Barry Douglas SCHUBERT Works for Solo Piano - Volume 2

After launching his Schubert cycle in bold fashion with the final sonata, D960, Barry Douglas continues with two other works from the last year of Schubert’s life. This is big, bold Schubert-playing, an approach that he applies equally to the Impromptus and the A major Sonata. I have to say right at the outset that I’m not mad about Chandos’s recording, which seems over-resonant. That might account for why the ‘fingeriness’ of the Second and Fourth Impromptus doesn’t really come across. Just the briefest of comparisons with Imogen Cooper (Avie, 7/10) or Maria João Pires (DG, 5/98) takes you into a completely different world. But Douglas does lend the C minor Impromptu plenty of rhetoric, while the G flat major has a fine eloquence and sense of line. Others colour it more tellingly, though, not least Lupu (Decca, 2/84) – superbly inward – and Zimerman (DG, 5/91), who imbues it with a rare depth of sorrow.

Rhetoric is to the fore in the A major Sonata too, with Douglas enjoying the contrast between chordal and triplet-writing in the opening movement. But what is sometimes obscured is an underlying sense of journeying that comes from a regular pulse; Shai Wosner’s recent account (Onyx, 1/15) is impressive in this regard. The slow movement proceeds at a heavy tread, weighted with emotion. Perhaps too much so; by comparison Perahia (Sony Classical, 8/03) and Andsnes (EMI, 8/02) are pacier. And in the peace-shattering outburst, Douglas doesn’t reach the same degree of intensity as Wosner. After a scherzo that is less precision-engineered than Perahia and Andnses, Douglas paces the finale well, but again I find some of the rubato a touch self-conscious. All of those mentioned above proceed with greater naturalness, and for haloed sound, coupled with incident, none compels more than Lupu. Brian Newbould’s notes are a fine addition, however. (Harriet Smith / Gramophone)