Schubert: Piano Sonatas in A minor D845 and B flat D960 – review

Maria João Pires is a pianist who seems incapable of producing an ugly sound or fashioning a phrase that is not perfectly moulded. Her playing is wonderfully selfless, and Schubert, like Mozart, often brings out its best qualities. Pires has recorded Schubert's B flat major Sonata D960 before, as part of a series of Schubert discs for Erato in the mid-1990s, and in terms of timings the two performances are often strikingly similar. In the 20-minute opening movement, she takes just five seconds less than she did before, though both the slow movement and finale are significantly longer this time around. What remains unchanged is the patience with which Pires allows Schubert's music to unfold so naturally that nothing seems forced or contrived. It's an approach that suits the B flat Sonata rather better than it does the A minor D845, where there is something too passive about the result; the excursions into remote keys, especially in the first movement, should generate more drama than Pires gives them here.