If you’re at all like me, you might at some point have had the impression that Schubert was an efficient generator of nice melodies and not a lot else. The D.946 Piano Pieces, written just months before Schubert’s death in 1828, are an uncannily good demonstration of how false that impression is - for while Schubert could certainly write a gorgeous melody, there is something cipherlike and subterranean about much of the music here, even when it seems to be at its most good-natured. In No.1, for instance, the agitation established in the A section never quite goes away, even when the music shifts into the major (0:44), by virtue of the boiling textures in the LH and the urgent dotted rhythms in the RH. Even in the B major trio there is something uneasy - for a start, the opening figure of the trio and the A section is virtually identical, and the trills & tremolos in the trio retain a nervous quality. The second trio in Ab also opens with the same dotted upbeat that opens the A and B sections, and despite some beautiful writing in its first half moves into more twilit music terrain in its second half. [Aside: Schubert crossed out this section in his manuscript (tinyurl.com/y7y635ml), though this decision completely baffles me.] No.2 opens with a melody of Mendelsohn-ian sweetness, but its trios contain some of the bleakest music in the whole set. The first (in C minor) contains thirds muttering darkly over a menacing bass; even when it moves into the major it never remains completely comfortable (see the gently grating F# and Ab in the bass at 17:50, for instance). The second trio (in Ab min) has an intense, paralytic sadness, breaking into a kind of desperate anger in its B minor(!) middle section. No.3. is a study in contrast: the flanking sections are dancelike and helter-skelter, with their deceptive syncopations and 5-bar phrases, but the middle section hitches up the tonality by a rapt semitone to suddenly deliver a reverential chorale. Schubert’s casual mastery of modulation is on display throughout No.3, generating some ecstatic colours: see the section that begins at 28:16 and culminates at 28:30.
Sokolov’s playing here is - well, frankly, weird, although I mean that in the most positive sense. This is a performance that makes explicit the emotional complexity of the D.946. The rhythmic manipulation in No.1 serves to emphasize the disturbing aspects of the music - see for instance the way the Bb-Gb leap in bar 5 is stretched out to an agonizing length, the extension of notes at 9:03, or the treatment of the dotted rhythms in the second trio (the semiquavers are drastically shortened, and the dotted quavers stretched out). The tremolos in the first trio are also given dry, anti-lyrical treatment. In No.2’s first trio (16:36) the thirds are played staccato rather than in the indicated legato, giving the phrase an especially martial character, while the bass dissonances are accented at 18:38 (during the repeat). The second trio’s melodic line is sustained with incredible intensity despite the slow tempo. No.3’s natural contrasts are blown up by the big difference in tempo between the A and B sections - the A section is punchy and even fantasy-like at points, while the B section is hypnotic, with each strange, quicksand modulation allowed to slowly uncoil.
Avdeeva has a much more intimate, natural way with this music, and the performance has a profoundly touching narrative quality (see the trios of No.1 & No.3, which receive some of the best renditions I’ve ever heard). The dynamic control and legato touch on display here is extraordinary, and there is a lot of attention paid to small details in the score - see 34:30 and similar, where she carefully clips the phrase after that long chord after just 2 notes, and the two-note slurs observed at 45:38 and all through the trio of No.3. This is not to say there aren’t many intelligent personal touches scattered throughout - the detached phrasing at 34:40, following by a wonderfully liquid touch on the 5 repeated chords; the emphasis on the hemiola at 51:19 through a sudden drop in tempo; the rubato at 57:00.
No.1 in Eb min, Allegro Assai
00:00 - A section, Eb min
02:42 - B section, B
07:57 - A section
09:24 - C section, Ab
12:32 - A section
No.2 in Eb, Allegretto
14:10 - A section, Eb
16:34 - B section, C min
19:04 - A section
20:25 - C section, Ab min (with its own middle section at 22:12)
25:57 - A section
No.3 in C, Allegro
27:44 - A section, C
28:43 - B section, Db
32:53 - A section