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However, unless you insist on up-to-date recording quality, or on the presence of the first movement repeat, I would most urgently recommend the Beaux Arts/Philips performance. Their whole approach is lighter, most obviously in the Scherzo, and the recorded sound is drier (though to my ears perfectly acceptable). But the real difference lies in the special qualities of their pianist, Menahem Pressler. It's not as though he's a saint—he is responsible for some rushed passage-work in the first movement and he sometimes subdues the piano part to the point where notes do not sound. In a way Panenka with the Suk on Supraphon is technically superior. But Pressler's musical awareness is so acute, especially his ear for transparent textures, that the gains are enormous. To take a few examples—in the first movement the development section immediately has a stronger dramatic profile through the distancing of the pianissimo passage midway, and the coda gains in urgency and relevance from the shifting perspectives between piano and strings. All the ensembles play expressively in the slow movement, but with the Beaux Arts the emotional world is precisely defined, as though they alone have succeeded in relating the music to Schubert the song-writer. They are also nearest to appreciating the magic of the last 3/2 episode in the finale, where Schubert deliberately leads you up the garden path before showing the way home. Their record also has a quite ravishing account of the E flat Notturno as a fill-up. |
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