Dances were an important element in Schubert’s compositions. He favoured the Ländler, triple time country dances – perfect material for Viennese middle-class tastes – and the Écossaise, supposedly Scottish, cast in duple time and performed with women and men facing each other. The 30 Minuets with Trios, of which ten are lost, sport especially captivating and varied Trios, while the two Écossaises from the German Dances, D783, are vivacious examples of Schubert’s genial mastery of the genre.

The new release is part of a series of six albums in Naxos’s new joint initiative with the UK’s Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, presenting debut albums for outstanding students at the conservatoire. Principal Julian Lloyd Webber commented: ‘I am delighted that the Conservatoire is able to offer our talented students this extraordinary opportunity to record for one of the world’s leading record labels at the very start of their careers. I am certain that they will make the most of this unprecedented agreement.’

This collection of Schubert’s rare piano works follows on the series of sonatas and other works recorded by Jenő Jandó. Of the complete Impromptus album (8550260), Fanfare stated that Jandó is ‘an artist with keen musical insights and a seemingly effortless technical command’.

Pianist Eldar Nebolsin has also recorded Piano Sonatas nos. 4 and 13, and the Wanderer Fantasy (8572459), which was a Classic FM ‘Editor’s Choice’: ‘Nebolsin’s grasp of structure, simplicity of approach with clear, natural phrasing, and the song-like purity of the recorded sound make this a very special Schubert disc’.