Octo_Russ

Schubert - Piano Sonata 17 [Kuerti]

Only a couple of days ago i wrote about Schubert's Piano Sonata 17 [22nd July 2010], and here it is again!, this gives a different view of the same work.

Anton Kuerti is an Austrian, now living in Canada, now 72 years old, this disc was recorded in 1991, Kuerti has recorded the whole of the Schubert Piano Sonatas, i believe on 11 discs, they are available separately, and this is probably the best way of acquiring them, an individual or two, this is probably one of the better releases of the cycle, the sound of the piano is a little bit treble-y, there's somewhat of a lack of warmth in the recording.

Here are the different timings, compared alongside Brendel,

Brendel-----Kuerti

9:23--------7:59

11:53------13:38

9:00--------8:36

8:59--------7:51

Kuerti is faster in the faster movements, but slower in the slow movement, and it's this second movement that i enjoyed this time, it's marked 'con moto', which means 'with movement' or 'with motion', a Piano Sonata would invariably have a slow lyrical movement, in essence this one doesn't particularly have one, but Kuerti has somehow seen fit to slow things down here, and it's taken the role of something slower and gentle, very much sounding like a lieder tune, you expect the singer to come in at any moment, a very nice simple tune indeed, like i said, sounding like an intro to something, but the opening is the piece, Kuerti has some nice little outbursts [3:45 & 5:05], where the music takes on a greater intensity, and inbetween these two outbursts there's a quieter passage [4:13-5:05], where this greater intensity continues in its lyricism, here Kuerti is at his best, and this lyrical passage is repeated in a lovely reprise later [10:12-10:48], and Kuerti also makes the very most of the musics contrasts nicely, but the final analysis is that Brendel brings out the more dancelike aspects of the music to a greater degree, but it's nice to hear Kuerti's take on the music. 

Here's Joy Smith playing the second movement on YouTube.