Schubert (Maurizio & Daniele Pollini)

In June 2022, Maurizio and Daniele Pollini went to Munich's Herkulessaal to record a new studio album dedicated to three essential aspects of Schubert's piano music: the sonatas, the cycles of short pieces and the piano music for four hands. It was a project of the heart for father and son, who shared a special love for the Viennese composer, and it was the first time that both had rehearsed and performed a piece for four hands together: the elegiac Fantasia in F minor from the year of Schubert's death in 1828. For the great Italian pianist, it was to be his last recording. Sadly, Maurizio Pollini died in March 2024 at the age of 82. And so this touching and at the same time profound album by two generations of musicians becomes a legacy and a hopeful look into the future: "With the recent death of my father, the perspective with which I imagined the record and the entire process of its realization inevitably changed," says Daniele Pollini. What seemed to be a very special occasion became a unique event that is indeed unrepeatable. I am therefore very happy to have had the opportunity to record this album dedicated to Schubert and to share with my father his last recording.