Violin Recital: Adele Anthony

Description

Franz Schubert(1797-1828)Duo Sonata in A major,Op. 162, D. 574 Rondeau brillant in Bminor, D. 895, Op. 70 Fantasy in C major,Op. 159, D. 934Born in Vienna in1797, the son of a schoolmaster, Franz Schubert was a chorister in the ImperialChapel and a pupil of the Staatskonvikt, where a scholarship would havepermitted further academic study after his voice broke, had he not chosenrather to take a course of training as a teacher and thereafter, briefly andintermittently, to join his father in the class-room. This vocation, for whichhe had no clear aptitude, he eventually deserted, devoting his time as far aspossible to composition and to the company of his friends. By the time of hisdeath in 1828, the result of a venereal infection contracted some six yearsearlier, he had begun to win some recognition from publishers, althoughofficial positions in any capacity in the musical establishment of Vienna stilleluded him. Schubert, while no virtuoso, was both pianist and violinist, in thelatter capacity the leader of his school orchestra, while in the Schubertfamily quartet he played the viola. His principal compositions for violin andpiano are the three relatively conventional sonatas or sonatinas of 1816, the DuoSonata in A major of 1817 and the Rondeau brillant andremarkable Fantasy in C major of the last years of his life. The closingmonths of 1816 had brought Schubert a temporary respite from the drudgery ofserving as his father's assistant in the school-house. Now he was persuaded byhis friend Franz von Schober to take advantage of his mother's hospitality andlive, for the moment at least, in relative freedom. There had been no successin his application for positions that might have brought him independence,coupled with the kind of musical duties that might have served both asinspiration and discipline, and he was left, as he was until the end of hislife, to provide music for the use of his own circle, rather than for any widerpublic, although his final years brought increased interest from publishers. In1817, however, the year of the Duo Sonata in A major, later to be issuedas Opus 162, publishers showed little sign of awareness of Schubert'sexistence. This was the year of his introduction to the established singerJohann Michael Vogl, of the court opera, now nearing retirement from the stageand willing to perform on the more modest scale of the Vienna salon, the yearof a further series of songs, of overtures that acknowledge the contemporarypopularity of Rossini and of a number of piano sonatas.The Duo sharesits musical tasks between the violin and the piano. There is, as so often withSchubert, something song-like in the first theme offered by the violin in theopening Allegro moderato, followed by further musical ideas before abrief central development and an orderly recapitulation. The second movement isa Scherzo, placed here to provide a contrast that proximity to the lastmovement would not here allow. There are surprises of key, as the E major Sch