FRANZ SCHUBERT

In June 2022, the late Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini and his son Daniele, who shared a special love for Schubert, recorded their upcoming album dedicated to three essential aspects of the Viennese composer’s piano music: the sonatas, the cycles of short pieces and the music for four hands.  

It is sadly Maurizio’s last ever recording, as he died in March 2024 at the age of 82. Thus, this touching and at the same time profound album by two generations of musicians becomes a legacy and a hopeful look into the future: “With the recent death of my father, the perspective with which I imagined the record and the whole process of its realisation inevitably changed,” says Daniele Pollini. “What presented itself as a very special occasion turned into a unique event, in fact unrepeatable. I am therefore very happy to have had the opportunity to make this album dedicated to Schubert and to have shared with my father what was his last recording.”  

Listen to a second pre-release track, a solo piano piece performed by Maurizio Pollini alone. It is the third movement of Schubert’s Piano Sonata in G Major, a piece of enormous poetic intensity. Written in 1826, the work anticipates the final three sonatas Schubert wrote just before his death in 1828, and is their equal in terms of scale and expressiveness. The full album will be released digitally and on CD on 25 October and is now available for pre-order.