Elisabeth Brauß plays Schubert

I have only just noticed that a recording of Elisabeth Brauß playing the four Schubert Impromptus D.899 last year is available now and for another week on BBC Sounds (start at 10 minutes into the programme). [Added: Link no longer works, sorry!]

This strikes me as extraordinarily good and very moving — with so much thought gone into every bar, yet the playing utterly honest and direct and unmannered. I have more than a dozen wonderful recordings of the impromptus from Schnabel on; but these performances bear comparison (in that these too are such that, while you listen, you can’t help but feel “yes, this is how the Schubert should be played …”).

Judging from her Mozart and Beethoven too, one day — and I do hope that this is where her inclinations take her! — Elisabeth Brauß could become one of the very finest of Schubert pianists. And, with the clock ticking away, I hope I will still be here to hear her.

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