Schubert - Piano Sonata 20 [Uchida] And more Schubert!, after Beethoven it's Schubert that i feel is the next greatest Composer, his last 3 Piano Sonatas were not accepted when they first appeared, but slowly have seeped into the conciousness of the world as masterpieces, and Uchida is a great interpreter.
Mitsuko Uchida is of course Japanese, born in 1948, now 62 years old, she recorded this disc in 1997, she has recorded a cycle of the late works of Schubert, and this cycle has some nice booklet cover photo's, this is one of the best [by Walter Schels], a head and shoulders black and white side profile shot, with a dark background highlighting the face, and all that mass of curls as a 'wallpaper' backdrop for the lettering!, it's good to have identical pics of Uchida front and back, apart from the back photo being larger than the front, very nice.
The first movement is the one that i found so compelling, the recording has a very good piano sound, a little bit reverberant, but nicely caught, i like Philips way with piano recordings, again i notice the staccato camp that Uchida belongs to, but she isn't excessive,
Here's Alfred Brendel playing the first movement on YouTube.
