This is one of the most convincing accounts of what, I consider, no doubt recklessly, the greatest piano sonata ever composed. Marc-André Hamelin’s tentativeness in the huge opening movement (with the crucial repeat observed, thank heavens) is exquisitely poetic. It is Schubert’s emotional equivalent to Mozart’s “smiling through tears” in his final works. The soft, deep trill on a dissonant G Flat that threatens the celestial calm of the opening, always sounds far more sinister than the similar effect at the end of the slow movement of Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique.