Search - Franz [Vienna] Schubert, Imogen Cooper :: Schubert: Live, Vol. 1

	Franz [Vienna] Schubert, Imogen Cooper Schubert: Live, Vol. 1 Genre: Classical Imogen Cooper returns to Avie with the first in a series of three double CDs, recorded live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, exploring the late piano music of Schubert written between 1823 and 1828. Having spent seve... more » « less
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CD Details

All Artists: Franz [Vienna] Schubert, Imogen Cooper
Title: Schubert: Live, Vol. 1
Members Wishing: 2
Total Copies: 0
Label: Avie
Original Release Date: 1/1/2009
Re-Release Date: 7/14/2009
Genre: Classical
Styles: Chamber Music, Forms & Genres, Sonatas, Historical Periods, Classical (c.1770-1830)
Number of Discs: 2
SwapaCD Credits: 2
UPC: 822252215625

Synopsis

Album Description

Imogen Cooper returns to Avie with the first in a series of three double CDs, recorded live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, exploring the late piano music of Schubert written between 1823 and 1828. Having spent several years at the Paris Conservatoire in her teens, Cooper went to Vienna to study with Paul Badura-Skoda, Jörg Demus, and Alfred Brendel, the pianist often seen as her mentor. "When you're in her audience, she makes the most difficult passages sound as smooth as water being poured from a pitcher ... A pianist of enormous range." -- NPR "A pianist of enormous range and subtlety." -- BBC Music magazine "Cooper has said that, after a career-long association with Schubert, his music's message has become much more direct for her. These discs show how eloquently she can convey that message to us." -- Telegraph (*****)

CD Reviews

Cooper's Schubert is enjoyable and musical

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 12/10/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Having read the Gramophone's rave over this installment in Imogen Cooper's Schubert series, I guess the road diverges here. I find her thoroughly enjoyable. As an accompanist, the role she served with the baritone Wolfgang Holzmair on Philips, she is ideal. But Cooper lacks a strong individual voice. She's better than pleasant; one hears a trained professional at work. The problem is that Schubert's piano music has risen in stature decade by decade. No longer neglected as it was when Artur Schnabel made his historic recordings in the Thirties, a masterpiece like the posthumous sonata in A Major D. 959 has been interpreted by such masters as Serkin, Richter, and Pollini.

Cooper cannot compete at that level, so it was wise of her to offer a more intimate experience. The two earlier sonatas featured here, the one in A minor D. 845, and the one in D major, D. 850, aren't exactly small scale, but they are more suited to Cooper's range. She's not original, dynamic, or highly imaginative. These two sonatas could use all those qualities, of course, but they also prosper with the gifts Cooper is able to bring. She competes respectably with the more intimate Schubert style of Radu Lupu and Andras Schiff. Over the course of two CDs, I became weary of so much lulling playing, but on her own terms Cooper is very commendable. Just don't expect heroics or fireworks a la Richter."