Paul Lewis, piano
Dalton Center Recital Hall
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, MI
May 6, 2024

Schubert: Piano Sonata No. 19 in C minor, D958
Schubert: Piano Sonata No. 20 in A major, D959
Schubert: Piano Sonata No. 21 in B-flat major, D960

I am deeply grateful to Paul Lewis for introducing me to remarkable piano music of Schubert, a composer who can be unjustly overlooked in the wake of Beethoven and other contemporaries. I still have fond memories of a revelatory Schubert cycle he presented at Chicago’s Symphony Center, traversing all of the composer’s late piano works over the course of five recitals, a multi-season exploration that began back in February 2011. The 2024 Gilmore Festival saw Lewis in a similar undertaking, in this case, focusing on the piano sonatas over a quartet of recitals in the space of a single week. I was only fortunate enough to catch the final entry, consisting of the last three sonatas – one of those holy grail piano programs, on par with the final Beethoven sonatas or the Goldberg Variations.

The opening of the C minor sonata was given with ample weight and drama, only to be contrasted by lighter, buoyant material, with the quick-shifting moods akin to flickering candlelight. Lewis was fully enraptured and played with unwavering commitment; the intervening decade since I last saw him play Schubert has certainly brought even closer to the core of this music. In the slow movement, Lewis delicately voiced the chordal passages, with a nuanced shading given to each gesture. A rollicking triple meter marked the finale, one of the composer’s most thrilling creations.

Spacious, majestic beginnings were had in the A major sonata, answered by rippling triplets, and Lewis played with a distinct gracefulness, a particular joy to watch during the passages for crossed hands. In the tragic slow movement, the brightness of A major faded to a bleak F-sharp minor, and the primal agony of the central section was of startling ferocity. And then – a theme familiar from the G-flat impromptu surfaced, like sunlight shining through dark clouds for a wondrous calming effect. The sprightly scherzo was no trifle, packing in ample drama. The rondo finale was lyrical at heart, interspersed with themes that contrasted, and the closing figure was strikingly in mirror of the sonata’s opening where the long journey had begun.

The incomparable final sonata rightfully occupied the entire second half. The valedictory work opened in contemplative stillness, punctuated by silence (a theme that connected to Mark Nepo’s moving talk at the Kalamazoo Public Library earlier in the day, a further event hosted by the Gilmore). Rumbles in the bass undulated as tolling bells, and the development built to coruscating tension. A dotted rhythm underpinned the Andante sostenuto, giving way to an urgent lyricism that was simply heavenly. The scherzo marked a sudden shift to the jovial, given with carefree abandon, an ethos that continued into the good-natured finale that amounted to a satisfying, all-encompassing close. Still, Lewis found great variety, employing something of a chiaroscuro effect as shadows emerged in sharp relief, in due course bringing the sonata – and Lewis’ cycle as a whole – to a bold close.