Schnabel may still be regarded as a classic—for some the classic D960, but it is fascinating how the general feeling about Schubert's last piano sonata seems to have changed over the last 55 years. To modern ears (these modern ears, at least) the Schnabel is surprisingly robust: his Schubert may have moments when he is ''half in love with easeful death'', but there are other moments where he not merely clings to life but celebrates it vigorously. If the light-textured Scherzo seems to flow heavenwards, the trio's heavy first-beat accents pull it back to earth.
In Radu Lupu's new version the emphasis throughout this movement is on Schubert's con delicatezza—in fact it sounds surprisingly light and free after the shadowy inwardness of the Andante sostenuto.That, and Lupu's handling of the Molto moderato first movement were an almost continual delight for me. Lupu resists the temptation to treat the first movement as another slow movement: his version is mobile, but also beautifully phrased and pointed. The one qualification is that, unlike Cooper, Brendel and Schnabel, Lupu observes the repeat. I have no objection to hearing that glorious exposition twice, but as Brendel has remarked, the long 'first-time only' passage is perplexing—that twitchy semiquaver figure still seems anomalous to me, and not even Lupu can quite bring himself to play the low trill as Schubert marks it, ffz.
Where the playing itself doesn't quite convince me is in the slow movement and the finale. The latter strikes me as beautiful but just a little characterless—details like the twice-heard triplet fanfare figure announcing the return of the theme could be rhythmically more sharply defined. And in the Andante sostenuto, much as I admire Lupu's pianissimo espressivo in some passages, in a couple of key places he withdraws so much that an important note drops out altogether—part of the accompanying figure in bar 29 for instance, or more tellingly a right-hand F and C in bar 104 (second crotchet—or does he just leave them out altogether?). These are minor points, but perhaps symptomatic of the approach. Imogen Cooper knows how to be confidential, self-communing without becoming reclusive—as does Brendel, and in addition there's Brendel's fine placing of some of Schubert's harmonic surprises: notably that astonishing shift to C major (we're supposed to be in C sharp minor!) in the recapitulation. Schnabel here has a depth, concentration and expressive range that none of the modern versions quite matches, though he also has a disturbing mireading: C sharp instead of B in bar 5.
Lupu's D664 is purely and simply delightful. There's a refined lilt to the phrasing (as in the first and third movements of D960), the finale begins with a lovely, light flourish on the descending semiquavers, while in parts of the central Andante he finds a truly Schubertian depth of sadness which I'd hardly suspected in this music. The only drawback is the slightly dull recorded sound—a problem in both sonatas. Lupu is a far from superficial player, but a little more surface sparkle would surely not have been unrepresentative.'