As the excellent and thoroughly researched booklet to this new release points out, Schubert's first known composition was for piano duet and he was certainly the only great composer who wrote extensively for the idiom, with the possible exception of Brahms. I think it is fair to point out, though, that the pieces presented here are not amongst his most memorable. The G minor Fantasie should not be confused with the sublime F minor and the Sonata in B flat cannot be compared with the Grand Duo Sonata of 1824.
What we have, for the main part, are predominantly light works that are designed to be as much fun to play as they are to be heard. The marches and dances very much fall into this category. Some of the effects in the three Marches heroiques are rather naive: the 'heroic' content of the second consists of passages in dotted rhythms and the third has some fairly childish military trappings, such as bugle-calls. However, one must admit that Schubert's inventiveness led him to write considerably better music than most of his contemporaries—listen, for instance, to the highly personal modulations in the second of the four Polonaises and the consistently beautiful part-writing.
The Fantasie in G minor opens with echoes of Mozart's in C minor, K475; it has the same portentiousness. This extremely early work, once it gets going, also has strong affinities with Clementi's style. It is a short, rather old-fashioned piece. The Sonata, on the other hand, demonstrates Schubert's consummate skill as a melodist. Isabel Beyer and Harvey Dagul play it in a well-detailed manner in which there is plenty of rhythmic pointing. The development section of the first movement is more thrusting and aggressive than with their rivals, Noke and Krizos (Hyperion). Personally, I prefer the latter duo's more calm and gentle way with the music and surely it is they who choose the correct dynamics for the opening bars of the Allegretto finale? Beyer and Dagul are far too loud.
Regarding sound-quality, the Noke/Krizos performances are much softer and their version is eminently easy on the ear. Actually, the new CD is rather more lifelike, since one hears more of the overtones and there is less uniformity of tone. Both sets of players can be relied upon to play with taste and musicality—my caveats only refer to the occasional episode.'