MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

Alternatively
Classicsonline  AmazonUK   AmazonUS

 

Franz SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Piano Sonata No. 1 in E major, D157 (incomplete) (1815) [18:44]
Piano Sonata No. 8 in F sharp minor, D571/D570/D604 (1817) [18:23]
Piano Sonata in C sharp minor, D655 (fragment) (1819) [2:51]
Piano Sonata in E minor, D769a (D994) (fragment) (1823) [1:04]
Piano Sonata No. 15 in C major, D840, "Reliquie" (1825) [31:21]
Gottlieb Wallisch (piano)
rec. 21-22 December 2005, Potton Hall, Westleton, Suffolk, UK. DDD
NAXOS 8.570118 [72:22]
Experience Classicsonline


The first disc (8.557189) in Gottlieb Wallisch's survey of Schubert's unfinished piano sonatas was warmly received in these pages.  This third and final volume in the series deserves equal praise.
 
Most pianists – even dedicated Schubertians like Lupu, Brendel and Schiff – tend to pass over the incomplete and fragmentary sonatas.  As such this Naxos series will plug a hole in many a collector's knowledge of Schubert.  This in itself would count for little if the music was uninteresting or only passably played.  Fortunately, the music is unfailingly involving and fascinates as it illuminates Schubert's creative process and growth as a composer.  More than that, Wallisch himself has all the qualities required of a top drawer Schubertian: the ability to float a phrase, to sustain a long lyrical line, and to maintain a firm pulse under a natural rubato.  Others have made a case for completing Schubert's unfinished piano music, but Wallisch's sincere musicianship allows each piece to speak for itself on its own terms and lends eloquence to incompleteness.
 
The classically conceived first sonata, which comprises three completed movements and lacks only a finale to take us back to the tonic, occasionally finds its way onto disc.  Schiff, for example, has recorded it.  Wallisch’s performance places it in context nicely, paying due homage to its classical style and allowing Schubert’s innate lyricism and surprising harmonic twists to make themselves known without unnecessary point making.  His perfectly paced account of the andante is understated and meltingly beautiful.
 
The F sharp minor sonata is much more harmonically adventurous.  It shows Schubert experimenting with Beethoven's Op.27 No.2 model for a sonata quasi una fantasia, putting aside sonata form principles to investigate mood.  As Wallisch himself comments in his detailed and highly readable liner notes - rendered into English from the German by Keith Anderson - Schubert does not quite manage to match Beethoven in generating dramatic contrast without the scaffolding of familiar form, though the first movement has a winning lyricism.  Perhaps Schubert thought the same, and that is why he left the movement incomplete without recapitulating the theme. Wallisch passes straight into the scherzo, which moves at a good clip without sounding rushed, a nice contrast to the meditative pacing of the opening movement.  The andante, which like the scherzo is complete, has gravitas under Wallisch's probing fingertips, and the final unfinished allegro is steeped in thoughtful melancholy.
 
The first two movements of D840 are complete and are often recorded as a stand alone sonata.  Here, the first movement is lovingly detailed and the voicing of parts superbly judged - just listen to the way Wallisch shapes the second subject.  The second movement wears its melancholy air lightly and flows with a natural rubato and excellent balancing of parts.  Wallisch's performance of these two movements reminds me of Christian Zacharias' recording on EMI in its honesty and lyrical beauty.  To these completed movements Wallisch adds the incomplete menuetto third movement and final rondo.  Both of these movements start with bold invention, but just as you begin to wonder how on earth Schubert is going to develop his material, the music stops.  The menuetto starts innocently enough but cannot find a way to modulate back to its home key of A flat major.  The problem with the finale is a surfeit of thematic ideas - attractive thematic ideas, to be sure, but Schubert seems to have been at a loss as to how to develop them all.  Schubert would later find a way to push the expressive boundaries of his music within conventional formal contexts, but these incomplete movements illustrate poignantly his struggle to achieve this goal.
 
Two small fragments precede the D840.  The C sharp minor fragment is an exposition without development, but shows Schubert reaching for new sounds and thematic contrasts even though it is unclear where the music is going.  The E minor fragment is, at only 38 bars, about half the length of the C sharp minor.   Even though it is little more than a sketch of an exposition, it has a dramatic thrust that foreshadows Schubert's later sonatas.  Both are illuminated by Wallisch's sincere playing which, throughout this album, is well served by the warm Naxos sound.
 
If you love Schubert's music, you really should invest in this disc and its companions without delay.
 
Tim Perry
 


 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.