BaL 7.01.17 - Schubert: Fantasie for Violin & Piano in C, D934

[visualnickmos]

Violin and piano, not being one of my favourite combos, I will listen - I "want to learn"

[verismissimo]

In 2012 Anne-Sophie Mutter who had been touring with the work and was playing it that evening with Lambert Orkis said to me in an interview "The Schubert Fantasie in C major which I am playing tonight is the crown of chamber music repertoire… Seriously, it is the greatest piece ever written for violin and piano."

Interesting. I'm wondering if she's recorded it? And if not, why not?

I only seem to have Busch with Serkin from 1931, which I feel is a bit severe, not very Viennese.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

In 2012 Anne-Sophie Mutter who had been touring with the work and was playing it that evening with Lambert Orkis said to me in an interview "The Schubert Fantasie in C major which I am playing tonight is the crown of chamber music repertoire… Seriously, it is the greatest piece ever written for violin and piano."

Y'know - I think she just might be right. (Beethoven Kreuzer, or the Op 96? Schoenberg's Fantasie? Maybe/maybe not.) Miraculous work, even with the "competition"!

[vinteuil]

.

... those who have the black 29 CD box brought out to mark the 50th anniversary of harmonia mundi will be pleased to find it contains the Faust / Melnikov recording

[ ... just discovered it was there, just in time, while contemplating ordering a copy of their CD ]

[mikealdren]

Just seen that Janinie Jansen is performing it in the Wigmore Hall in June, 2 performances in one season at the Wigmore show how highly violinists regard this work.

[aeolium]

I too love this work, certainly one of my favourites in the whole violin & piano repertoire. I think the C major/A minor tonality was particularly personally important for Schubert, rather as C minor was for Beethoven and G minor for Mozart. There are a number of masterpieces in these keys from his last years: the Reliquie and D845 piano sonatas; the Grand Duo piano duet; the Great C major symphony; the string quintet and the Allegro in A minor for piano duet (Lebensstürme). The Fantasy D934 I think shares some qualities with at least some of these works. That magical opening, with the violin sound entering as if through Caspar David Friedrich mists from a distance over a rippling piano accompaniment creates a feeling of rhythmic and harmonic uncertainty, if only briefly, perhaps like the opening of the string quintet; the horn solo opening of the C major symphony, and the clarinet entry in Der Hirt auf dem Felsen also seem to be heard as if from afar. The Fantasy's form is anything but free: the slow introduction in C leading to a Hungarian-style Allegretto in A minor before the central theme and variations on "Sei mir gegrüßt" in A flat after which there is a return to the music of the introduction and a finale which summarises thematically and harmonically everything that has gone before. The A-minor/A flat juxtaposition also crops up in the Lebensstürme piano duet, and the Hungarian style of the A minor Allegretto is evident in the finale of the string quintet (and indeed in many other Schubert works).

I find it a pity that this work, from the disappointing reception of its first public performance in January 1828, has been often overlooked in the piano/violin repertoire and damned with faint praise or outright hostility (as in Maurice Brown's absurd comment, "all too soon the rich embroidery begins and the music grows turgid" - turgid!?!) It might be because it stands virtually alone in Schubert's mature writing for this combination of instruments, apart from the Rondo Brillant in B minor - the earlier sonatinas and duo sonata were written before he was 20. And also there is the technical difficulty for both players. The work was originally written for two virtuoso performers, the pianist Bocklet and the violinist Josef Slavik, who had also given a concert performance of the Rondo Brillant, and it is a work not for a soloist and accompanist but for a partnership of equals (Bocklet had also performed the Wanderer Fantasy D760). The virtuosity is never for show ("rich embroidery") but is deployed in the service of the music, in the variation movement quickening the pulse and enriching the dramatic dialogue between the performers. The technical challenges - even to this day Bärenreiter's score includes a simplified violin part - may explain why it has sometimes been difficult for the work to be realised successfully in performance. Still, it's a melancholy reflection that, as Schubert's playwright friend Eduard von Bauernfeld recalled after his friend's death, during 1828 Paganini gave eight concerts in Vienna over a few weeks and in that period received a sum equal to that which Schubert earned from his works over his lifetime. "Verily the favours of music were distributed with a strange sense of justice..."

Of the recordings in EA's excellent list, I have Goldberg/Lupu which I like, and I have also admired the performances of Fischer/Helmchen and Ibragimova/Tiberghien. But I always enjoy hearing new interpretations of this wonderful and fascinating work.

[Stanfordian]

Y'know - I think she just might be right. (Beethoven Kreuzer, or the Op 96? Schoenberg's Fantasie? Maybe/maybe not.) Miraculous work, even with the "competition"!

I don’t know if the Fantasie is the finest work written for violin and piano but it's certainly an exceptional one. Over the years it has been much maligned in some quarters. I recall she said it was difficult to play so maybe its not always performed as well as it should be.

Of course Schubert is not known for works for violin and piano. I relish the third section a glorious theme and variations.

I was delighted that Mutter chose to play it as part of her European recital tour. In fact she programmed the Fantasie as the final work of the evening.

[Barbirollians]

I too love this work, certainly one of my favourites in the whole violin & piano repertoire. I think the C major/A minor tonality was particularly personally important for Schubert, rather as C minor was for Beethoven and G minor for Mozart. There are a number of masterpieces in these keys from his last years: the Reliquie and D845 piano sonatas; the Grand Duo piano duet; the Great C major symphony; the string quintet and the Allegro in A minor for piano duet (Lebensstürme). The Fantasy D934 I think shares some qualities with at least some of these works. That magical opening, with the violin sound entering as if through Caspar David Friedrich mists from a distance over a rippling piano accompaniment creates a feeling of rhythmic and harmonic uncertainty, if only briefly, perhaps like the opening of the string quintet; the horn solo opening of the C major symphony, and the clarinet entry in Der Hirt auf dem Felsen also seem to be heard as if from afar. The Fantasy's form is anything but free: the slow introduction in C leading to a Hungarian-style Allegretto in A minor before the central theme and variations on "Sei mir gegrüßt" in A flat after which there is a return to the music of the introduction and a finale which summarises thematically and harmonically everything that has gone before. The A-minor/A flat juxtaposition also crops up in the Lebensstürme piano duet, and the Hungarian style of the A minor Allegretto is evident in the finale of the string quintet (and indeed in many other Schubert works).

I find it a pity that this work, from the disappointing reception of its first public performance in January 1828, has been often overlooked in the piano/violin repertoire and damned with faint praise or outright hostility (as in Maurice Brown's absurd comment, "all too soon the rich embroidery begins and the music grows turgid" - turgid!?!) It might be because it stands virtually alone in Schubert's mature writing for this combination of instruments, apart from the Rondo Brillant in B minor - the earlier sonatinas and duo sonata were written before he was 20. And also there is the technical difficulty for both players. The work was originally written for two virtuoso performers, the pianist Bocklet and the violinist Josef Slavik, who had also given a concert performance of the Rondo Brillant, and it is a work not for a soloist and accompanist but for a partnership of equals (Bocklet had also performed the Wanderer Fantasy D760). The virtuosity is never for show ("rich embroidery") but is deployed in the service of the music, in the variation movement quickening the pulse and enriching the dramatic dialogue between the performers. The technical challenges - even to this day Bärenreiter's score includes a simplified violin part - may explain why it has sometimes been difficult for the work to be realised successfully in performance. Still, it's a melancholy reflection that, as Schubert's playwright friend Eduard von Bauernfeld recalled after his friend's death, during 1828 Paganini gave eight concerts in Vienna over a few weeks and in that period received a sum equal to that which Schubert earned from his works over his lifetime. "Verily the favours of music were distributed with a strange sense of justice..."

Of the recordings in EA's excellent list, I have Goldberg/Lupu which I like, and I have also admired the performances of Fischer/Helmchen and Ibragimova/Tiberghien. But I always enjoy hearing new interpretations of this wonderful and fascinating work.

Good to see you back aeolium.

[gurnemanz]

My only recent acquaintance with this work despite being a long-standing Schubert fan is perhaps indicative of the under-the-radar status of the work. I got to know it via Faust/Melnikov on the Harmonia Mundi box mentioned by vinteuil above. I now have one other version - on the Gidon Kremer 4CD collection. For me Kremer and the excellent Valery Afanassiev make for a fascinating and engrossing listen.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I relish the third section a glorious theme and variations.

- based on one of his lieder; I forget which one - and I can't help wondering if, like the "Wanderer" Fantasy, the "Death & the Maiden" 4tet, and the "Trout" Quintet, it might be better-known and more frequently performed if it had the song's name as a title?

[Stanfordian]

- based on one of his lieder; I forget which one - and I can't help wondering if, like the "Wanderer" Fantasy, the "Death & the Maiden" 4tet, and the "Trout" Quintet, it might be better-known and more frequently performed if it had the song's name as a title?

Hiya ferney,

You are so right. A name always helps circulation. I did wonder if anyone has orchestrated the Fantasie, or even considered doing it!

[LeMartinPecheur]

... based on one of his lieder; I forget which one

Sei mir gegrüsst

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sei mir gegrüsst

Not the easiest of lieder titles to give a "nickname" to another work, but if there's a "Farewell" Symphony, why not a "Greetings" Fantasia?





No; I'm not convinced, either.

[MickyD]

To my shame, I didn't know this piece at all. I'm tempted to buy the Faust/Melnikov version, but rather regret that they didn't do it on period instruments...I would love to have heard the work on a fine old Conrad Graf.

[Barbirollians]

Nor do I have various bits of Schubert violin music normally the Rondo piece but do not know this at all suspect Fischer and Helmchen will be good.