Tasmin Little, Schubert Chamber Works (Chandos)The general consensus would have Schubert not far behind the three giants, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Radio 3 devoted a week to playing nothing but Schubert, as they did for the others. Rather uncharitably, I wouldn't put him there and, even less charitably, I'd say he was a decorous version of Beethoven or a Mozart tribute act. Neither of those things are bad things to be, the Unfinished Symphony is a beautiful thing and Schubert did all he did by the age of 31. It's just that, on the first of these two discs, he is very pleasant company for an hour an a quarter but by the end, I don't feel much the wiser for it.
The first disc is four Sonatas expressedly for 'piano and violin' and, so, duets more than they are violin pieces with accompaniment. Piers Lane perhaps deserves rather more parity in the billing. Since one is accustomed to hearing the piano in a violin sonata as the second instrument, however, it is difficult not to do so here even if the theme in the D 385 is as much in the piano as the violin and swapped about unselfishly. The violin still has more capacity for light and shade, though, and Tasmin's touch is gentle and strong, restrained and then more boisterous.
The 1757 Guadagnini sounds as rich and lyrical as ever, the sonatas flowing together with their themes like currents in a river but the more captivating pieces, for me, come on the second disc.
The rippling ('tremolando') piano on the first movement of the Fantasie D 934 underscores long melodic lines in a high register on the violin. It is redolent of some loss reconciled, is tantalisingly all too brief at 3.53 before moving straight into a more energetic Allegretto that is ostensibly much more bravura than the opening and, again, piano and violin interplay or follow each other quite dazzlingly.
Tim Hugh on cello is the partner on the sonata for arpeggione, D 821, before all three musicians are joined together in the finale, the Adagio D 897. Among the last pieces he wrote, one wonders if this is a glimpse of where Schubert might have been going because he still had most of his adult creative life potentially ahead of him when he died. It is slow, meditative and rises to greater heights of passion, stretching towards profounder but less prettified statements on the basis of an uncomplicated theme. It is the piano that plays the most notes but the strings that say the most. By the end of disc two, one feels like one has been somewhere.
As a double CD, this is an excellent value release, presumably a must for Schubert fans. I had to have it because I'm a Tasmin admirer and I'm not disappointed. I recently bought the Debussy String Quartet on a disc having heard it played live a few weeks ago and was less thrilled with it on disc so heaven knows how much more compelling these pieces would be in a recital. However good the recording and whatever you play it on, there is no substitute for actually being in the presence of the performance.