Duo Pleyel - Schubert: Lebensstürme; Music for piano four-hands - MusicWeb International

Schubert’s piano duos, especially those from his final years, are among his finest works. Here they are presented in company with two earlier pieces for the same combination. As the blurb for this Linn release aptly states, ‘Schubert’s great F minor Fantasie, although justly famous, represents only a small proportion of his music for piano four-hands’. There are more than 30 such works, and I do hope, therefore, that Linn will give us more from this source.

The Duo Pleyel, appropriately, have recorded it on a Pleyel fortepiano of 1848, a little later than the music but closer to what Schubert would have heard than any modern instrument. It’s the three late works that will attract attention to this recording. The Duo Pleyel give plenty of room for these works to expand.

The Linn recording quality is good, as are Richard Egarr’s notes, if slightly short in detail of the individual works and a little too inclined to link Schubert’s music and his health, but only a little – if there is one composer where it seems almost inevitable to make the connection, it must be Schubert. This is a very worthwhile addition to the many fine recordings of this four-handed music.