her performances are characteristically thoughtful – too much so for my liking.
Pires’s approach is more high Romantic than late Classical, constantly oscillating between loud and soft, fast and slow, with the sort of artful phrasing that, instead of suggesting the music’s architectural scale and emotional anguish, ends up limiting them. She is at her most persuasive in the central movements of D845 and the Scherzo of D960

The Portugese pianist produces such a consistently beautiful, mellow sound that one is liable to be seduced by that single element of her playing...Pires, you feel, lives in the sunshine and must surely play D960 to her grandchildren...Even for one with a lifelong affection for Schnabel, this is a B flat major to live with and savour.

Pires makes her anti-interpretation standpoint clear and manages to create performances which are uniquely communicative and fresh, keeping the ageing ears of this listener agape and agog from beginning to end...If you want to enhance your life with as ‘perfect’ a Schubert piano disc as can be recommended, then let this be your Elysian Field.

Here is a Schubertian still at the peak of her pianistic powers with the maturity of an interpreter who has lived with this music for a lifetime (she will be 70 next year). Even though countless great pianists have set down their thoughts on this sublime music, she makes you listen to Schubert’s genius with fresh ears...An enthralling disc.

Pires has recorded Schubert's B flat major Sonata D960 before, as part of a series of Schubert discs for Erato in the mid-1990s, and in terms of timings the two performances are often strikingly similar...What remains unchanged is the patience with which Pires allows Schubert's music to unfold so naturally that nothing seems forced or contrived.