Krenek:
Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 59

Schubert:
Ungarische Melodie, D 817
AllegreBo in C minor, D 915
Piano Sonata in C major, D 840 (completed by Ernst Krenek)

For his series called Schubert+, pianist Can Çakmur juxtaposes the complete major piano solo composiTons by the Viennese composer with works by others who were inspired by his music, thus providing the opportunity to see these works in a new light. While making up a near complete anthology of Schubert’s completed major piano music, each disc is also intended as a self-contained recital. In this third instalment, Çakmur presents not only a work by the 20th-century composer Ernst Krenek but also Krenek’s compleTon of an unfinished sonata by Schubert. In the process, Krenek assimilated the SchuberTan language so well that the result is astonishing. As Çakmur says, ‘I would find it difficult to spot where Schubert ends and Krenek begins if it wasn’t specified in the score.’ Krenek, whose career spanned more than seven decades, was a prolific composer who embraced a host of styles. For his Second Piano Sonata, composed in the 1920s, he pays homage to Schubert by adopTng some of his techniques, though the music owes much more to early 20th-century Paris than to 19th-century Vienna. A fascinaTng and neglected work to be discovered through the prism of Schubert.