Schubert: Piano Sonatas Nos 4 & 13; Wanderer Fantasy – review

If you like your Schubert in high definition then this one's for you. After acclaimed Chopin and Rachmaninov, the Uzbek pianist Eldar Nebolsin here records Schubert for the first time, employing an alarmingly bold Technicolor Lisztian palette. He hurls himself at the piano in Sonata No 4 (producing a revelatory, pin-sharp staccato reading of the second movement along the way) before bringing the same bright-toned, hard-edged energy to Sonata No 13. You wouldn't think he had anything left for the fiendish Wanderer Fantasy, but he was merely limbering up. Warn the neighbours.