Steven Osborne piano

Steven Osborne’s arrangements of two songs from Schubert’s Schwanengesang and the early Allegretto in C D346 prepare the ground for two of the composer’s late, great sonatas, written in the final months of his life. ‘Given the biographical background’, wrote BBC Music Magazine in its five-star review of the pianist’s recording of the Piano Sonata in A D959, ‘it’s tempting to imagine the spectre of death looming over this music. Instead, Osborne shows us Schubert grappling with the nuances and complexities of human emotion.’