An absolute delight
Jeff Abell | Chicago, IL USA | 02/01/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Leif Ove Andsnes has become one of the most outstanding pianists of his (or any) generation. He has technique to burn, that can range from extreme delicacy and precise articulation to thundering power. This range of techniques and moods suits him well for Schubert. The D major Sonata dates from a vacation Schubert took in 1825, the same time he was drafting the so-called "Great" C major Symphony. Andsnes catches every change of mood, every emotional and lyrical nuance, with precision, wit and poetry. He's then joined by Ian Bostridge for some of Schubert's songs. I recently heard him play the sonata live, and doubted the recording could live up to what he brought to the piece in performance. But the recording is every bit as swell as the concert I heard. If you like Schubert, you'll want to hear this."
For a great D. 850, look no further
Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 11/20/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Today I was listening to Schubert's delightful D major piano sonata D. 850 played by two great Schubertians, Clifford Curzon and Sviatoslav Richter. I never anticipated, when I turned to Andsnes' recording, that he would excel both of them, but he does. In terms of rhythmic vivacity, high spirits, and carefree technique, it would be hard to imagine a more winning performance. I wish the piano weren't quite so wooden and dry-sounding in the bass, but other than that the sound is very good. Like another reviewer here, Ian Bostridge seems to me to be a mannered, over-emoting lieder singer, not to mention that his nasal choir-boy tenor actively repels me. But he passes for a great artist, and there is no doubt that he and Andsnes are committed partners in this repertoire, so let's just call it my inability to appreciate what's put before me.
For me, this installment is the very best of Andsnes' ongoing Schubert cycle."
A Lusty Outdoor Schubert and a Singing Piano
Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 02/03/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I know I'll get hammered for this review. Keyboardists are a pugnacious bunch, compared with players of melodious winds and strings. But I've just spent a minor fortune on CDs of Leif Ove Andsnes performing Schubert sonatas, and I'm as hyper about the music as an espresso-drinker in the Piazza Navona. It seems to me - pardon my audacity - that Schubert invented "piano music". Beethoven wrote music to be played on piano (or rather fortepiano), but Schubert wrote music that inhabits the soul of the piano. Go ahead now, scoff your hearts out!
And yet... Schubert's piano sonatas are actually not 'keyboard' music at all. They're profoundly vocal. Every phrase. This Sonata in D major D 850 is, to my ears, Schubert's most ambitious piano accompaniment to unheard words of a mighty poem. There are more keyboardesque works in Schubert's oeuvre, of course, but it makes great musical sense to me that Andsnes so often chooses to share his recorded performances of Schubert with tenor Ian Bostridge, thus revealing the integrality of Schubert's sonatas and Lieder. I notice that some Andsnes fans are not so keen on Bostridge, by the way; that puzzles me vexedly. The two musicians breathe together, eat from the same bowl, stroll like best-friend boys along the same musical freshets.
I've long had a rather formal appreciation for the foremost formalist of the piano, Maurizio Pollini. I'm certainly not about to repudiate Pollini now, but I'm enjoying Andsnes far more. His playing seems to me to rescue Schubert from that sickly gilt-frame Biedermeier saloon, to make his raptures over Nature and Youth plausible. And his 'singing' touch seems to my ears to salvage the piano from its inherent clangy percussiveness.
Take this review as standing for all of Andsnes's recordings of Schubert. I'll have something to say about Bostridge's singing in another place."
Track Listings (13) - Disc #1