William Youn / Klavierabend

On this stroll through the Schubert piano sonatas the Korean pianist visits different phases in the brilliant composer’s life and oeuvre. The recital opens with the Sonata in A minor, D 537: the dark and stormy work of a passionate 20-year-old. The A major sonata, D 664, was written just two years later (1819), and shows how quickly Schubert evolved into a superior sonata composer.

On the other hand, the Allegro moderato in F sharp minor D 571, the first movement of a work that was never finished, bears witness to the composer’s many attempts to master his art. William Youn has composed his own addition to the fragment, which he performs in his Pianomania recital. The Sonata in C minor, D 958, shows Schubert at the summit of the form: it is the first in a set of three sonatas that he wrote just a few months before his premature death at the end of 1828.