Pianist Wu Han pays scrupulous attention to Schubert’s dynamic marks and accents in the A major sonata’s imposing first movement, but there’s a self-conscious quality to her clipped articulation and compartmentalized, slightly square phrasing that makes the music sound picky and small of scale. By contrast, she’s perfectly attuned to the Scherzo’s combination of whimsy and petulance, and her sweet, singing tone sustains the slow movement’s outer sections without the need to emote (although she doesn’t let go enough in the movement’s anguished central episode). Next to Perahia’s ardent poetry and Pollini’s flexible, perpetually singing interpretation, however, Han’s lackluster, characterless, and dynamically restricted finale is a letdown.
Her tone and expression considerably open up and ripen when joined by cellist David Finckel in one of the most polished and elegantly shaded performances of Schubert’s Arpeggione sonata on disc. The music’s unwieldy layout for the instrument does not faze the cellist one bit as he leaps from one register extreme to another with no sign of strain or intonational compromise. The slow movement is a marvel, highlighted by Finckel’s exquisitely controlled long, sustained notes and Han’s sensitive support, followed by a seamless transition into the finale that you only notice after the fact. Buy this for the Arpeggione sonata.
