Schubert for Summer Friday

Mitsuko Uchida illuminates the great composer's nuance

Happy summer Friday!

Today we’re recommending the Schubert Sonata in C minor, D958 by Franz Schubert, rendered vividly by Mitsuko Uchida. It pairs well with the torper of August heat — its contemplative aura carries traces of a distant, vaguely sad sense of mortality. Uchida, a revered Schubert interpreter, is more emotional than surgical here, executing the composer’s flickering dynamic contrasts and chordal shadings to reinforce the searchingly lyrical quality of the melodies.

In an interview with Ben Finane in the Steinway and Sons newsletter, Uchida offered this insight about the C minor Sonata: “It’s quite clear that Schubert wrote all three of them [cataloged as D 958, 959 and 960] within a month. He was working on it a little bit — there is a preliminary sketch — in August and he wrote them down September of 1828 — and in November he was dead. So it’s really very late and the only major piece that came after was the C major string quintet. In a way, the C minor [D. 958] truly captures the agony, the tragedy of life. The middle section of the slow movement! If there has ever been a mad scene, that is it.”

Enjoy.

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