Octo_Russ

Schubert - Piano Sonata 21 [Lewis] 

It was only a couple of days ago that i was raving about the Uchida disc with Piano Sonatas 19 & 20 on it, a now here's another great disc with late Schubert Sonatas, Paul Lewis is able to fit these last two Sonatas on the same disc as he omits the exposition repeats, and lewis is very much a Brendel disciple, being taught by the great man, Lewis is likely to become a Pianistic giant, i hope he branches out further than Brendel, taking in Chopin and French Composers, i played this work last summer [8th June 2011].

Paul Lewis is English, he's now 40, still young enough to have the best years ahead of him, he recorded this disc in 2003, the front cover photo is excellent [by Alvaro Yanez], a clever shot at the treble end of the keyboard, lovely creative use of those hands, lots of nice elements in the shot, well done Harmonia Mundi.

The first and third movements were tremendous, but yet again i have to laud Schubert for the first movement, one of the greatest creations in the piano repertory, and the opening is one of the most beautiful things to ever start a piece, wonderful delicacy here by Lewis [0:00-0:58], he gets the speed right, in my book it should take 1 minute, it's enchanting stuff, in a lot of ways it's very much a loose bunch of variations on this opening 'theme', i love the way it opens up like a flower [1:01+], and there are some strong forte sections [1:39-2:09], there's a lovely sad 'variation' about a third of the way through [5:04-5:35], and the one right after it [5:35-6:17], which is nice and bubbly, .

Here's Zoltan Kocsis playing the first movement on YouTube, though it's a slow performance!.