Anna Malikova - Schubert: Piano Sonatas D664 & D960 (2000)

Pianist Anna Malikova cultivates a big, singing tone and a generous, lyrical style that couldn’t befit Schubert’s “little” A major sonata better. Her impressively even, pearl-like scales and dynamic thrust in the finale, for example, leave Maria João Pires’ recent DG traversal at the starting gate while looking Richter’s reference version squarely in the eye. Her flexible phrasing of the first movement proves every bit as stylish and “echt-Viennese” as Paul Badura-Skoda’s rendition, but with a surer technique. Unlike Richter or András Schiff, Malikova doesn’t repeat the first-movement development and recapitulation, which is just as well.

Neither does she observe the now de rigueur lengthy first-movement exposition repeat in the great posthumous B-flat sonata. I would have liked her to for purely selfish reasons, because she plays so beautifully. Malikova keeps the basic tempo steady and fluid, shaping phrases with an organ-like tone that conveys hypnotic sustaining power. Listen to how she keeps the Andante sostenuto’s accompanying dotted rhythms in perfect and profound perspective to the main melody, letting the music’s tragic undertones speak for themselves (no Brendelian pickiness here!). She keenly distinguishes legato and detached articulations in the Scherzo, and although she underplays the finale’s foreboding unison G-naturals and lacks urgency at the start, she becomes increasingly assertive once the difficult dotted chords kick in. The slightly distant sonics may not yield the detail and impact of Leif Ove Andsnes’ recent EMI Schubert B-flat, yet the ambience is akin to a small concert hall, and it’s pleasing to the ear. In short, Malikova’s Schubert easily ranks with the composer’s better-known interpreters, and often surpasses them.