The new studio album from Arcadi Volodos captures the master pianist’s finely honed interpretation of Schubert’s late Piano Sonata in A major D 959, as well as three of his very rarely recorded minuets: D 334, D 335 und D 600. After spending years performing and refining his interpretation of Schubert’s penultimate piano sonata, Volodos has now committed the work to “tape” for posterity.

For him, a recording is a personal testament to a creative period’s culmination – this explains the relative rarity of a new Volodos recordings. Volodos personally selected the three rare minuets to accompany the piano sonata, additionally choosing to pair the D 600 Minuet with the D 610 Trio. Volodos brings these extremely rarely recorded works to life with his unmistakable tonal brilliance and stylistic elegance. Released 17 years ago, Volodos’s first – and, until now, only – recording of Schubert’s works, coupling the Sonatas in E major D 157 and G major D 894, garnered much praise. “Here is irrefutable proof of Arcadi Volodos’s genius and versatility,” wrote Gramophone magazine at the time. The German specialist magazine Fono Forum observed that “Volodos makes the piano sing like few other pianists today”.

In the intervening years, Volodos’s relationship to the works of Schubert has only deepened. Reviewing his performance at this year’s Salzburg Festival, Der Standard wrote, “When Arcadi Volodos plays Schubert, time stands still.” So, too, this recording offers a snapshot of a master pianist at the height of his interpretative powers.

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REVIEWS:

Every phrase is so exquisitely turned, so perfectly graded in its nuances, so ideally blended – harmonically, melodically and in relation to what comes before and after – that it could be placed on exhibit for all to wonder at. Like all the great virtuosos, he knows how to bring spaciousness to the most technically demanding passages and inner life to the simplest.

– Gramophone

When you witness the palpable stillness Volodos conjures from the opening of the Andante, and when you hear his chiaroscuro, a light and shade beyond the reach of virtually any other pianist, you feel above all compelled to marvel at Schubert’s genius.

– International Piano