Maurizio and Daniele Pollini Play Schubert
This album presents the final recordings made by Maurizio Pollini
before his death in March 2024 at the age of 82
Pollini and his son Daniele perform a programme dedicated to three aspects of
Schubert’s piano music – the sonatas, the collections of miniatures and the works for four hands
The album will be released on 25 October 2024
Listen to the opening movement of the Fantasia in F minor for piano four hands, D 940 here
“Schubert was unquestionably one of the composers my father loved most.
As a boy, I learned to appreciate the greatness of his music by listening to my father’s
beautiful interpretations of the Sonatas in B flat major, D 960, and G major, D 894.”
Daniele Pollini
Maurizio Pollini passed on his deep love for the music of Schubert to his son and fellow pianist Daniele Pollini. A few years ago they began working together on a joint Schubert project and, in June 2022, recorded a carefully chosen programme at the Herkulessaal in Munich. Sadly, Maurizio Pollini died in March 2024, aged 82. This, his last recording, serves as a fine memorial to a groundbreaking musician who was an exclusive artist with Deutsche Grammophon for over five decades.
On the album, Pollini senior performs the Piano Sonata in G major, D 894, Daniele Pollini plays the Moments musicaux, D 780, and they join forces for the Fantasia in F minor for four hands, D 940. Maurizio Pollini · Daniele Pollini – Schubert comes out digitally and on CD on 25 October 2024, with an accompanying booklet featuring a note on the repertoire by Paolo Petazzi. The first movement of the Fantasia is available to stream/download now, and the third movement of the Sonata will be released on 4 October.
Planning this project was a labour of love for both men. “My father’s interest in Schubert extended beyond his exceptional output for solo piano,” says Daniele Pollini. “As well as performing Winterreise with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, he also programmed several of his other vocal or choral works in the concert series he organised. As for me, I think Schubert was simply one of the most extraordinary composers who ever lived.”
“Having recorded Debussy’s En blanc et noir [for two pianos] together in 2016, I thought it would be nice to make an album of four-hands pieces by Schubert. In the end, we chose the Sonata in G major, Moments musicaux and Fantasia in order to showcase the extraordinary variety of Schubert’s expressive world through three key areas of his piano music: the sonatas, the sets of short pieces, and the works for four hands.”
The Piano Sonata in G major, D 894, is a work of enormous poetic intensity, especially in the hands of Maurizio Pollini. Written in the autumn of 1826, it anticipates the final three sonatas Schubert wrote just before his death in 1828, and is their equal in terms of scale and expressiveness. Schumann called it Schubert’s “most perfect sonata in form and spirit”. Recalling their own conversations about the work, Daniele remembers his father’s appreciation of, among other aspects, “the exceptional contrasts in the opening movement, which is built on such lyricism and poetry, particularly the highly dramatic moments in the development section and the use of extreme dynamics such as fff and ppp.”
The six works that make up the Moments musicaux, D 780, were probably written between 1823 and 1828, but the set is intended to be performed in full. “What’s most fascinating about the Moments musicaux,” explains Daniele Pollini, “is the emotional journey that unfolds as you listen to the six performed as a cycle, with the final piece bringing it to a conclusion in such a melancholy atmosphere.” He plays this characterful and inventive set of works with a sensitivity that brings out every subtle shift in mood, dynamic and tempo.
Paolo Petazzi calls the Fantasia in F minor, dating from early 1828, “the crowning glory of Schubert’s extensive output for piano four hands”. Daniele Pollini agrees, observing that the writing creates “complex and very sophisticated polyphonic and timbral combinations impossible for just two hands to play, resulting in a kind of hugely original ‘enhanced’ piano”. That requires the two pianists to work “in perfect symbiosis” – even though this was the first time he and his father had seriously worked on a four-hands piece together, they achieved that feat in considerable style.
This album looks both to the past, reminding us of the peerless legacy of Maurizio Pollini, and to the future, offering an insight into the wholly individual artistry of Daniele Pollini. It also captures a unique shared moment. “What was always going to be a very special occasion became something we’ll never be able to repeat,” says Daniele. “I’m very happy to have had the opportunity to make this album devoted to Schubert, and to have played alongside my father on his final recording.”
