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Soul Music

Schubert’s B-Flat Piano Sonata D960

Soul Music

BBC

Music, Music Commentary

4.7831 Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The B-Flat Piano Sonata D960, which Schubert completed two months before his death, in 1828, is a vast and complex work.

It’s the last of a triptych of piano sonatas that Schubert wrote, possibly in response to the death of his hero Beethoven the year before. Schubert had been a pallbearer at Beethoven’s funeral.

Pianists Imogen Cooper, Steven Osborne and James Lisney consider what it’s like to play this work.

And Andrea Avery and Pamela Rose describe ways in which this sonata has marked and shaped their lives.

Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.

Producer: Rosie Boulton

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2019.

Transcript

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0:37.1

from all around the UK.

0:39.0

This is the BBC.

0:43.8

One has the impression that it's been going on forever

0:46.8

and that you're sort of stepping gently onto a traveller from eternity

0:53.2

and just joining in. I often think, you know, Shubbett was a great walker.

1:22.7

He went walking in the mountains a lot.

1:25.4

And I can imagine an afternoon storm, you know,

1:29.1

with lots of rain, thunder, claps, lightning.

1:33.2

And the storm recedes, and the evening sun comes out.

1:37.9

Everything is wet from the storm.

1:40.4

But the storm has not completely gone.

1:43.0

It's still receding.

1:44.1

And suddenly in the midst of this beautiful light... but the storm has not completely gone. It's still receding.

1:47.9

And suddenly in the midst of this beautiful light,

...

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