Page 559 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

Colin’s Column

19 June 2024
Steven Osborne at Aldeburgh Festival 2024

– Schubert Sonatas, plus. BBC Radio 3

recording.

Jun 19, 2024 | Concert Reviews | 1 comment

This Sunday-morning recital was given on June 16 at the Snape Maltings Concert Hall,
Suffolk, and broadcast two evenings later. Substantially Schubert, of whose music
Steven Osborne is a notable advocate, witness his Hyperion recordings, the “plus”
element was three miniatures by Judith Weir, including the delicate, gently
rhythmic Fragile, and the poignant white-keys Chorale, for Steve, in memory of composer
Steven Stucky who died in 2016, which tied appositely with D960, Schubert journeying
on life’s farewell lap, very sensitively distilled by Osborne, also just as concerned with
structure, hence him repeating the lengthy exposition, stretching the first movement to
eighteen minutes, if way short of Richter’s twenty-five, followed by a slow movement of
solitude, with hope emerging, then a sparkling Scherzo complemented by a lust-for-life
Finale. Earlier Osborne had essayed D959, Schubert’s penultimate Piano Sonata, a
volatile account with poetic asides, at its zenith in the slow movement, at once ethereal
then starkly contrasted with the midpoint emotional outburst, uncompromising from
Osborne, and ‘modern’ with it. The Finale ‘strolled’ with intent to its full-circle conclusion.