For his fifth volume of Schubert’s piano works, Barry Douglas turns to a contrasting pair of sonatas composed in the 1820s. The A minor, from 1823, was composed while Schubert suffered an episode of depression following the onset of (and harsh treatment for) syphilis. The D major sonata, however, was written in 1825 on a holiday to Gastein in the Austrian Alps, and is musically more confident and extroverted, reminiscent of the ‘Great’ C major Symphony, begun during the same trip. Douglas completes his program with a pair of Liszt transcriptions of songs from Schwanengesang.
Schubert: Works for Solo Piano, Volume 5 – Barry Douglas
