SCHUBERT: Fantasy in F minor Op.103 D.940; Rondeau in D major Op.138 D.608; Andantino varié in B minor Op.84 No.1; Variations on a French song in E minor Op.10 D.624; Allegro in A minor Op.144 D.947 "Lebenstürme" – Prague Piano Duo [Zdeňka and Martin Hršel] – Praga Digitals multichannel SACD PRD/DSD 250263, 60:33 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] *****:
Zdeňka and Martin Hršel recently celebrated twenty years’ performing together and this fine new release from Praga Digitals continues this celebration. Now husband and wife, the Hršels bring rich experience to these gems of Schubert, one hopes the first volume in a series.
The programme opens with the F minor Fantasy D. 940, Schubert’s valediction in so many ways. This is the second excellent recorded performance to come my way this month. The Hršels and Helmchen-Fischer each take about 18 minutes though the impact is rather different in that time frame. The Hršels take their time with the slow passages, and the scherzo is more fleet of foot, and whereas Helmchen-Fischer retain a tinge of underlying sadness in their reading, the Hršels’ scherzo is thoroughly joyful and effervescent. Both bring out the tragedy of the ending, with its possible pre-echoes of Mahler. The Hršels do full justice to this masterpiece.
The delightful Rondeau from 1818 follows, a mixture of light and shade pointed nicely by the Hršels. The Andantino in B minor dates from 1826; it is in fact D. 823/2, the second part of a Divertimento based on French themes whose three parts were published separately. The Hršels strong sense of Schubert’s line is evident.
The Variations on a French Song D. 624 dates from 1818 and was dedicated to Beethoven. Again the Hršels with their sense of give and take and conversation across the keyboard is so successful. The programme, a combination and contrast of works from 1818 and from the year of his death, ends with the substantial Allegro in A minor D. 947 from May 1828. Subtitled “Lebenstürme” or “Life’s Storms” its great swathes of ideas are communicated by the Hršels without their losing sight of the overall structure of the piece. What a sonata this work might have been!
Recorded in a comfortable acoustic in Prague the sound quality achieved by the engineers is absolutely first-class. The Fantasy is accorded a less intimate sound-stage than PentaTone gave Helmchen-Fischer but details here and in the rest of the programme always shine through, sounding very well in both stereo and multichannel mixes. A superb production.
— Peter Joelson
