Lewis’s performance of the [Weber] sonata is warm and affectionate, without, perhaps, always achieving the intensity that Brendel brings to the music…Schubert’s early sonata in the unusual key of B major finds him experimenting with curious key-schemes and abrupt changes of mood. Lewis handles them very convincingly, and his performance is one that affords real pleasure throughout.

This latest instalment in Paul Lewis’s Schubert pilgrimage certainly enhances his reputation. It is, as always, intelligently laced and shaped, not needing to shout its credentials, but shaping contours as though accompanying unstated song texts. He has a particularly fine sense for how the music travels…And what a welcome coupling is the Weber Second Sonata.

[Weber] Lewis is fully attuned to the music’s sense of the spectacle of the new, especially in the ebb and flow of the opening Allegro, with its stormier episodes. His handling of the Andante’s mercurial variations and ensuing Menuetto capriccioso – definitely a scherzo, irrespective of the composer’s title – is no less adept, and the final Rondo is beguiling, paced to perfection. [Schubert] Lewis shapes the whole sonata beautifully. Harmonia Mundi’s sound is first-rate.