Piano Sonata No 20 D959 / Four Impromptus

"Alain Planès proves himself as adept with Schubert as he is with Debussy. Indeed, this is one of the most satisfying recordings of the big Sonata in A, worthy of standing with those by Schnabel, Serkin, Brendel, and Kovacevich. The structural projection is clear throughout, with just the right amount of forward momentum...The combined control of touch, pedal, and dynamics in the concluding bars of the first movement (Sonata in A D 959) produces a wash of pastel sound that is quite magical in effect."
- Fanfare

"Alain Planès is at his best in the A major Sonata's tender, inwardlooking moments, catching something of Schubert's otherworldly atmosphere."
- BBC Music Magazine

'Happiness on the edge of the abyss.' Composed in the year of his death, Schubert's twenty-second and penultimate Piano Sonata is one of those masterpieces in which the composer seems to have found complete serenity. It is the most elaborately developed sonata he ever wrote, and it is also the most closely related to the Four Impromptus, Op. 142, written a few months before and which his publisher thought were too difficult for bagatelles! It is true that in spite of their sublime freshness, these marvellous pieces go far beyond mere bagatelles.