Revisiting the first of Alfred Brendel’s several recorded versions of the Schubert C minor sonata leads me to conclude that it’s his finest. Tensile drive and continuity mark his assertive, starkly lit trajectory through the first movement, while the pianist’s eloquent restraint and ravishing soft playing make the most of the slow movement’s harmonic inspiration. Notice also how Brendel’s imaginative accentuations and subtle dynamic scaling in the Finale prevent his tightly controlled rhythm from sounding rigid. The performance contrasts to the pianist’s looser, more finickily detailed remakes.
In a similar way Brendel’s first recording of Schubert’s unfinished C major D. 840 sonata pursues a forward-moving, Beethovenian path in the first movement that easily absorbs the pianist’s occasional broadenings of phrase in its wake. True, his more spacious remakes allow the music more breathing room, yet the unrelenting intensity here is a far cry from Richter’s Olympian gravitas–in other words, Brendel is fast, Richter is slow! Brendel brings requisite lightness and grace to the German Dances and devises his own, effective ordering.
Brendel’s renown contrasts with the late Bruce Hungerford’s present-day, undeserved obscurity. Hungerford’s near-complete Beethoven cycle for Vanguard is a model of intelligent, insightful, and tasteful virtuosity. Such words prove equally apt for Hungerford’s account of Schubert’s big, posthumous A major sonata, although other pianists bring a wider dynamic and emotional spectrum to this music, notably in the slow movement and Scherzo. The piano tone appears relatively dry and pared down (the tinny treble is especially unlovely to endure) next to the imposing, colorful sonorities Hungerford elicits in a live Wanderer Fantasy, recorded in January, 1961 (never issued during the pianist’s lifetime). Here we can take issue with Hungerford’s (not Schubert’s) tempo extremes while respecting his unflagging energy and hair-raising fingerwork. To sum up this reissue: you should hear Hungerford, but you must hear Brendel.
