This is the second of three multivolume albums covering
Schubert
's sonata output, and all are highly recommended. Each one combines late sonatas with those of the composer's middle period and thus can be appreciated independently. Pianist
William Youn
runs somewhat counter to type in comparison to recent
releases, which tend to make the last three sonatas, especially, into big epic statements, emphasizing elements of distress in the life of the composer who probably knew he was dying. For a composer capable of the emotional extremes of the songs in the cycle
Die Winterreise
, this is justifiable, but
Youn
goes in a different direction, keeping everything under control and quietly exploring the music in great detail. The pounding notes in the central part of the Andantino in the
Piano Sonata No. 2 in A major, D. 959
, are not, in
's hands, a cry for help but rather an unexpected but logical B-section counterpart to the melancholy main theme. Even where
is at his most Beethovenian, in the first movement of the
Piano Sonata in C minor, D. 958
,
is notably restrained. One effect of his approach is that he brings out just how innovative the earlier sonatas are;
not only "got"
Beethoven
but leapfrogged him in some respects.
enjoys ideal engineering support from
Sony
here, recording in the Schloss Elmau, not really a castle but a hotel, in the Bavarian town of Kruen, in a small auditorium that would have been much like the rooms in which this music was first heard. Even if some will find the
underplayed here, others will return to the recording over and over again. ~ James Manheim