Search - Franz [Vienna] Schubert, Michael Endres, Michael Enders :: Franz Schubert: Wandererfantasie and Other Works for Solo Piano

A 'Wanderer Fantasy' That Scintillates

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 12/04/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I certainly was not prepared to like this CD as much as I did. After all, who is Michael Endres? Well, I knew of him as being accompanist for baritone Hermann Prey, but that was it. Although it is the last set of tracks on this CD I went immediately to the Wanderer Fantasy, D 760. Certainly one of Schubert's masterpieces, recorded dozens of times by such stars as Brendel, Curzon, Pollini, Richter and Kempff, I was ready to scoff. But from the first note I was taken with Endres's brilliance, clarity, absolutely clean articulation, and although one could say that his approach is Apollonian, it also brims with romantic expression. That latter combination, of course, is one of the hallmarks of the piece, but so many pianists seem to see it primarily as one of romantic excess. Endres understands that the work stands at the juncture of classical formalism and expressive overflow. I can certainly recommend, then, this performance as worthy of being in the above-mentioned company.



The rest of the disc is filled out with the Grazer-Fantasie, D 605A, the Three Piano Pieces op posth, D 946 (including the exciting first of these, which is often played alone), and the not-so-often-played Hüttenbrenner Variations D 576. Although they are well-played (especially the Drei Klavierstücke, which are late pieces whose consummate art deserves to be better known), it's the Wandererfantasie that makes this disc worth having.



The piano is a beautifully regulated rich-toned instrument; I would guess, although the notes do not reveal it, that this is a Hamburg Steinway. Recorded sound is excellent.



Scott Morrison

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