Utwory na płycie:

• CD01 TK 01 Franz Schubert Duo Sonata in A major Op 162 D 574 I Allegro moderato
• CD01 TK 02 Franz Schubert Duo Sonata in A major Op 162 D 574 II Scherzo and Trio
• CD01 TK 03 Franz Schubert Duo Sonata in A major Op 162 D 574 III Andantino
• CD01 TK 04 Franz Schubert Duo Sonata in A major Op 162 D 574 IV Allegro vivace
• CD01 TK 05 Franz Schubert Fantasy in C major Op 159 D 934 I Andante molto
• CD01 TK 06 Franz Schubert Fantasy in C major Op 159 D 934 II Allegretto
• CD01 TK 07 Franz Schubert Fantasy in C major Op 159 D 934 III Andantino
• CD01 TK 08 Franz Schubert Fantasy in C major Op 159 D 934 IV Tempo primo Allegro Allegretto Presto
• CD01 TK 09 Franz Schubert Fantasie in F minor Op 103 D 940 I Allegro molto moderato
• CD01 TK 10 Franz Schubert Fantasie in F minor Op 103 D 940 II Largo
• CD01 TK 11 Franz Schubert Fantasie in F minor Op 103 D 940 III Allegro vivace
• CD01 TK 12 Franz Schubert Fantasie in F minor Op 103 D 940 IV Tempo I

Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major “Duo”, D. 574 (Op. Posth. 162)
Fantasia for Violin and Piano in C major, D. 934 (Op. Posth. 159)
Fantasia in F minor for Piano Duet, D. 940 (Op. 103)

Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)

Schubert concluded his personal violin sonata ‘chapter’ early on, as his last work in this genre dates from 1817: the Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major, D. 574 (Op. posth. 162, Grand Duo). Perhaps he put aside any further plans for violin sonatas he might have had due to a number of significant experiences he underwent in 1817. Although Schubert is often portrayed by the lay world as never being successful with his compositions during his lifetime, this is not entirely the case. Thus his cantata Prometheus – penned the previous year – had created quite a sensation in Vienna. Otherwise Schubert would hardly have considered giving up his recently (1816) acquired teaching position in favour of creative free-lancing. However, music historians are right about the negative representation of the reception given to Schubert’s works, as indeed, according to traditional tales, fortune did not smile upon him: of all things, this successful work – the Prometheus Cantata – was lost to the world and has not yet been rediscovered to this day.

At any rate, in 1817 a number of things occurred simultaneously: his cantata was a success, he resigned from his job as a teacher, he left home and struck out for himself, and he put an end to his composition lessons with Antonio Salieri. In this period of time, Schubert also wrote two of his most famous songs: Der Tod und das Mädchen (= Death and the maiden) and Der Wanderer (= The wanderer). Two successes in the Lied genre, which led to the contact with the baritone Johann Michael Vogl, who would later become one of his most important friends and patrons. On the other side, the lack of funds, with which Schubert had struggled since resigning from his job as a teacher, had prevented his marriage to Therese Grob, who was most likely the only woman to feature in his life. Thus, these were the circumstances in which he wrote his Violin Sonata in A major – and as so often, it does not say much about the actual frame of mind of the composer at the time of writing the work. For it is a cheerful composition that comes up only with movements in 3 time after the Allegro moderato, which appears to be almost pure Mendelssohn, and as a result also retains an irrevocably tripping, airy and rhythmically springy mood.

In 1826, Schubert had met the Bohemian violinist Josef Slavik, who was making a stopover in Vienna at the time. A year later, he wrote his Fantasia in C major, D. 934, a composition tailor-made for Slavik, who was known to be a true master at his profession.

One should not always rely on the musicologists. At least, not as far as the attribution of certain musical characters or moods of a work are concerned, or the appreciation of its tonal characteristics. That puts paid to intuition really fast… How is it otherwise possible that the music-historian Guido Fischer described Schubert’s Fantasia for Violin and Piano in C major, D. 934 (Op. posth. 159), written one year before the death of the composer, as “a model of cheerful nonchalance and playful this-worldliness”? For although the Fantasia is light and easy-going, sparkling and, as far as I’m concerned, ‘this-worldly’ in its fast sections, at the beginning this piece is anything but this-worldly: rather, it is introverted in more radical a manner than one usually comes across in music from Schubert’s time. For already at the solemn moment of the beginning, when the violin raises its voice in all simplicity above that of the piano (which represents nature, the rushing brook), like a helpless individual pouring out his sorrow, for whom all that remains is the experience of and the dialogue with nature, it becomes clear that this masterpiece is most definitely dealing with – and let us state this clearly – the hereafter.

As lonely as the individual clearly is at the beginning of the Fantasia, just as deeply later on does he wallow in memories of lost love. And when Schubert bases the Andantino of the Fantasia on the A-flat-major variation theme from his own Lied Sei mir gegrüßt, D. 741, then he is nevertheless ‘saying’ something, admittedly without a word actually being said. For the last verse of the poem by Friedrich Rückert, on which the Lied is based, runs as follows: “Ein Hauch der Liebe tilget Raum und Zeiten, ich bin bei dir, du bist bei mir, ich halte dich in dieses Arms Umschlusse, sei mir gegrüßt, sei mir geküsst!” (= A breath of love wipes out time and space, I am with you, you are with me, I hold you in my arms’ embrace, my greetings, my kisses flow to you!) The first bars of Schubert’s Fantasia are all about distant, long-lost love, thoughts of the end, returning to nature, the embracing of nature, time and eternity – and not particularly, no, definitely not with ‘this-worldliness’.

The German music-historian Walther Vetter (1891 – 1967) once wrote the following: “Schubert himself enjoyed sitting down at the piano together with a partner; for this reason too, he generously delighted chosen acquaintances and patrons with works for piano duet.” Now, we are well aware that Schubert left behind a multitude of works for piano duet. However, what bothers us somewhat about these lines is their complacency – at any rate, if we seriously attempt to apply them to the Fantasia in F minor, D. 940 (Op. 103). This seems to us nevertheless too distressing, too profound a work of Schubert’s to actually “delight” an audience. Particularly since Schubert wrote this composition in 1828, the year in which he died. Nevertheless, the Fantasia is certainly “Hausmusik” (= a piece of music written for performance within the home), as – although it may seem somewhat old-fashioned to us nowadays – performing music for guests in the drawing room was part of normal life during the 19th century. In this manner, people hauled emotional experiences into their own living room. Experiences that nowadays – naturally toned down in truth, somewhat impoverished – must be replaced by certain occurrences in the media. However, anyone who has truly heard this Fantasia performed in a small room, with just a few other people present, knows how much further the horizon of such an experience extends. The moment alone, in which after 36 bars the F-minor theme simply appears in the major key, is utterly priceless, unmistakable and irreplaceable.

During a funeral gathering held for Schubert in Linz on December 27, 1828, the poet Carl Adam Kaltenbrunner provided those present with an excellent prologue, of which the fourth verse in fact embraced everything that is conveyed emotionally in the Fantasia in F minor: “Wir hören seine Seele sich ergießen, wie eine Nachtigall im Blütenstrauch; In zärtlichen Gefühlen sanft zerfließen, hinwehend wie ein warmer Liebeshauch! Doch mächtig werden wir oft hingerissen, und Schuberts Töne sind ein Donner auch! So wußt’ er uns mit sich empor zu tragen, des Herzens tiefste Saiten anzuschlagen!” (= We hear his soul pouring itself out, like a nightingale in the flowering shrubs; softly melting in tender feelings, fluttering like a lover’s warm breath! Yet often are we totally spellbound, and Schubert’s tones are also like thunder! Thus he managed to bear us up with him, to pluck the most sensitive strings of our hearts!)