Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi interprets Schubert’s last three piano sonatas (D958-D960) on his PENTATONE debut album, after years of engagement with these extraordinary works. These...

Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi interprets Schubert’s last three piano sonatas (D958-D960) on his PENTATONE debut album, after years of engagement with these extraordinary works. These sonatas continue to fascinate pianists and listeners until this very day. They are arguably among the most existential music ever written for the piano, full of beauty and sadness, celebrating life and at the same time anticipating the composer’s untimely death. Even if Schubert was barely thirty years old when he wrote these works, they reveal the otherworldly and detached nature of what is often described as “late style”, while the music remains highly expressive and personal.

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REVIEW:

Piemontesi’s instinctive good taste means he never indulges in histrionics, and operates on the principle that understatement can carry more emotional power than its converse. This performance of D958 is the best I have ever heard. His D959 exhibits the same virtue. The D960, recorded live and technically immaculate, is glorious.

– BBC Music Magazine