In the eyes of his contemporaries, Schubert loomed larger as a composer of vocal music than of instrumental works. Only toward the end of his tragically foreshortened lifetime did audiences and critics grow to appreciate his rich trove of orchestral and chamber masterpieces, ranging from symphonies to piano solos. Even then, less than a quarter of his major works in these genres—including just three of his 21 piano sonatas—saw the light of publication before his death in 1828.

The three works we hear on this evening’s program span the decade of his brief, precocious maturity. The Sonata in E-flat Major may be counted among both his early and his late contributions to the genre: Schubert wrote three of its four movements around 1817 and revised them several years later, inserting a lighthearted Menuetto in the process. The sonata’s predominantly dance-like character contrasts with the darker and somewhat enigmatic Sonata in A Minor, written shortly after the onset of the composer’s fatal illness. The Sonata in A Major, one of Schubert’s valedictory masterpieces, was drafted in the spring and summer of 1828 and completed that September, only a few weeks before his untimely death. This massive work reveals a new vista of piano writing that Liszt and others would explore.