Schubert: Piano Works for 4 Hands

Variations in B flat major, D. 968A
Rondo in A Major, D. 951
Duo in A Minor, Allegro 'Lebensstuerme', D. 947
Divertissement ueber franzoesische in B minor Motive: Andantino varie, D.
823/11
Fantasie in F Minor, D. 940

Rico Gulda, Christopher Hinterhuber, piano four hands

Naxos 8.555930

Summary: Glorious music in an usually dismissed form - piano four hands

Four-hand piano music in Schubert's time was primarily Hausmusik - music
for two amateur pianists to play for their own amusement. But only one
of the pieces - the Variations in B flat, D. 968A - really falls into
that category. All the other pieces are big and serious, and one of them,
the Fantasie in F minor, D. 940, is an acknowledged masterpiece of the
piano literature.

The earliest piece, the aforementioned Variations, is light-hearted,
not too difficult, and played in sparkling fashion here by Gulda and
Hinterhuber. Rico Gulda, by the way, is the youngest child of famous
Viennese pianist, Friedrich Gulda. He has also made a fine recording of
Schumann's 'Album fuer die Jugend' for Naxos.

The Rondo in A major, D. 951 and the Duo in A minor 'Lebensstuerme'
('Life's Storms') are actually two movements of a never-finished grand
sonata for piano four hands, also written in Schubert's final year. The
Duo is a huge and complex sonata-form first movement and the Rondo is
the intended final movement of the sonata. They were published separately
and indeed are here played in reverse of their intended order. The
duo-pianists do a fine job of pointing up both the drama and form of the
Duo and the lyricism of the Rondo.

The Divertissement on a French Theme in B minor, D. 823, a set of theme
and four variations, was written two years before Schubert's lamentably
early death and it is not quite as serious nor as skilled as the sonata
movements that precede it on this disc. But it would take fairly advanced
players to pull it off, as this team does.

The Fantasie, which is the only piece most people are likely to have
heard in concert, is, as I've said, a masterpiece, written only six
months before Schubert's death. In its twenty minutes it ranges from the
opening poignance to sunny lyricism to stark agitation which then returns
to the opening F minor opening and a quiet close. It has been recorded
many times.  In modern times the nonpareil recording has been that of
Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu; their recording, made in the mid-1980s,
has never been out of the catalog, it's _that_ good. Still, this recording
is fine, except for some note-spinning that comes towards the end; it
begins to sound like Czerny exercises at that point. I am assuming that
our pianists lost their concentration for a few seconds.

A word about the sound: the piano has a somewhat clattery extreme upper
register and it sounds, to these ears, to be slightly out of tune. This
is not, in itself, too bothersome because that register is not used too
often in these pieces. But it _is_ noticeable. The recorded sound itself
is fine.

Scott Morrison