EIF 26: Steven Osborne

Queen’s Hall 17/8/26

Steven Osborne (piano)

Part of a tribute to Alfred Brendel (1931-2025)

This concert was the first part of a triptych dedicated to the memory of the great Austrian pianist, Alfred Brendel, who died last year. I saw Brendel play many recitals over the years at the EIF, mostly in the Usher Hall, and used to marvel at the honesty of his playing, always at the service of the composer. He was particularly noted as a Beethoven and Schubert specialist, and Steven Osborne’s recital today was focused on Franz Schubert, especially the late works.

Of course, there is still disagreement about whether the composer was aware of his imminent death at the age of 31, and whether his music reflected his anxiety thereof or a blissful ignorance of it?

Certainly there were elements of joy and also of melancholy in the works chosen today, and frankly the jury is still out. Some of his last songs, put together purely by Schubert’s publisher as 'Schwanengesang' (Swan Song) after his death, are deeply grim and harrowing, but his last song, 'Die Taubenpost' (The Carrier Pigeon), could not be more merry and jolly.

Mr Osborne started with an Allegretto in C Minor from his penultimate year (1827) which reflected both moods, but then played another, in C, which was from 1816 and similarly contrasting.

The first half ended with Four Impromptus from 1827, which were quite spectacular in their range and scope, and allowed Mr Osborne to demonstrate his phenomenal technique as well as his deep insight into Schubert’s imagination. I loved the contrast between the second, a whirling perpetuum mobile, and the long melodic phrases of the third, brought to a dramatic conclusion by the fourth, with its cascades of arpeggios.

In the second half, we heard two arrangements by Steven Osborne of two of the songs from 'Schwanengesang', the rippling torrents of 'Love’s Message' and the dreadful unrequited love of 'By the Sea'. I felt his arrangement of 'Am Meer' missed the anguish of the end of the song, but they both sounded lovely as piano pieces.

The recital ended with Schubert’s Piano Sonata in C Minor, one of three late sonatas published after his death, and largely ignored for years. The long first movement introduces an unexpected and remarkable degree of chromaticism, and the slow movement is notable for its melodic but somewhat haunted atmosphere. The third movement, called a minuet but hardly terpsichorean, punctuated by outbursts and silent bars, leads into a final allegro characterised by a swirling relentless rhythm, testing the pianist’s skills to the maximum, a test triumphantly overcome by Mr Osborne.

Interspersed with the Schubert were short pieces by Judith Weir and James MacMillan, which served as delightful palate cleansers, both aurally and technically.

The full house in the Queen’s Hall rose as one to this superb Scottish pianist, whose shy demeanour masks a powerful individuality at the keyboard. He sent us on our way with a lovely composition of his own, ‘OK by me’, a suitably Scottish sounding tune, as an encore.