In his latest release, pianist Steven Osborne pairs Schubert’s penultimate piano sonata with the Moments Musicaux in a fine recording which makes a most satisfying “recital album”.

‘Who can do anything after Beethoven?’ the 31-year-old Franz Schubert wrote to a friend. Yet, in the last year of his life, he wrote three extraordinary piano sonatas, together with other masterpieces, notably the Drei Klavierstücke D946, the Mass in E flat D950, the String Quintet D956 and the posthumously published ‘Schwanengesang’ songs, all of which display a high level of artistic maturity.

There’s an awful lot of psychological theorising and debate surrounding Schubert’s late music, in particular the extraordinary Andantino of the D959 (a slow movement quite unlike anything else Schubert wrote), and whether his final three sonatas are some kind of “farewell message”, the composer haunted by the spectre of death. Happily, Steven Osborne eschews this view and takes a positive approach to the D959. Which is as it should be: of the three last sonatas, it is the most life-affirming, with its springlike, lilting themes. Joyous after the darkness of the C minor Sonata, D958 (a direct homage to Beethoven) it seems to revel in all of life – intoxicatingly bittersweet, nostalgic, uplifting, never unremittingly melancholy or heavy.

Steven Osborne captures these elements of the D959 with his keen sense of the mercurial and ethereal qualities of Schubert’s writing. The opening movement is rich in contrasts, the assertive opening chords juxtaposed by delicate arpeggios, such delicacy heard again in the development where the other-worldliness of Schubert comes to the fore with Osborne’s pearlescent and luminous touch. The Andantino is thoughtful, introspective rather than purely melancholy in its outer sections before the drama of the middle section builds gradually from a Baroque fantasia into a brutal frenzy. Here, there is a sense of the music only just held in control, that it could break free at any moment, and this creates the most remarkable theatre, providing a stark, almost shocking contrast to the return of the opening theme.

The fleet little Scherzo has dash and playfulness, joyous after the Andantino, and the perfect bridge to the finale. Rich in colour and expression, Osborne thoughtfully balances the essential grace and amiability of this movement with moments of intense drama before the autumn sun shines through. Once again, we have Osborne’s beautiful delicacy of touch in the arpeggiated passages, bringing lightness and a touch of wit.

It may be more usual to programme the Moments Musicaux before a large-scale sonata such as the D959, but there they come afterwards, allow the listener to savour all those distinct characteristics of Schubert’s writing and musical personality in microcosm.

The Moments Musicaux are supreme examples of Schubert’s ability to suggest the subtlest nuances of emotion which shift and alter, literally in a moment. Even in their bigger, louder gestures, these pieces are intimate, almost confidential in tone, private and mysterious. Their kaleidoscopic, fleeting yet profound emotions are revealed in the apparent simplicity of the music and Steven Osborne perfectly captures these details with assured articulation, graceful phrasing, subtle dynamic colouring and cantabile melodies, recalling the same gestures, moods and motifs, so distinctively Schubert, which are present in the preceding sonata.

Available now on the Hyperion label

Highly recommended

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FW