Sonate d 959 - Fantaisie d 940 - Allegro d 974 - Rondo d 951

Description

Schubert’s imagination was shaped by the poetry he set to music throughout his life. Pianist Philippe Cassard has always felt close to these Wanderers, to these romantic landscapes studded with stars and moons, crossed by mountains and valleys, to these changeable states of mind. Recording the Sonata D959 (completed in September 1828) requires a deep maturity acquired through concert experience. Philippe Cassard wanted to add to it the three major works for four hands composed over the previous nine months so that the listener could retrace the chronological path in reverse, starting with the Sonata and ending with the Fantasy, and draw the conclusion of a piano freed from all constraints, orchestral, making use of everything at hand, cultivating the most extreme contrasts.??Of all the possible combinations in chamber music, “four hands” is the most complicated to bring to life: the seating is not natural (each player is off-center, there is no longer any stereophonic sound), only one of the two pianists uses the pedals, the left hand of the first and the right hand of the second are constantly getting in each other’s way, which sometimes forces acrobatic positions and contortions if one really wants to play the written notes properly. And “playing together” naturally is a real challenge. Paradoxically, it is the very configuration of musical friendship par excellence! But between sight-reading and the desire to form a truly “professional” duo, there are hundreds of hours of rehearsal...?? Cédric Pescia has the Schubertian touch. He knows how to convey the Sehnsucht, that pervasive melancholy attached to so many of Schubert’s works. In his phrasing, he has adopted the gait of the walker crossing Schubert’s landscapes. His tone is singing, delicate, but he can unleash storms in the most dramatic passages!?? This album, bringing together four masterpieces from 1828, is an unrestrained declaration of love to Schubert.