Aimi Kobayashi – Schubert: Sonata in C Minor, D. 958, 4 Impromptus, D. 935 & Rondo, D. 951 (2024) [FLAC 24bit/192kHz]

Aimi Kobayashi - Schubert: Sonata in C Minor, D. 958, 4 Impromptus, D. 935 & Rondo, D. 951 (2024) [FLAC 24bit/192kHz] Download

Aimi Kobayashi – Schubert: Sonata in C Minor, D. 958, 4 Impromptus, D. 935 & Rondo, D. 951 (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:21:11 minutes | 2,57 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Perhaps in response to the work of Edward Said, it has become fashionable to think of an artist’s final works as embodying shared traits that might be characterised as ‘late style’ – whether a mastery of craft, depth of expression, or a realisation of mortality with associated aspects of sorrow or serenity. In the case of Schubert, who died at the age of 31, the idea of anything being ‘late’ feels rather melancholy, a description applied retrospectively – did Schubert know that he would not compose any more piano sonatas, another symphony, another song cycle? Whatever Schubert’s awareness of his own life expectancy, his rate of composition increased markedly in his final 12 months, when he brought to fruition an extraordinary number of masterpieces. One of these is the second set of Four Impromptus, D935, which he completed in December 1827 at the age of 30. Despite Schubert’s efforts these were unpublished when he died 11 months later, in November 1828, and they first appeared posthumously in 1839.Aimi Kobayashi (her name is pronounced ‘Eye-mee’) has recorded this set of Impromptus on her latest album for Warner Classics – coupled with the C minor Sonata, D958, along with two of Liszt’s Schubert song transcriptions (these two tracks are on the digital album only) and the A major Rondo for piano duet, D951, performed with her husband Kyohei Sorita. Kobayashi came fourth at the last Chopin International Piano Competition, in 2021, and Sorita was placed second. They had known each other since childhood and got married after the competition.

Kobayashi is now 29, although it feels like she has been around for ages. I first became aware of her during the 2015 Chopin Competition (the first of her two appearances at this competition, the year that Seong-Jin Cho won), when she reached the concerto final, although by then she had already recorded a Beethoven album for EMI Classics Japan. She signed internationally with Warner Classics in 2018 and previous albums include programmes of Chopin and Liszt (7/18) and more Chopin (12/21). She was a child prodigy, and there are some astonishing videos on YouTube of her playing at pre-school age, and one of her aged seven playing the second Impromptu from Schubert’s first set, D899, with uncanny maturity and conviction. It is clear that Kobayashi was already a star in her native Japan before she went to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Tracklist:

1-01. Aimi Kobayashi – 4 Impromptus, Op. 142, D. 935: No. 1 in F Minor (10:06)
1-02. Aimi Kobayashi – 4 Impromptus, Op. 142, D. 935: No. 2 in A-Flat Major (08:59)
1-03. Aimi Kobayashi – 4 Impromptus, Op. 142, D. 935: No. 3 in B-Flat Major (12:35)
1-04. Aimi Kobayashi – 4 Impromptus, Op. 142, D. 935: No. 4 in F Minor (06:35)
1-05. Aimi Kobayashi – Piano Sonata No. 19 in C Minor, D. 958: I. Allegro (08:27)
1-06. Aimi Kobayashi – Piano Sonata No. 19 in C Minor, D. 958: II. Adagio (09:13)
1-07. Aimi Kobayashi – Piano Sonata No. 19 in C Minor, D. 958: III. Menuetto. Allegro – Trio (03:25)
1-08. Aimi Kobayashi – Piano Sonata No. 19 in C Minor, D. 958: IV. Allegro (09:54)
1-09. Aimi Kobayashi – Rondo in A Major, D. 951 (11:53)