Schubert Piano Works
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Franz Schubert
Label: Ottavo
Magazine Review Date: 10/1990
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 67
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: OTRC88821
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Sonata for Piano No. 21 |
Franz Schubert, Composer
Franz Schubert, Composer Imogen Cooper, Piano |
| Impromptus, Movement: No. 1 in E flat minor |
Franz Schubert, Composer
Franz Schubert, Composer Imogen Cooper, Piano |
| Impromptus, Movement: No. 2 in E flat |
Franz Schubert, Composer
Franz Schubert, Composer Imogen Cooper, Piano |
| Impromptus, Movement: No. 3 in C |
Franz Schubert, Composer
Franz Schubert, Composer Imogen Cooper, Piano |
| Allegretto |
Franz Schubert, Composer
Franz Schubert, Composer Imogen Cooper, Piano |
Composer or Director: Franz Schubert
Label: Delos
Magazine Review Date: 10/1990
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 69
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: DE3018
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Sonata for Piano No. 21 |
Franz Schubert, Composer
Carol Rosenberger, Piano Franz Schubert, Composer |
| Impromptus, Movement: No. 1 in C minor |
Franz Schubert, Composer
Carol Rosenberger, Piano Franz Schubert, Composer |
| Impromptus, Movement: No. 2 in E flat |
Franz Schubert, Composer
Carol Rosenberger, Piano Franz Schubert, Composer |
| Impromptus, Movement: No. 3 in G flat |
Franz Schubert, Composer
Carol Rosenberger, Piano Franz Schubert, Composer |
| Impromptus, Movement: No. 4 in A flat |
Franz Schubert, Composer
Carol Rosenberger, Piano Franz Schubert, Composer |
Author: Joan Chissell
Even before these two new arrivals, the Gramophone Compact Disc Catalogue overflowed with alternative recordings of Schubert's last piano sonata in B flat—currently 22 of them (if you include period-instrument versions), almost all satisfying enough in their own different ways and some, not forgetting the four editorially 'selected comparisons' listed above, in the nature of obligatory purchases for the dedicated collector. So I know I'm not exactly helping the pockets of many Schubertians when saying that yet another place on their shelves may now have to be found for Imogen Cooper.
When reviewing Vol. 1 of her pilgrimage through the composer's last six years, in April 1988, I described her playing as mellow and poised enough to suggest an artist of much maturer years. I feel this even more strongly in this the fifth volume, and especially in the B flat Sonata. It is a reading of quite exceptional expressiveness of the tranquilly recollected kind, or should I say of self- communing benignity of spirit, immediately calling to mind Schubert's much-quoted confession at the time: ''Somehow I feel as if I no longer belong to this world''. Her perceptive, intuitively musical phrasing is entirely free of obtrusive point-making, while as piano-playing pure and simple the performance is one of unerring finesse. Though perhaps not as sharp-cut as some on the market, the recording itself (made in London's Henry Wood Hall) is judiciously distanced and wholly natural in sound.
The American pianist, Carol Rosenberger, is much more closely reproduced, and her instrument emerges just that much more synthetic in actual tone, with a touch of clanginess above a certain dynamic level. She, too, is plainly a caring musician, but one prepared to make individual points much more emphatically than Cooper, and sometimes at the expense of elegance and continuity of line. Listen, for instance, to her exaggerated crescendo in track 1 from 1'37''–42'', just before the forte return of the opening theme in the first movement's exposition (which incidentally, like Cooper, she does not repeat). Whereas both artists start the Andante sostenuto at much the same tempo, Cooper allows herself a considerable quickening of pulse (unrequested in the score) to convey the middle section's brief resurgence of hope. Yet from her there is a basic simplicity and flow that I found more moving than Rosenberger's more overtly inflected unfolding of the tale. Nor does Rosenberger bring home the hidden threat in the repeated bass motif at the start of the reprise with Cooper's subtlety.
In the Scherzo Rosenberger is not as much on her toes as the nimbler con delicatezza Cooper, and predictably she prefers an underlining of the trio's syncopations and sforzandos to the understatement favoured by her English rival. The finale (the only movement for which she chooses a markedly faster tempo than Cooper) she approaches in a spirit of defiance, not least its robuster chordal outbursts, in contrast to Cooper's acuter awareness of the music's emotional ambivalence. No, in all fairness I cannot put Rosenberger on my short list in this extraordinarily revealing work. Cooper may still lack Curzon's sustained strength of direction (Decca) and Brendel's intensity (Philips) in their unforgettable performances, not to mention the equally strong claims of the romantically far-seeing Bishop-Kovacevich (Hyperion) and the classically disciplined Pollini (DG). But her Schubert has a stylish distinction all her own.
This is no less evident in the Drei Klavierstucke, in the first and last of which Cooper combines urgency and vitality with a delectable lightness of touch. And in the lyricism of the second of the set and the endearingly bitter-sweet Allegretto in C minor with which she ends the disc, she again manages to convey intimately personal undertones with a simplicity (after the composer's own heart) that at the moment just seems to evade Carol Rosenberger. To complete her own disc this American artist offers a romantically forthright account of the first set of Impromptus.'
When reviewing Vol. 1 of her pilgrimage through the composer's last six years, in April 1988, I described her playing as mellow and poised enough to suggest an artist of much maturer years. I feel this even more strongly in this the fifth volume, and especially in the B flat Sonata. It is a reading of quite exceptional expressiveness of the tranquilly recollected kind, or should I say of self- communing benignity of spirit, immediately calling to mind Schubert's much-quoted confession at the time: ''Somehow I feel as if I no longer belong to this world''. Her perceptive, intuitively musical phrasing is entirely free of obtrusive point-making, while as piano-playing pure and simple the performance is one of unerring finesse. Though perhaps not as sharp-cut as some on the market, the recording itself (made in London's Henry Wood Hall) is judiciously distanced and wholly natural in sound.
The American pianist, Carol Rosenberger, is much more closely reproduced, and her instrument emerges just that much more synthetic in actual tone, with a touch of clanginess above a certain dynamic level. She, too, is plainly a caring musician, but one prepared to make individual points much more emphatically than Cooper, and sometimes at the expense of elegance and continuity of line. Listen, for instance, to her exaggerated crescendo in track 1 from 1'37''–42'', just before the forte return of the opening theme in the first movement's exposition (which incidentally, like Cooper, she does not repeat). Whereas both artists start the Andante sostenuto at much the same tempo, Cooper allows herself a considerable quickening of pulse (unrequested in the score) to convey the middle section's brief resurgence of hope. Yet from her there is a basic simplicity and flow that I found more moving than Rosenberger's more overtly inflected unfolding of the tale. Nor does Rosenberger bring home the hidden threat in the repeated bass motif at the start of the reprise with Cooper's subtlety.
In the Scherzo Rosenberger is not as much on her toes as the nimbler con delicatezza Cooper, and predictably she prefers an underlining of the trio's syncopations and sforzandos to the understatement favoured by her English rival. The finale (the only movement for which she chooses a markedly faster tempo than Cooper) she approaches in a spirit of defiance, not least its robuster chordal outbursts, in contrast to Cooper's acuter awareness of the music's emotional ambivalence. No, in all fairness I cannot put Rosenberger on my short list in this extraordinarily revealing work. Cooper may still lack Curzon's sustained strength of direction (Decca) and Brendel's intensity (Philips) in their unforgettable performances, not to mention the equally strong claims of the romantically far-seeing Bishop-Kovacevich (Hyperion) and the classically disciplined Pollini (DG). But her Schubert has a stylish distinction all her own.
This is no less evident in the Drei Klavierstucke, in the first and last of which Cooper combines urgency and vitality with a delectable lightness of touch. And in the lyricism of the second of the set and the endearingly bitter-sweet Allegretto in C minor with which she ends the disc, she again manages to convey intimately personal undertones with a simplicity (after the composer's own heart) that at the moment just seems to evade Carol Rosenberger. To complete her own disc this American artist offers a romantically forthright account of the first set of Impromptus.'
Schubert Piano Works
Schubert Piano music
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