Octo_Russ

Schubert - Piano Sonata 21 [Kovacevich] 

This is the eleventh time this Piano Sonata makes it into my Blog, it's my favourite Piano Sonata of all time, and it's a joy to listen to every 2 or 3 months that i get round to it, here's my top six favourite discs of this work,

 1 - Alfred Brendel

 2 - Mitsuko Uchida

 3 - Stephen Kovacevich

 4 - Murray Perahia

5 - Paul Lewis

 6 - Maurizio Pollini

Kovacevich comes in third, it's a great searching performance, not the best recorded, a bit too resonant, but the depth of the reading makes up for any limitations in recording, i played this disc in the second month of my Blog [5th February 2010], albeit it was the Hyperion version of this performance last time.

Stephen Kovacevich is American, his surname comes from his Croatian Father, he's now 71, and he made this recording in 1994, the front cover portrait [by David Thompson] is a wonderful study, showing Kovacevich leaning on the piano, mirror image in the varnish, a stark black and white photo, it's a really nice image.

The first movement has that sublime poetry about it, cast in B Flat Major, it sounds at times as if it's in the minor, Kovacevich plays the exposition repeat, which makes the first movement last 20 minutes, and with the whole Sonata lasting 42 minutes, this now tips the balance of the whole work almost into this first movement, 

Here's Alfred Brendel playing the first movement on YouTube.