Stephen Hough: Schubert Piano Sonatas D664, 769a & 894
Hyperion Records

In having lived a mere thirty-one years, it's no surprise Schubert (1797-1828) left behind incomplete works, the most famous his ‘Unfinished' eighth symphony. This second disc of Schubert sonatas on Hyperion Records from Stephen Hough (the first appeared in 1999) and the third of six albums he recorded during London's 2020 lockdown includes another such work, the Piano Sonata in E minor D769a, which in lasting but a single minute makes it a fascinating curio. Joining it on the release are two early pieces for solo piano, the Sonata in A major, D664 and the towering Sonata in G major, D894. Recorded at London's Henry Wood Hall in April 2020, the recording comes in at a breezy hour and offers a terrific account of Hough's playing.

The recording begins with the G major sonata, which was not, in fact, published as a sonata but instead a “Fantasia, Andante, Menuetto and Allegretto,” a choice made in 1827 by Schubert's publisher that accounts for why the work's often called the composer's ‘Fantasy' Sonata. Despite its expansive, near-forty-minute length, the general tone of the work is serene and intimate, a quality reflected in the pianissimo pitch with which each movement ends. Entrancement sets in quickly when a graceful, almost supplicating theme introduces the “Molto moderato e cantabile,” with Hough's voicing appropriately delicate, deliberate, and assured. Animated elaborations follow that increase in volume and intensity, but with the originating theme repeatedly returned to the overall air of calm remains largely in place. Half the opening movement's length, the “Andante” is no less memorable for its eight-minute duration, especially when—declamatory sections notwithstanding—its eloquent passages are often delivered at a hush. While the subsequent “Menuetto: Allegro moderato” charms for the vitality of its chord-driven expressions and the lyrical quality of its softer episodes, the concluding “Allegretto” accomplishes the same for its élan and radiant, carefree spirit.

In being so brief (hardly more than thirty bars, apparently), the unfinished E minor work serves more as a rest-stop between the two wide-ranging excursions (to Hough's credit, it's presented exactly as Schubert left it). Finished in July 1819 when Schubert was twenty-two years old, the A major sonata is the shortest of his completed piano sonatas and also one of his most popular due to its affable song-like character. That's established when the “Allegro moderato” starts with a endearingly pretty melody and then builds on it with equally captivating explorations. Schubert revisits the mellifluous theme and comes at it from different angles without straying too far from the soothing atmosphere established at the outset. Whereas delicacy characterizes the work's central movement, its tone largely elegiac and nostalgic, youthful animation infuses the acrobatic patterns coursing through the “Allegro.”

In a 2019 essay collection, Hough wrote that Schubert's “inexplicable genius … acted as a conduit for music of the most intense beauty and human expressiveness, without ever being calculating or self-conscious.” Something similar could be said of Hough, whose insightful playing presents the composer's material with a like-minded naturalness and refreshing lack of contrivance. Hough isn't only a pianist of extraordinary ability, by the way, but also a composer, writer, award-winning recording artist, and visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London and Juilliard School in New York. Throughout this superb account of Schubert's piano artistry, the clarity of Hough's articulation and command of execution and pacing make the composer's material resonate all the more powerfully.

June 2022