Schubert and Jorge Bolet may seem rare bedfellows for a virtuoso who excelled in the music of Liszt and Rachmaninov and whose lineage extended, through his teacher David Saperton, to Leopold Godowsky (Saperton’s teacher). But he finds in this music both muscularity and strength and his grasp of the music’s visionary and often extensive and complex structures is revelatory. Some years after this recording, Bolet recorded the Liszt transcriptions of selected Schubert Lieder for Decca and the ability to stretch and spin a melodic line in those celebrated recordings is omnipresent in this ‘pure’ Schubert.
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Piano Sonata No. 14 in A minor, D.784
Piano Sonata No. 20 in A major, D.959
Jorge Bolet, piano