LDV15

21 PHILIPPE CASSARD & CÉDRIC PESCIA A final note for purists. Cédric Pescia and I do not observe, either in concert or in this recording, the repeat of the first section of Lebensstürme . The work is so dramatic, so concentrated, and also so exhausting for both listeners and performers, the repeated chords of the opening theme appear so many times, that the emotional impact seems to us still more powerful without that repeat. I have also chosen not to play the exposition repeat of the sonata’s first movement, and not merely so as to ensure that the total duration of the CD can accommodate the three piano duets of 1828. While the transition that leads back to the first-movement repeat of the Sonata D960 is justified by the tremendous coup de théâtre it provides, this one adds nothing to the unfolding landscape. I must say I rather resent Sviatoslav Richter’s remark that ‘Pianists who don’t play repeats don’t like music!’ Many of our glorious elder statesmen of the piano, historic Schubertians like Artur Schnabel, Eduard Erdmann, Wilhelm Kempff, and Alfred Brendel, also opted to perform this first movement without the repeat. Each note of their Schubert interpretations testifies, pace Richter, to the unfailing strength of a ceaselessly refreshed musical companionship.