I am…happy to report that Maazel’s idea of joyousness fits the youthful Schubert like a glove. When the music is performed with that necessary light touch, the listener quickly realizes that young Schubert was as capable of startling invention in his management of melodic lines and harmonic progressions as was the more mature composer, so imaginatively prolific in the final year of his life. At the same time Maazel has definitely invested both D. 759 and D. 944 with an entirely suitable rhetorical tone. D. 944 emerges as a perfect example of what Robert Schumann called Schubert’s “heavenly length” at its most heavenly; and there is something almost diabolic in the dynamo-like qualities with which Maazel drives the final Allegro vivace movement to its stunning conclusion.

…the full set provides a decidedly valuable perspective on Schubert’s creativity; and Maazel has emerged as just the right conductor to establish that perspective. © 2013 Examiner.com Read complete review