I hope that folk are aware that pianist Steven Osborne has a new CD out, issued at the end of last week. It’s on his usual Hyperion label, and is, rather astonishingly, his 23rd release with that company. It’s devoted to the music of Schubert, which is also interesting: in 2010, Hyperion put out a disc of Schubert duets, featuring Osborne with his friend and colleague, Paul Lewis, another stellar figure of UK pianism.
That disc has become pretty famous; and those long enough in the tooth will remember a sensational appearance in the Queen’s Hall series at the Edinburgh International Festival by the two of them, where they brought not only their pianistic skills, but a knockabout sense of humour to that normally formal concert stage.
That’s by the by; but the point is that this new disc is, in fact, Osborne’s first-ever solo recording of piano music by Schubert. In 23 CD releases! And in how many years of recording? I wonder why? I’m sure there’s a perfectly mundane explanation, whether it’s just time or other priorities.
This is an interesting set, and I’ll get listening to it soon. (It has only just arrived, by a rather circuitous route.) It features mostly late Schubert, not the big late Sonatas, which one might have expected, but the second set of Four Impromptus, D935, the lesser-known Three Piano Pieces D946, and one piece I literally have never heard of (every day you learn something new). This piece, from a bit earlier, is called Variations On A Theme By Anselm Huttenbrenner; and from a quick glance it looks as though there might be a bit of a tale attached to this Herr Huttenbrenner, a chum of Schubert’s.
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