Schubert: Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, D.960 (Kovacevich)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 มิ.ย. 2024
- Everyone - quite reasonably - lauds the Richter account of this profound and groundbreaking work, but it turns out Schubert had some ideas of his own about how this sonata to be played, and this breathtaking account by Kovacevich comes as close to definitive as I can imagine. He plays a genuine pianissimo and molto moderato, and his interpretation contains a sense of unease and urgency that is hugely compelling. There is no slouch toward profundity, no gesture of unnecessary sophistication. Instead there is a consistent variety of articulation -- warmth [23:22], sadness, violence, tranquility -- all as the work demands it.
Schubert’s final sonata is famed for its sense of inner stillness, but often that’s just a function of tempo - there’s a lot of compulsion and vigour in it, as Kovacevich’s recording shows. What is truly extraordinary about this sonata, however, is its harmonic life. The D.960 is full of harmonic shifts of vast structural violence which nonetheless sound perfectly serene - “magical” modulations, as they are often called, which receive little (obvious) preparation. It’s worth noting that there’s even such a “magical” shift writ large on the structure of the entire piece, since the second movement is in the key of C# minor, making it the most harmonically isolated of all the movements in Schubert’s work.
You encounter the first such magical modulation at 0:54, when the tonality shifts from Bb major to Gb major without any apparent preparation. At 1:57 there is another less sudden shift to F# minor, which means that we get a three-key exposition. In fact both shifts have been anticipated by the Gb trill which trembles minutely and ominously in the midst of the exposition’s first theme.
The next magical modulation appears when we get a sudden shift from an F major to a C# minor chord at the beginning of the development section [9:45]. This leads into a whole series of incredibly colourful modulations, which apparently culminate in Db major [11:01], except that we then wander via increasingly dramatic dissonances into D minor, where we get the climax of the movement in which the first theme of the exposition is repeated [11:50] in barely recognisable form. (The modulation from D minor back into Bb major is fairly noteworthy too, as the D minor dies away in the most achingly gradual manner possible, in little stepwise chromatic shifts, over about 90 seconds of music.)
The second movement contains what is perhaps the most famously moving modulation in Schubert’s work, a sudden shift from C# minor to the remote terrain of C major [26:22] right after a half-cadence on the dominant, although that is followed by an equally beautiful shift from C to E [25:56].
There are many other fun things going on in this sonata apart from just striking modulation, however. There is some unexpected playing on your expectations of how a melody is phrased [30:55, where the melody contains a false beginning that isn’t actually a false beginning, if you look at the phrase marks - it’s just that it’s grown by an extra bar], and some more harmonic cheekiness - the finale begins in apparent C minor. The climax of the finale [37:18] is, remarkably, in C-flat major, from which the bass descends in chromatic modulation eventually to G to return to the main theme.
The interrelations between the movements are also ingeniously set up: in the finale's coda, the octave on G [40:24] descends through Gb [40:30] to F, which reaches all the way back to that Gb trill in the opening of the first movement which resolved downward to F so inaudibly: a lovely instance of cyclic form. (In fact, the G-Gb-F resolution is central to the whole finale -- its how the tonality in the beginning of the movement moves from C minor to Bb major). And there’s the fact that the second theme of the finale [37:24] has the same melodic contour (5-8-7-6-6-5-(5-4-4-3)) as the remarkable C major modulation in the second movement.
And it must be mentioned that in the first movement the end of the exposition (when you play it the first time) contains 9 bars of weird, stuttering, totally new material [4:42], and the only instance when that Gb trill is played ff (this makes omitting the repeat kind of obscene, since this material totally disappears from the piece if you do.)
00:00 - Mvt 1, Molto moderato
19:58 - Mvt 2, Andante sostenuto
29:16 - Mvt 3, Scherzo
33:15 - Mvt 4, Allegro ma non troppo - เพลง
Schubert wrote the *best* tunes of any composer. That he died so young is tragic. A wonderful composer.
That's unfair to other composers
@@crazyorganist1609 Many people would say that these last 3 piano sonatas are among the best out there
11:58 this is just breathtakingly beautiful
I have a feeling that jazz players would have their interest piqued but I'm not sure.
@@j.grimes4420 there's nothing exceptionally jazzy about it, but the way schubert chooses to rotate through certain harmonies and how he moves back to d minor at the ends of the first couple phrases is quite modern
@@anotherdepressedmusician It reminds me of the voiceleading in My Funny Valentine.
The motif is also used to open the lied "Der Wanderer".
The shift from c shapr minor to the A major melody in the 2nd movement is sublime. Schubert is really soemthing else, from the depth of despair you are instantly lifted to heavenly bliss.
12:25 to 13:09 is one of the most sublime moments in piano music, right up there with the return of the introduction in Chopin's 4th ballade
I just thought this part is one of my favorite in my ideal piano sonata hitlist 😍
And the return of the starting theme in Rach prelude op 32 no13
Wtf the return of the introduction isn’t even the best part of ballade 4. It’s the return of the second theme in Db Major. Not to mention there are plenty more moments in music as sublime or even more sublime than that
So often, the harmonic daring of great pieces does not strike a non-musically-trained ear; in this great sonata, Schubert uses harmony to such magical effect even the untrained ear can sense something transcendental about it.
Excellent comment. Within the confines of classical structure, Schubert's harmonic voyages and experiments are extraordinary; along with the late masterpieces of Beethoven, these paved the way for Romanticism to start experimenting with form and effects; one of the most interesting and exciting periods in Western music. th-cam.com/video/CDRNeLzPU2w/w-d-xo.html
The first movement is so unbelievably beautiful that it makes me want to believe in a higher power.
Believe in Schubert
There is always a higher power than us... that's why we are called humans... and that's what drives human civilization... the struggle to free ourselves from our imprefections and reach for the perfect...
God
Schubert & Scriabin both were inspired by that same Power
That power is the Lord himself and Jesus, find it before it is too late my brother
00:00 - Mvt 1, Molto moderato
19:58 - Mvt 2, Andante sostenuto
29:16 - Mvt 3, Scherzo
33:15 - Mvt 4, Allegro ma non troppo
If you listen carefully to this through headphones you can hear Stephen humming to parts of this wonderful piece.
i can't hear it though
there is this wintery feeling in several of the later works from Schubert, the feeling that you go on a rise, in a nature covered with snow and ice, to nowhere. It's just dead ends, moments of silence, shadowy chasms, mazes that lead to madness.
_An Alpine Sonata,_ perhaps.
Edo tries I.F. Yet for me Mozart remains the most tragic composer - in some ways the wintery quality was part of Schubert, in Mozart there is always a gap between the Mozartian ideal and his difficulties coming to terms with life itself - Schubert never has any such ideals in the first place
Nice one!
I've always felt that this work in particular is more "Siberian" than "Austrian" in its spirit and outlook.
This is one of the best comments I’ve ever read on TH-cam. Very poignant observation.
Never heard this one before, now I am obsessed with it.
It's incredible. A Rosette in the Penguin Guide.
I'd heard it before (not least in several films) but recently have become obsessed with it, accessing the many wonderful interpretations available on TH-cam.
Да, это настоящая уховёрта. Мне кажется, Шуберт сочинял в ходу. Здесь, по-моему, слышна гроза, весна, свежий воздух, походка в горах вблизи Вены (Wienerwald). А тема 4.ого движения напоминает как бы русскую народную песнь.
Thank you for this exquisite rendition of one of my all time favorite piano works, as well as your very insightful commentary!
I appreciate the detailed analysis and comments, but to me it's simple: this is the most beautiful and moving piece of piano music ever written - - - and god knows how I love Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, etc., but there is just a certain "something" about this sonata that bores into my soul and lives there...and has for over 50 years. Cannot be explained.
I understand you 100% I love all the great composers, but there is something so wierd about Schubert. His pieces, the sonatas (or in my case the impromptus and symphonies) are something else.
@Stygian Eons My comment or the original, and in what sense?
@Stygian Eons It might be that you are translating the comment to another language and you are missing key points. If that's the case let me help you. He/she is saying that the the concept is simple. The concept is that Schubert makes music so beautiful that it can't be explained.
Yes, you might say that because it cannot be easily explained it must be complex, contradicting the first statement. But if you think about it, he/she is referring to the simplicity of his or her personal concept of Schubert's music, not the mechanics behind it.
Remember this: concepts are easy, making sense of them and how they work is hard.
So regardless of the detailed analysis, the personal subjective concept is that Schubert's music is unexplainably beautiful. And that is the "simplicity" behind it. Hope that helped you.
@Stygian Eons Because understanding the concept of something unexplainable is easy, explaining why that is, is hard. (It's the concept that is referred to as easy not the explanation why)
To give an example:
"The jurney of a thousand miles begins with one single step"
-Lao tsu, the founder of Taoism
The message above is very easy to understand the concept. However the implications of it can end up being very deep and complex. Same thing with distinguishing between concept of something unexplainable and the mechanics behind it.
But to be honest, I think we are overthinking all of this. It's just a comment on TH-cam. We don't have to give it much thought. 😅
@Stygian Eons yep
15:00 one of the most beautiful harmonic shifts in music.
YES! ... one of the most beautiful works ever written.
Fully agreed.
oh yes indeed. Heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Probably my favorite moment in the 1st movement, alongside the delicate triple-pianissimo fragment of the opening theme in the development section.
9:48, 26:23...
@@josephmathmusic agreed. The c major modulation at 26:23 is my favorite harmonic moment in this sonata along with 14:56
What an astonishing piece, pretty sweet and groundbreaking, Kovacevich has such a warmth touch
39:59 So delicate and beautiful!
1st mvt - snow-filled woodland, melancholy, the beauty in loneliness. 2nd mvt - church bells, death, reminiscence of childhood days. 3rd mtv - skaters on the lake. 4th mvt - into the beyond.
I've always thought Kovacevich was somewhat underrated as an interpreter of the classic Viennese composers. Every tempo, nuance, attack, rhythm, ritardando, just seems right. This is a fantastic take on this gorgeous work.
Wonderful performance by Kovacevich! Astonishing harmonic progression through distantly related keys!
I thought this was alright at first but then the melody of the 1st movement really grows on you. I love this song!
wow that second movement is something else
Thank you for sharing this and also for putting up the score at the same time.
I've listened to this work for over 40 years and this is the first time I've done so with the music.
It is fascinating. I watched a performance by Schiff the other day and it was the first time I'd heard the 1st time bars before the repeat of the first half. I was bewildered that there was music in this piece that I'd never heard and I couldn't understand why anyone would want to leave it out.
With regards to this performance there are few words really. It's marvelous. But looking at the score you realise just how difficult the dynamic juxtapositions can be to achieve on a modern piano where the decay is so much longer than it would be on a wooden framed one of the period.
Anyway, what a wonderful we live in where technology makes all of this possible.
Thank you for your remarks, excellent!, everytime I play this wonderful sonata it is as if time stood still, after 40+ minutes you walk away and think: what happened? it's a marvel of time-stopping art, one of those musical wonders that will linger in our memory for ever, at least in mine.
The sonata must be listened in its entirety. The second movement is already just such a direct call to the heart, but it's even more effective when it's heard after we've been through the first movement. And the third movement is like a sigh of relief... everything about this sonata is just so perfect.
Thanks for listening to my rant :D
11:26-11:56 is absolutely some of the most profound music I have ever heard, especially with all the music leading up to it.
Really speaks to the soul this one
When I listen to some music, after a while, I have a profound sense it's listening to me and it knows me and I know I have found a friend for life. This music and this performance has this power and gives me abiding relief and comfort. It's beautiful.
Interesting.
I couldn't have said it better myself! I feel exactly the same say: it knows me! Amazing...........
Love the analysis! The entire development section of the 1st movement is sheer genius. One of my other favorite modulations in the piece is the Gb major to F# minor to A major in the recap from 14:46 to 15:02
Thank you for your wonderful account on this recording : "There is no slouch toward profundity, no gesture of unnecessary sophistication. Instead there is a consistent variety of articulation -- warmth [23:22], sadness, violence, tranquility -- all as the work demands it." I totally agree with you and these elements are what I care about the most in the interpretation of classical music.
Stunningly beautiful and fascinating.
A perfect interpretation. Thank you!
YUP...
what a great comment analysis, makes you enjoy the piece with a totally new perspective
I cannot put in words how much I adore the second movement.
yes, Kova, you are absolutely on top of the world.
Amazing analysis. Thank you!
11:35 Schubert went nuts in here
Descent into madness. It's brilliant.
It's one of his best moments
never knew he had such a rage inside of him. its like reviewing his previous work, Erlkonig d.328
Robert Schumann has
KI’m
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II’m
I’m so I
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Sorry, my phone added all that previous comment.
This is a great work and worth sharing.
Magnifique interprétation et superbe sonorité du piano !!!
The slow movement is one the saddest and painful ever composed. The luminous melody in the middle makes the return to the sadness even more painful.
I saw this performed live in concert by Marc-Andre Hamelin last night, and I honestly feel like he was able to surpass even this magnificent recording- he brought out so many different layers in the texture and it was just... Utterly indescribable, a truly enormous dynamic range, utter coherency to the massive structure and it was just utterly superb. This is one of the best recordings without a doubt, but what I heard last night was truly stunning.
Haden Plouffe a
This is one of the most pleasing sonata's I've listened to in a long time!
Schubert, à jamais tu resteras dans nos coeurs.
There's something about that repeating G-flat trill in the opener; it seems like the world stops and waits for it for just a moment. I like especially its occurrence right before the recap, and then again at the very end of the movement before the final cadences.
I’m so pleased to have found this piece. Better later than never
I can read notes, but reading music is completely another thing. Watching the notes pass with the pianist playing turned the notes on the page into music. What a remarkable gift it is to be able to write music and transform the written notes into a performance as beautiful, poignant, and powerful as this.
Sounds like a lot of those magic modulations involve moving to Flat 6, which, yes, can sound magical. That also gives a clue about the tonal relationship between c# and C, I speculate, since E is the relative major of c# and C is the Flat 6 of E. Noticing that the two chords have a D# -> E line.
This is a marvelous piece and thank you for posting and sharing your notes. I think this is within my technical abilities, so I'm going to give it a spin.
Ashish Kumar, I am grateful and humbled by your harmonic analysis of this miracle of a composition. Thank you for your investment of intelligence in us! Yes, the sweetness of melodic line for which Schubert-and Handel-are beloved, leaves a student of music theory completely slammed when each composer, but most gymnastically Schubert, pulls a four-step modulation through keys that should be surrounded with scary names like “past pluperfect imperative.” But the non-scholar just glides dreamily over these because Schubert’s flawless emotional judgment and Romantic expressive skills make it all sound inevitable.
I count Schubert among the six or seven most profoundly gifted composers of Common Practice’s 300 years who leave us thinking they didn’t write works like this for us, but rather we were born to hear it.
thank you kindly
Very nice performance indeed.
I started learning this shortly before my grandmother passed away, and desperately wanted to play the second movement at her funeral. Unfortunately the church wouldn't let me. Always makes me think of her now
Why wouldn’t they let you? I don’t want a funeral, I want a celebration of my life. Play all the music you want. Hell, talk shit about me, I can’t hear you, I’ll be dead! I’m sorry for your loss.
おお、その教会はこの曲がリストのソナタのように高尚な曲である事を理解していなかったようだ...その教会の方々には悪いが宗教曲以外を一貫に見下す態度はとても古い価値観と言わざるを得ません
他の有名な例だと教会は葬式の形式に囚われてフォーレのレクイエムを拒否したりなどまであります、我々の価値観からすれば教会は感情が無いと言われても仕方がないでしょうね
another level of music altogether!
My favorite sonata i'he ever heard❤😊
Thank you.
Heard it live today and it's even more beautiful now.
Schubert himself is music, music of otherly world.
El primer movimiento de esta sonata y el mismo de la primera de Schumann son verdaderamente alucinantes. Muy diferentes al de la Patética de Beethoven, pero de un romanticismo desbordante.
Gracias por subirla. ❤
To me this is the spiritual conclusion to the Classical Era.
I would give anything to hear late Schubert...
This Masterpiece couldn’t be described better…👍👏
La hermosura de la Música del divino Franz en este moderado y dulce inicio campestre lleno de contraste interseccionado con sus típicas deliciosas y encantadoras melodías,un regalo exquisito para el oído humano, recordemos que Schubert era Beethoveniano quizá como ningún otro compusitor de su época y se inspira aquí en la misma naturaleza y el campo descaradamente al igual que su ídolo y maestro genio absoluto de Bonn cuya fuente de inspiración principal y suprema como no podía ser de otra manera:LA NATURALEZA,EL COSMOS de ahí al escuchar al divino Ludwig nos evoca las maravillas naturales y su Música suena mucho más imponente que cualquiera,para terminar el genio de Bonn tanto admiraba al genial vienés que exclamó en su lecho delante de su discípulo:"me parece que en este hombre hay una chispa divina"no podía estar más acertado,tan sabías y geniales eran sus obras composiciones como frases, aforismos modelo,por ej:"amo más a un árbol que a un hombre"
Richters performance is profound just like the Chopin Etudes of Polinni are which does'nt mean that other pianist can not offer us a new light or perspective on the graet masterpieces which can be heard on you channel. One thing I know for shure. You Mr. Kumar are a musiclover indeed.
Agreed but Richter is Richter . David Jamison
I never heard this sonata before but ... Never heard such à lovely composition’ so nice, so gentle, so free in the way of writing small pieces, few notes, in différent harmonies...
I am going to study it (try...) but sûre i Will listen this piece more and more times
this is one of the last compositions of Schubert before he died at the age of 31, so it's a very sad and haunted piece of music.. 😢
Drops from Heaven!
Everyone talks about the first 3 movement, are there anyone who loves all the movements including the 4th? All of the movements rocks for me.
4th is a gem
I can’t believe that is composed only 2 months before the composer’s death...
Good that he takes the first movement exposition repeat: so many pianists don't.
20 minutes of movement, understandable hhah
Given how great that bit right before the repeat is, I would consider it almost a crime not to play it!
Skipping a Schubert repeat is no bueno. :) Curiously he does skip the repeat in the second part of the Scherzo at 33:04.
@@trutwijd there is no repeat after the central part, only at the beginning
Schubert was, in my opinion, the only one who came close to Beethoven in this form.
Jack Fletcher Beethoven loved Schubert’s work ☺️🎹
i would put Chopin and Liszt (h-moll Sonata at least) on the same level (and im a hardcore Beethoven fan, especially Sonata 21, 29, 32 and the pathetique)
His later sonata yes, some of his early ones are sadly pretty bland and forgettable to my ears - feel like he was trying to make some rent money on them - can't fault him if so.
@@adrianh.6022 The most stupid word in the English language is the word "fan"; i am skeptical if you are going to understand why...
@@prager5046 Enthusiast would be a more suitable word i guess
it's my favorite piece
You say in the description : "The second movement contains what is perhaps the most famously moving modulation in Schubert’s work, a sudden shift from C# minor to the remote terrain of C major [26:22] "
I think that it is a modulation from G# minor.
Great thanks for this beautiful rendition.
This is lit
facts
Bravo bravo bravo
9:56 - 12:39 definitely my favorite part.
Though I am not a fan of the Frankfurt School, Theodor Adorna was an interesting music critic. He spoke about a sense of space in Schubert's music. This music feels like a journey. The opening especially reminds me of travelling, whether by train or by car. As a child I recalled looking out the backseat window, watching the hydro lines swing from one post to the next along the back roads and highways. That same rhythm pervades this piece. While also the scherzo reminds me of the joy of traveling, the excitement of leaving but the impatient and blissful longing to arrive.
12:50 magic
Capolavoro!
Dopolovaro
Brutal pounding at 4:00, 5:00, and strangeness of pauses that become interruptions, sets up a pattern of harsh discombobulation - as with 9:14.
Schubert was of the first to use such a radical modulation as F major to C# minor, which happens right at the beginning of the development section of the first movement. I was thinking, "Who in heaven's name is Kovacevich?" I knew him as Stephen Bishop and have not listened to him in years. To me the influence of Myra Hess is profound. It's a lovely performance.
The modulation between the tonic and mediant was most popularized by Liszt when he used the chords side by side
Beethoven’s Hammerklavier has B-flat major but the third movement is in F-sharp minor
I think Beethoven was first
Muy hermosa
I've always found this sonata and especially the last movement somewhat morbid (though maybe that's reading too much into Schubert's personal life at the time he wrote this Sonata), and while Richter's celestially beautiful rendition is very worth listening to, I like the hint of angst that Kovacevich represents.
wwwaldo333 maybe so, but the Richter is loaded with ads, and this one is not!
Schubert is a person that lived fast and died (fortunately or unfortunately) young... but he managed to reach heights and peaks unreachable to most humans and that's why he is UNIQUE among a plethora of so many genius musicians... I wonder did he write down? Or did people notated his music based on his performances? And Imagine they didn't have recording technology back then... Imagine what people felt listening to him perform in a way that would be one not in their lifetime... but in the lifetime of the entire humanity!
Truly beautiful recording of one of the greatest of all masterpieces.
Curious that K doesn’t follow the dynamics very closely In several places, in what is in other regards a meticulously considered, scrupulous, and polished reading.
I've never really listening to Schubert, until I found this xD
In the chapter "They Tell Me It Rained" in An Unquiet Mind there is a scene with "an elegant, moody, and totally charming Englishman", she puts on this song to set the mood. Enjoy :)
"When he arrived -- elegant, just in from a formal dinner party, black tie, white silk evening scarf draped, askew, around his neck, a bottle of champagne in his hand -- I put on Schubert's posthumous Piano SOnata in B-flat, D. 960. It's haunting, beautiful eroticism absolutely filled me with emotion and made me weep." (pg 162)
I'm convinced that Genesis listened to Schubert
Not only Genesis! There's plenty of material here for a multitude of fine pop songs, ballads, Jazz improvisations.
Schubert composed this 2 months before he died. He knew he was dying and I think for the first time he composed what he really wanted. He composed for himself and not to please others or for $$. Such a tragedy to have lost him so young! I know everyone speaks of Mozart having died young, but Schubert was like 4-5 years younger than Mozart, and not to mention Pergolesi, he was only 26 when he died. I would have loved to have seen the great music they could have accomplished if they had lived into their 60s. Let just for a second imagine if J.S. Bach had died in his 20s or 30s, we would have lost so much!
Wow oh wow, you can really hear where Rzewski got some of the harmonic ideas in The People United variations from this.
I will never forgive you for placing ads in the middle of this priceless masterpiece. Ever.
You'll have to take that dispute up with YT, since I'm not the one who puts them there (and, in any case, they are the only reason you get to listen to this free on YT).
@@AshishXiangyiKumar fair enough.
@@johnphillips5993 Ever?
@@johnphillips5993 lol
I'll let you into a secret. These blasphemous interruptions can be completely quelled by installing an ad-blocker. A free and totally effective one is adguard adblocker. Forgive yourself for having delayed so long. Do you know what bliss is? Listening without ads!
Ashish, are you familiar with Donald Francis Tovey's great essay "Tonality in Schubert," in which he discusses the modulations in the first movt. of D. 960? It's brilliant.
Thank you so much for the recommendation!!!😍
Do you think the piano it was played on had an effect on the sound? Because I agree, it sounds very different despite being clearly a piano.
I think there was a piano from the Festival Hall in London that he always liked to use for recordings, I dunno if its the piano or what but often there is a very misty sound
There's a translucency and intimacy to his sound, which he has always attributed to Myra Hess' teachings.
what do you think of zimerman’s recent recording of this sonata on dg? i’d love to have another video with his interpretation
Yes his performance is marvelous
you're cute, just saying
It’s very, very good. Reminds me a lot of his Chopin interpretations in sensibilities. I think they will go down as classical recordings of the piece
@@pookz3067 That's precisely the problem, Zimerman plays Schubert as if it was Chopin.
Zimerman has never been a good Schubertian in my opinion. His playing of this sonata (and the A major, D.959, for that matter) feels very casual. His rubato is mostly out of place and his tone, while still very beautiful when isolated, doesn't seem to work with Schubert. Honestly it's a pretty bland performance.
@@MisterPathetique As a massive Zimerman worshipper I have to sadly agree somewhat. His Chopin, Liszt and Beethoven are otherworldly and often incomparable but his Schubert is a little too tame for such a mentally tortured and wild composer harmonically. It's still an excellent recording though and I think his more reserved style does suit the Impromptus quite nicely. It all depends on the listener's tastes at the end of the day and it's hard to judge what is "good or bad" at this level.
This music is one of the best things ever done by a human being. People should do more wonderfull things like this than to kill each other for some silly reason.
20:00
Reminds me of Beethoven :O
Is it so? Schubert have lived for a few years after Beethoven's 9th
this is innacurate - Schubert requested op.131 to be played on his deathbed
Beethoven was better.
IN YOUR OPINION.
The incredible quality of the Schubert writing here in his late B-flat work; the poignant urgency of transcendence depicted--at least according to my brain,--yes, these qualities remind me of Beethoven's Sonata number 32. And yes, that would be my opinion, as best I can phrase it.
schubert-the classical composer thats deemed a romantic
No, a Romantic composer who uses the formal structures of Classicism. Thoroughly Romantic.
Period? If you mean "Style" you could NOT be more wrong. If you mean, "period" you are even more wrong.
He is a Romantic composer. Consult any biographical dictionary or Grove's or any source on composers. He is thoroughly and completely a Romantic composer. A silly discussion, as any 1st year student of music knows this.
Proof that you are a beginner or dilettente is that you seriously say he "was born and Published a majority of his works in the last 10 years of the classical era" as if that has ANY meaning whatsoever.
"I would assert," is another clue. Something students say to make themselves sound smarter.
Once again, a silly discussion. Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, Mendelssohn, all had classical "Leanings," as you say (another clue). They were ALL Romantic composers.
Your opinions are pointless. Go back to school little girl.
Both Beethoven and Schubert were romantic (even Schubert less). It's true that is tricky, but the both enter in the definition the man against the world (Missa Solemnis, Schubert life). Then, though they were admired beethoven used music for himself (heiligenstadt) just as Schubert. Schubert way of building melodies is completely classical, but, in contrast beethoven's melodies and way of expression is much more evolved not just evoking but even arriving to schumann, chopin or other romantic composers. Beethoven usually remained in the classical formal structure, but Schubert didn't. I think that's enough for proving that they were romantic. Other claims I think that come from mistaking their music and their point of view.
Schubert was NOT "less" of a Romantic than Beethoven. How absurd. Beethoven, who's work is not easily categorized is a Romantic/Classicist but his music rises above mere stylistic labeling. Schubert, more "evolved."? I would like to know where you earned your degree in musicology, the University of Coney Island, perhaps?
Their "point of view'?? On what? The weather? Their point of view on sports? Come on.
I love everything about this, but my favorite parts are from Movement 2 from 19:57 - 22:55 and 25:29 - 29:16 (especially the ending from 27:30) 😌
Such beautiful playing. Not percussive, still tender in the louder exciting moments.
One of the most beautiful pieces of classical music. But I prefer the Richter's version.
So do I. And then there's Richter's Brahms second piano. Sublime.
10:20
21:50
Who plays this beautiful piece?
It's most wonderful
15:58 In that bar the highest A in the last beat is missing a sharp accidental
its missing your sharp eyes
I usually like Ashish's selections, but I feel this one is a miss. Kovacevich plays with a truly lovely tone, and I can hear his commitment (and not only in the humming, a la Glenn Gould), but I feel he's missed the point. This sounds more like Beethoven; it lacks the overall mood setting that makes Schubert unique. Fatally, Kovacevich's rubato is cloying and a bit precious, garbling the long-breathed melodic line rather than adding momentum. Much prefer the Uchida and Richter versions.
I think transferring from B flat major to C sharp minor is amazing. It is same as c major to f-sharp major.
That scherzo could almost be a Shostakovich prelude.
No