As Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida continues her exploration of Schubert , we've been privileged to observe a kind of dual evolution: not only that of the composer, but the accumulated insights of a performer tapping into her, by now, exquisitely rare empathy. Some of the most intriguing results have centred around those flashes of the composer's early maturity from the mid-1820s (as in the piano sonatas D.845 and 575), revealing what a wealth of musical innovation and variety Schubert had already explored before the highly revered last three sonatas (those in C minor and A and of course the crowning B flat). Uchida--performing on a fantastically responsive 1962 Steinway--detonates the bold, high-spirited opening bars of the extroverted sonata in D (D.850) with an exuberance of vitality that will make you gasp. Uchida is especially at home in those moments when the music seems to float above the patterns it has just created and enter an altogether new region (the final reprise of the stunningly syncopated contrasting material in the slow movement or the trio of the third). While the technique may not be completely flawless, Uchida's execution of musical thought constantly disarms and captivates: whether in its sensitivity to harmonic colour or--particularly noticeable in these accounts--in its deft awareness of Schubert's rhythmic complexity and play. The programming also allows for dramatic contrast, with the disjunctive pain of the A-minor sonata undoing all the extroverted effusion that has gone before. --Thomas May