Schubert: Piano Sonatas Nos 4 & 20

Schubert
Piano Sonatas: No. 4 in A minor, D537; No. 20 in A, D959
Garrick Ohlsson (piano)
Hyperion CDA68398   65:58 mins

If you like your Schubert unfussy and unsentimental, then this recording from Garrick Ohlsson might be for you. The American pianist, who won the International Chopin competition in 1970, has recorded Schubert once before as part of his varied discography. Of the composer’s 21 sonatas, he appears to be particularly drawn to those in keys of A. On both Schubert releases, he pairs a sonata in A minor with one in A major. Here, he chooses the composer’s earliest complete sonata, written when he was just 22, and one of the three late sonatas, composed in 1828. Although, of course, given Schubert’s untimely death, that puts them only just over a decade apart.

Here, Ohlsson emphasises the kinship between the two works, with an interpretative approach that remains broadly the same. His articulation is never less than precise, his fingers always nimble, emphasising the horizontal lines of the music. His touch is robust but never overpowering, often delicate, finding carefully judged shades of piano and pianissimo. The A minor, D537, though an early work, already displays the composer’s hallmarks: the unexpected modulations to distant keys that transport us to other emotional realms in the first movement; the gently ambling melody of the Allegretto quasi Andantino; the stark, unison A minor scale opening the finale.

Ohlsson’s performance of the A major is less convincing. The emotional range feels strangely muted here, short-changing those heart-wrenching bittersweet moments Schubert does so well. In the Andantino, which traces a sort of crystallised madness, there is a sense of the music’s lonely beauty but not the inexorable power it should unleash, and the careful third movement and finale rather underwhelm.

Rebecca Franks