It may seem curious to present piano music from Schubert and Ravel on one recording. After all, the Austrian from Lichtenthal near Vienna and the Frenchman from the Pyrenees were born 78 years apart and, more importantly, they belong to different musical worlds. What does Schubert, the impassioned, romantic representative of Viennese Classicism, have in common with the sparkling, lordly impressionist Ravel?

 

What they share to a remarkable degree is the way they both musically transpose their most profound feelings by sublimating them in a frank yet principled manner. Schubert combined naturalness and a brilliant, never-before-seen simplicity with an expressive palette bristling with dramatic energy. Behind his affability is something that can only be suspected but never completely understood. And Ravel? This musical frontier crosser, hovering between two centuries, poised in an equilibrium of shadows, longings and thunderous outbursts, this master of orchestral colors erected a bulwark of irony and glittering esprit between himself and the world. Both Schubert and Ravel gave musical shape to the ambiguity that cannot be expressed through violent gestures.