I have heard many performances of these two very appealing Schubert sonatas and the Wanderer Fantasy by a variety if pianists in live concert and...

I have heard many performances of these two very appealing Schubert sonatas and the Wanderer Fantasy by a variety if pianists in live concert and recordings. These performances on Naxos by the Uzbek-born pianist Eldar Nebolsin might very well be my favorites. The playing is insightful, poetic and introspective. Right in tune with the Schubertian keyboard style. The sound quality and tone color of Nebolsin's piano is just beautiful. Nebolsin's keyboard technique also serves the music with a particularly fine sense of phrasing. In fact one does not feel that this pianist is interpreting the music for you but rather allowing the music to come forth. One of the few other pianists from history that I have heard only on record accomplish this naturalness is Ignaz Friedman.

Nebolsin's playing of the stunning Wanderer Fantasy, Schubert's most fiery piece, is more toward the grand and regal side than the aggressive, forward rolling side. I appreciate the piece either way and Nebolsin makes a convincing case for a more cosmic approach that allows for lyricism as well as lightning bolts.

- Greg La Traille, ArkivMusic.com

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Eldar Nebolsin has won first prize and a gold medal at the following competitions:
XI Santander International Piano Competition (Paloma O'Shea International Piano Competition)- Santander Grand Prize and Gold Medal and Prize to Mozart Concerto - Best Performance

2005 Sviatoslav Richter International Piano Competition - The Sviatoslav Richter Prize & Prize for the best performance of a classical concerto for piano and orchestra - (Mozart piano concerto)

Acclaimed for his Naxos recordings of music by Chopin, Liszt, Dohnányi and Rachmaninov, Eldar Nebolsin here fulfills a heartfelt ambition to record important piano works by another great Romantic composer, Franz Schubert, for the label. The passion and pathos of the two sonatas, with their song-like melodies and adventurous harmonies, set the scene for one of Schubert’s most powerful solo piano pieces, the Wanderer Fantasy, a work so technically demanding that Schubert himself is reported to have exclaimed ‘the devil may play it!’. Based on his popular song Der Wanderer, the Fantasy is virtually a four-movement sonata in its own right and a path-breaking masterpiece of the piano literature. - Naxos