As Richard Wigmore remarks in his booklet, biographical speculation is always a risky game with Schubert. Listening to Leif Ove Andsnes in the great B flat Sonata, though, I found cinematic images springing unbidden into mind as the first movement unfolded: the terminally ill composer facing up to the prospect of death, discussing his state of mind with close friends, listening to their advice and comforting words.

Not that Andsnes’s wonderfully lucid playing invests the work with any such sentimentality. Rather, it is his gifts as a colourist and communicator that make him such a masterly musical narrator. For once, one is yearning for the exposition repeat as though Schubert’s friends were trying to stem the torrent of conflicting moods and thoughts, asking him to re-examine his outpouring before continuing. In Andsnes’s hands, the ethereal slow movement tells us that, after all, Schubert is alone and his fate sealed, while the fragile jollity of the Scherzo and the giddy succession of memorable themes in the finale – turning a blind eye, or manufactured optimism? – are heroic attempts to recreate the carefree times of earlier days. That, at any rate, is how the sonata struck me anew as I listened spellbound to this great recording of a much-recorded work.

As in the two earlier volumes in this format, the vocal selections reflect the character of the sonata, here all innately concerned with farewells and quiet reflection. The extended, 13-minute ballad Viola (a lament for a wilted flower), Der Winterabend (in which the fall of evening recalls memories of a lost love) and, finally, a rarity on disc – and the only one of its type in the Schubert canon – Abschied von der Erde, a haunting piece of spoken verse with piano accompaniment. Ian Bostridge and Andsnes once more convey their shared love of the composer with a refined musicality that is a joy to hear.