Florentine master pianist Andrea Lucchesini begins a three-part recording schedule for Audite dedicated to interpretations of Schubert’s late works. Lucchesini was born in 1965 in Tuscany, for him music knows no limits, and studying musical modernism has, naturally, informed Lucchesini's approach to his favourite composers of the past, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert.

The series opens with two sonatas that are closely linked to one another, alongside the atmospheric Allegretto in C minor, D915, of 1827. The Sonata in A minor, D537, written when Schubert was twenty years old, features a dance-like melody to which he would return eleven years later when he worked on his mature Sonata in A major, D959. The reworking of the theme highlights the distance between Schubert's middle and late creative periods. What is initially a rousing, though slightly traditional tune, later appears embedded in a richer harmonic framework, but also in a more virtuosic form, at times almost transfigured.

It is this compositional and emotional range in Schubert's music that is especially fascinating to Andrea Lucchesini. "One recognises the difference between the artist who entertained his friends at social gatherings, and the composer working in solitude - without any prospect of publishing or performing his works, completely confined to his internal world where he felt many precipices. One has to take a plunge into his emotional labyrinth, not only to become intoxicated with his fabulous themes, but also to recognise their infinite variations that take one's breath away. This is how the work of a performer became a complete immersion for me."

Vol.2 will feature Piano Sonata no.21 in B flat major and the Three Piano Pieces, D946, while Vol.3, presenting Piano Sonata no.18 and Piano Sonata no.19, will complete the recording series of Schubert's late piano works.