juxtapositions presented in the exposition's
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second theme through changing tone color and voicing rather than by modifying the basic tempo. The eloquent slow movement also is well sustained, partly by virtue of Andsnes' textural diversity--you'll notice how the pianist's subtle and purposeful shifts in balance within the repeated triplet accompaniments insure against blandness.
He paces the Menuetto a little faster than most, generating long-lined tension and a rare, welcome feeling of one beat to the bar. Although the finale is lithe and weightless at the start, Andsnes slows down ever so slightly to better accommodate the music's increasing harmonic density.
You might look to Andsnes as a golden mean between the brusque, Beethovenian intensity of Brendel's first (and still best) recorded version on Vanguard and the soft-focused architecture and infinite gradations of touch Wilhelm Kempff serves up. Ian Bostridge's text-driven, awesomely controlled vocalism often strikes listeners as illuminating or mannered, yet I can't see anyone taking issue with Andsnes' warm, sensitively detailed keyboard support.
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com
"Mr. Andsnes treats the mood swings in the C minor Sonata with straightforward musical integrity and plays with vigor, clarity and sweep. The tender Adagio emerges as one of Schubert’s most affecting slow movements. In the finale Mr. Andsnes’s brilliant technique allows him to set a bracing tempo and maintain it effortlessly throughout all the awkward twists, giving the music a controlled wildness.
In a group of lesser-known lieder Mr. Bostridge sings with keen sensitivity to the text and expressive vocal inflections. The recording also includes six engrossing fragments of songs and piano pieces that Schubert never completed.
The performers give vibrant accounts of the aborted pieces, stopping cold when they cut off. An Allegretto in C for piano of nearly five minutes comes across as strangely exuberant music full of playful but repetitive passagework. Perhaps Schubert thought it sounded a little trivial and gave up. If he could have heard Mr. Andsnes’s scintillating performance he might have finished it."
Anthony Tommasini, NEW YORK TIMES
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Works on This Recording
1.
Sonata for Piano in C minor, D 958 by Franz Schubert
Performer:
Leif Ove Andsnes (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1828; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 04/2006
Venue: Potton Hall, Suffolk, England
Length: 29 Minutes 39 Secs.
2.
Gesänge des Harfners no 1, D 478 by Franz Schubert
Performer:
Ian Bostridge (Tenor),
Leif Ove Andsnes (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1816/1822; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 10/2006
Venue: Henry Wood Hall, London England
Length: 3 Minutes 52 Secs.
Language: German
3.
Gesänge des Harfners no 3, D 479 by Franz Schubert
Performer:
Ian Bostridge (Tenor),
Leif Ove Andsnes (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1816/1822; Vienna, Austria
Venue: Henry Wood Hall, London England
Length: 1 Minutes 53 Secs.
Language: German
4.
Gesänge des Harfners no 2, D 480 by Franz Schubert
Performer:
Ian Bostridge (Tenor),
Leif Ove Andsnes (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1816/1822; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 10/2006
Venue: Henry Wood Hall, London England
Length: 4 Minutes 1 Secs.
Language: German
5.
Totengräbers Heimwehe, D 842 by Franz Schubert
Performer:
Ian Bostridge (Tenor),
Leif Ove Andsnes (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1825; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 10/2006
Venue: Henry Wood Hall, London England
Length: 6 Minutes 1 Secs.
Language: German
6.
Pflicht und Liebe, D 467 by Franz Schubert
Performer:
Ian Bostridge (Tenor),
Leif Ove Andsnes (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1816; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 10/2006
Venue: Henry Wood Hall, London England
Length: 1 Minutes 17 Secs.
Language: German
7.
Allegretto for Piano in C minor, D 900 [fragment] by Franz Schubert
Performer:
Leif Ove Andsnes (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: after 1820; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 04/2006
Venue: Potton Hall, Suffolk, England
Length: 29 Minutes 39 Secs.
8.
Lebensmut, in B flat major D 937 [fragment] by Franz Schubert
Performer:
Ian Bostridge (Tenor),
Leif Ove Andsnes (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1828; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 10/2006
Venue: Henry Wood Hall, London England
Length: 0 Minutes 54 Secs.
Language: German
9.
Allegretto for Piano in C major, D 346 [fragment] by Franz Schubert
Performer:
Leif Ove Andsnes (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: ?1816; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 04/2006
Venue: Potton Hall, Suffolk, England
Length: 4 Minutes 28 Secs.
10.
Johanna Sebus, D 728 [fragment] by Franz Schubert
Performer:
Ian Bostridge (Tenor),
Leif Ove Andsnes (Piano)
Period: Romantic
Written: 1821; Vienna, Austria
Date of Recording: 10/2006
Venue: Henry Wood Hall, London England
Length: 2 Minutes 20 Secs.
Language: German
11.
Water Music Suite no 1 in F major, HWV 348: no 4, Andante in D minor by George Frideric Handel
Performer:
Leif Ove Andsnes (Piano)
Period: Baroque
Written: circa 1715-1717; London, England
Date of Recording: 04/2006
Venue: Potton Hall, Suffolk, England
Length: 2 Minutes 48 Secs.
Sound Samples
Klaviersonate D958 in C minor: Allegro
Klaviersonate D958 in C minor: Adagio - sempre ligato
Klaviersonate D958 in C minor: Menuetto
Klaviersonate D958 in C minor: Allegro
Gesaenge des Harfners D478: I. Wer sich der Einsamkeiter gibt, ach!
Gesaenge des Harfners D478: III. An di Türen will ich schleichen
Gesaenge des Harfners D478: II. Wer nie sein Brot mit Traenen ass
Totengräbers Heimweh D842
Allegretto D900 in C minor
Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review: 
( 1 Customer Review )
Superb Schubert October 20, 2012
By Roy Hammer (Cummaquid, MA) See All My Reviews
"This disc of Andsnes playing Schubert's Sonata D 958 completes my collection of his recordings of the last three sonatas. As in the others his playing is lively and superb. The songs with Bostridge add interest."
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