CD: Schubert: Piano Sonatas: Paul Lewis

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Most pianists who embark on a Schubert cycle tend to eke out the late masterpieces, pairing each of them on disc with earlier, slighter sonatas and miniatures.

Paul Lewis clearly favours a bolder approach, and for the second instalment of his Schubert pilgrimage for Harmonia Mundi brings together the last two sonatas Schubert wrote.

He is a thoughtful, restrained interpreter who keeps textures transparent. He tends to underplay the rhetoric even in the A major Sonata; he omits the first movement's repeat too, and coupled with his almost skittsh treatment of the development produces a surprisingly intimate account. Equally, the B flat Sonata unfolds without unnecessary promptings; every detail flows naturally from the last, and the flexibility of the tempi, often anticipating a modulation with a ritardando, is never overdone.