Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Can anyone here know SchubertD960? I would LOVE some advice!

From my experiences, D960 pianists who diverge from Molto Moderato get a lot of controversy but also popularity, with Richter being the prime suspect. Pianists who stick with molto moderato never get any attention, so there are a lot of underrated D960's out there like De Larrocha's.

Adding to the topic of recordings, I wanted to say that Horowitz's interpretation sounded bad to me - I feel like he missed the whole point of the sonata (which in my opinion is to create that "Schubertian" mood). Horowitz's unpredictable improv doesn't work well for the D960.

EDIT: errors

Haha I remember watching Richter's D894 on youtube. Worth watching if you have a whole day to kill

Also on the topic on Schubert, I'd like to say that Kempff's Complete Schubert Piano Sonata cycle is in my opinion THE Schubert recording to own. It personally introduced me to D960 and a host of underrated piano pieces like D459 and D894.

And BTW I think if we were getting into that, we'd have to talk about a lot more than "tapering," but sure, that's an example of the kind of thing we could get into.

Wallace, is there any particular reason that you've been copy/pasting responses all day?

On topic: I can't listen to Richter's first movement. But I agree with DieSchoneMullerin. He gets a lot of "recognition" for having such a slow first movement. I can give him credit for maintaining such a high level of concentration (at least I hope he's concentrating) throughout the sonata, seeing as it takes him 48 minutes to play.

Huh....no wonder it looked familiar!

I think Richter played a lot of pieces slower than most would expect, especially the Rach 2, but some prefer this. I feel the D960 played by Wilhelm Kempff was the best recording I have heard (and I have heard a lot of them!) His playing is mesmerizing. This piece is sublime and I think he loved it as much as I do.

I like that you used the world mesmerizing to describe Kempff's playing. I think that's the perfect word to describe his Schubert interpretations.

Brendel (whose Schubert I generally admire) is also very fine in the D960, but modifies the 'heavenly lengths' in bypassing the exposition repeat. He has his reasons -and has written brilliantly in defense- but I've never been entirely convinced.

Notwithstanding my love for every note of the piece, IMO the only reason to consider taking the repeat in public performance would be to not waste the great 1st ending.

I think that for what it's worth, if we polled AUDIENCES who come to concerts where the piece is to be played, the vote on whether to take the repeat would be pretty heavily nay.

BTW depending on the performer, I might vote yea.

What do they know?

After having played through the opening 24 measures a few times ... (utter agony) ...
I am reminded why I avoid Schubert like the plague ...
it’s all so darn predictable .

Had you chaps noticed how the lad homes in on that inner F to his octave chords and doubles the dose in the LH with a galaxy of the same, tame, lame Fs.

My house has got a tin roof ... so go easy with the rocks ... but I’ve got two large dogs and they have been known to bite.

Just stirring.

I think you need reinforcements: a meteor the size of a baseball is coming your way from on high, from dear Franz. It may be small, but it's very fast, and don't forget E=m x v squared....

If it's from Franz (there have been so many) ...

I might by Haydn.