Most of Schubert’s
sonata fragments derive from the years
1817-23. In the past there have been
attempts at completion but for this
recording pianist Gotttlieb Wallisch
has left them as they stand. It’s a
curious feature of the piano sonatas
that there are even more unfinished
sonatas than completed ones – such was
the fecundity of his imagination and
the dissatisfactions (difficult now
to quantify or analyse) felt regarding
them.
The A flat major D557
provides something of a key conundrum
over whether there is a lost movement.
In three gracious – and extant - movements
this is a fluent and winning work, Gottlieb
even managing to bind together the discursive
writing of the Andante with considerable
skill. The D flat major D567 is genuinely
incomplete, missing one page of the
third movement, but is also more overtly
mature stylistically and was transposed
later into E Flat major, given an added
Minuet and Trio and rechristened D568.
Wallisch is acutely responsive to the
austerity and gravity of the slow movement
but he takes it at a forward moving
tempo; one I can imagine being just
slightly more relaxed. The Moderato
first movement of the C major is delightfully
lyrical and the interpolated Adagio
from D612 works convincingly well –
with Gottlieb breaking off where Schubert
did. In the case of the Allegro conclusion
to D625/505 the stern Beethovenian trill
announces an arresting moment of gravity.
In his notes – as eloquent as his pianism
– Gottlieb notes that the work as a
whole is particularly forward looking,
aligning it specifically with Liszt
and Chopin. Whether one places it there
or not it’s clearly the most important
and imposing music here and receives
playing of a comparable standard.
Wallisch really does
show himself to be a natural and unaffected
Schubertian. He is fortunate to have
a sympathetic acoustic but the performance
kudos rests with him alone.
Jonathan Woolf
See also review
by Paul Shoemaker
Gottlieb Wallisch, piano 