I much enjoyed the finesse of William Youn’s playing in his first volume of Schubert (A/20) and now we reach the final instalment. As with the previous two releases, he wisely eschews a chronological approach and instead mixes early and mature works to form thought-provoking programmes.

Three sonatas from 1825 open the first two discs and close the final one. Youn is alive to their very different personalities, bringing to the first movement of the A minor, D845, a powerful symphonic quality to its ineluctable minor-ness. Some, though, find a more complex response to the piece, Paul Lewis offering a seductiveness to its opening before vehemence takes over. Youn is particularly impressive in the variation-form Andante, imbuing each one with individual character before we return to the minor for the nervous Scherzo, here given with plenty of energy if not necessarily finding the darker undertones of Mitsuko Uchida. Youn’s finale, though, potently reveals the inexorability of Schubert’s writing.

There’s a similar energy underpinning the second sonata from 1825, D850, though temperamentally it is in complete contrast to the A minor. Youn turns the opening Allegro into a thrilling joyride, though there’s impressive filigree work of great clarity offsetting the propulsive chordal writing. Uchida and Lewis take a slightly steadier view of things but all are impressive in their different ways. The Con moto marking for the second movement is taken to heart here, with Youn finding a quiet songfulness, allowing its substantial span to unfold with an deceptive ease. The Scherzo is all dancing agitation, Youn never allowing the obsessive chordal dotted figure to drag matters down and finding just the right balm in the Trio. He brings alive the last movement, too, drawing us into its world, initially so guileless with its tick-tock motion, from which Schubert adventures far and wide.

Youn closes his traversal with D840, an undoubted masterpiece for all that it’s incomplete. Like D845 it opens with a Moderato movement, though in mood and scale it’s quite different, this being a journey that anticipates Schubert’s final sonata. So much of a pianist’s intention can be garnered from those opening phrases – how legato should they be, how questioning? Youn is initially circumspect, gradually warming as the movement unfolds. The Andante takes us to C minor, a veritable winter’s journey in the most powerful readings: here there’s a softer edge, almost warmth from Youn, certainly compared to Lewis and, even more so, Uchida. But it remains a daringly quizzical way to end the set.

Interspersed with these edifices are earlier sonatas and a couple of incomplete ones. Youn fearlessly overcomes the inherent unpianistic quality of the Second (D279, 1815), bringing out the major-minor prevarications that already mark it out as Schubert. But he can’t do much to rescue the uninspired Third, D459 (1816), posthumously published as Five Pieces. By the time of the Fifth (D557, 1817) we’re in more regularly played territory; its Andante is a highlight here, with Youn reactive to its unexpected swerves of direction. The Seventh, D568, is also persuasive, its opening given with due poise, while the shift to the minor is properly disruptive. He has strong competition from Lewis, though, who brings to life the work’s changeability (I enjoyed his recent disc considerably more than my illustrious colleague). In the case of the two incomplete sonatas here – D566 and D625 – Youn plays only the finished movements, and in the latter reveals fully the sheer strangeness of its Scherzo.

No single traversal of Schubert’s sonatas can offer all the answers. William Youn’s strength is musicianship on a consistently high level, even if his interpretations don’t in the end quite compete with visionaries such as Mitsuko Uchida and Paul Lewis.