Fiona Maddocks
The Guardian
October 2015

Best known for his Messiaen, Ravel and Tippett, among others, Steven Osborne has now turned to Schubert with his first solo disc of the composer’s piano music (having made a terrific disc of some of the keyboard music for four hands with Paul Lewis in 2010). He has combined two late groups, the second set of Four Impromptus and the Three Pieces D946, with the less well known Hüttenbrenner Variations D576: hardly an obvious selection but an intriguing start. Let’s hope there’s more to come. Osborne takes a wonderfully clear-sighted, analytical approach which gives the seven late works, as well as the early, often playful variations, great radiance and lyricism.

The Guardian