Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) Sonata ("Sonatina") for Violin and Piano in D Major, D. 384 Sonata ("Sonatina") tor Violin and Piano in A...
Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)
Sonata ("Sonatina") for Violin and Piano in D Major,
D. 384
Sonata ("Sonatina") tor Violin and Piano in A Minor,
D. 385
Sonata ("Sonatina") for Violin and Piano in G Minor,
D. 408
Fantasy for Violin and Piano in C Major, D. 934
There are one or two small mysteries about the straightforward
and, unproblematic set of three sonatas for violin and piano that Schubert composed in the
spring of 1816. First, are they properly sonatas or sonatinas? Although until quite lately
they were always listed and printed as "sonatinas", this is no true mystery at
all; Schubert never called them anything but "sonatas", but like so much of his
music they did not reach printed form until several years after his death, when the firm
of Anton Diabelli (whose name has been immortalized by the monumental set of variations
composed by Beethoven on his trivial waltz theme) put them out as "sonatinas" in
1836 in order to entice amateurs who might have felt dubious about their technical skill.
And for more than a hundred years sonatinas they remained. (Nevertheless, if we should
chance to feel that Diabelli was in some way belittling the wonderful composer by his use
of the diminutive, we should remind ourselves that he had also published, in 1821, the
first two of Schubert's compositions to reach printed form: namely, the two songs, Der Erlkonig, which appeared as Opus 1, and Gretchen am Spinnrade, which was Opus 2.)
A more significant puzzle concerns the decidedly simple -at
times, almost naive-style of these three works; it is hard to realise that they are exact
contemporaries of the Fourth Symphony, in C minor,
which the composer himself named the "Tragic". We know that Schubert, in his
veneration for Beethoven's genius, was strongly influenced by the older composer's example
and to some extent by his style and manner of writing - at all events in his instrumental
music (for he can hardly have felt himself to be a disciple of anybody in the sphere of
song). For example, in 1800 Beethoven had written his hugely successful Septet, to which,
24 years later when the opportunity arose, Schubert responded with an Octet that in
a" respects outstripped its evident model. By 1805, however, Beethoven had written
and published nine of his ten Violin Sonatas; and the last of the series, the serenely
beautiful and deeply original G major, Opus 96,
though written a few years earlier, reached print in 1816 - the very year of Schubert's
first three. Yet in these three works - and in their few successors - Schubert writes as
though Beethoven did not exist; to all intents and purposes these are violin sonatas of
the older, Mozartian type, with the violin still playing a somewhat subordinate role to
that of the pianoforte.
This observation applies most to the first, D major, sonata,
which for all its simple attractions makes a somewhat artless effect. In the two following
sonatas, the A minor, D. 385 and the G minor, D. 408, the choice of the minor key seems to
have more evidently stimulated the young composer's imagination: the A minor piece is
especially strong and interesting in its material and structure.
The last two of the series of violin-and-piano pieces, the Rondeau brillant in B minor, D. 895 and the Fantasy in C major, D. 934, belong to quite a
different tradition, having been written in the last year of the composer's life for the
young Czech violinist, Josef Slavik, who was described by Chopin as a second Paganini. The
Fantasy is a long and elaborate composition in seven sections, the third of which is a
theme and variations on a slightly modified form of the melody of the 1821 song, Sei mirgegrüsst. The song is popular, and its melody
both voluptuous and striking; its inclusion seems to have lifted the whole composition on
to quite another plane from that of its predecessors. The faint atmosphere of the
schoolroom perceptible in the three early sonatas is here entirely dispelled; the general
effect is warm, romantic, brilliant.
In the course of its seven movements, the Fantasy oscillates in
a curious way between C major (in which it begins and ends), A minor and major, and the
softly glowing A flat major, in which key Schubert writes the variations on his
song-theme. The piece as a whole has been criticisied for containing "a good share of
that virtuoso element with which, since Hummel and Moscheies had settled in Vienna, all
piano composers in the capital were practically bound to identify themselves."
Nevertheless, it seems to have fallen somewhat flat with its earliest audience. When it
was first performed by Slavik and Karl Maria von Bocklet in January 1828, a Viennese
critic wrote:
The Fantasy occupied rather too much
of the time a Viennese is prepared to devote to pleasures of the mind. The hall emptied
gradually, and the writer confesses that he too is unable to say anything about the
conclusion of this piece of music.
"This must be almost the only occasion", drily
comments the late Professor Westrup, "on which a music critic has admitted that he
left before a piece was finished."
Dong-Suk Kang
Hailed for his artistry, virtuosity and charismatic presence on
stage, the Korean violinist Dong-Suk Kang enjoys an international career spanning
performances with major orchestras, at festivals and in solo recital. He first came to the
attention of the concert-going public when he won both the San Francisco Symphony
Competition and the Merriweather Post Competition in Washington, D.C., and subsequently
went on to win top prizes in several international competitions. among them the Montreal,
the Carl Flesch in London and the Queen Elizabeth in Brussels.
Pascal Devoyon
Since winning third prize in the Leeds International Piano
Competition and the Silver Medal in the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in
Moscow. Pascal Devoyon has developed his career by playing in Europe, the Far East and
America. He is a regular visitor to Japan where he has given many recitals and he has also
worked on both sides of the Atlantic appearing with, among others, the London Philharmonic
Orchestra and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Charles Dutoit.