Franz Schubert:
Sonata in C Minor, D. 958

Carl Czerny:
Sonata No. 6 in D Minor, Op. 124, 'Grande sonate pour le pianoforte seul'

Franz Schubert and Carl Czerny – two contemporaries, living in the same city, both tightly connected to Beethoven in their own way. The former ascended into glory, being regarded nowadays as one of the leading composer figures of the entire music history; the latter, albeit a highly prolific composer and very cherished pupil of Beethoven, remained in the popular recollection mostly as a teacher and creator of numerous study works of little musical value. His Grande Sonate in D minor, by far the longest out of his eleven sonatas, was written immediately after Beethoven’s death and can be regarded as an attempt to reach the realms of the latter’s Hammerklavier Sonata: with its seven movements and spectacular technical challenges, the work is a long-forgotten masterpiece which deserves its place among the great oeuvres of the 19th century. In this recording, Aurelia Visovan presents it to the public for the very first time on a fortepiano, alongside Schubert’s dramatic Sonata in C minor, D. 958, composed in the same year.

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Recording: Orgelzentrum (Valley, Germany), 14–17 September 2021. Instrument: Fortepiano after Jakob Bertsche (Vienna, c. 1815), copy by Robert Brown in 2015.