Piano Sonatas Nos, 14, 15, 21, etc : Cooper (2CD)

Imogen Cooper / Schubert Live, Volume 3

Schubert:
12 German Dances D790
Piano Sonata No. 14 in A minor, D784
Hungarian Melody in B minor D817
Piano Sonata No. 15 in C major, D840 'Relequie'
4 Impromptus, D899
Piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat major, D960
Allegretto in C minor, D915

Imogen Cooper, piano

Live recordings made at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London
on 15 April 2008 (CD1 tracks 6 & 7), 22 April 2009 (CD 1 track 5) and 8 December 2009 (all other tracks)

The highly respected and acclaimed pianist Imogen Cooper is enjoying something of a renaissance with her ongoing series of Schubert’s solo piano works on Avie. International accolades for the recordings abound, from NPR to the BBC, Gramophone to the New York Times. Imogen continues her exploration of the composer’s late piano music with Volume 3, recorded live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in December 2009.

Schubert was the ultimate romantic and Imogen brings out the full spectrum of his complex and colourful compositions, from the gentle German Dances, D790, and pearl-like Impromptus, D899, to the turbulent A minor Sonata, D 784, and mighty B flat Sonata, D960.

Imogen says: “I’m not afraid of being described as a Schubert specialist,” even though her active repertoire ranges from Bach to Thomas Ades. “He has taken up a lot of my waking time for more than 30 years. In fact, you could say that his songs and his piano music have sometimes been close to an obsession for me.” It is more than 20 years since Cooper made a live and recorded survey of all the piano music Schubert composed from early 1823 until his death in 1828 at the age of 31. “One of the reasons I’ve taken it all up again is that I feel it ten times more strongly than I did 20 years ago: the message has become more direct to me. Schubert has become even more necessary to my well-being, and I sense strongly that he is important for an audience’s well-being too.” ( Aive )