Angèle Dubeau, Anton Kuerti - Schubert: Three Sonatas for Violin and Piano (2008)

Aside from his operas, Schubert‘s most neglected compositions must be his works for violin. The reason for the neglect of these treasures is not hard to guess.

Aside from the musical quality and level of inspiration of a work, its degree of difficulty is usually a crucial consideration for most performers. Since much of their success is derived from the display of technical mastery over their instrument, they tend to gravitate toward music difficult enough to allow them a chance to show off this prowess — while on the other hand avoiding outrageous difficulties that not only require endless practise but are also perilous to play in public.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) managed to miss the mark on both ends of this happy hunting ground of the virtuoso by first writing these three Sonatas, which have generally (and shamefully) been considered too “easy” to be worth the attention of performers beyond the category of advanced student. He then compounded the error by writing such devilishly difficult works as the Rondo in B minor D 895 and the great — if somewhat problematic — Fantasie in C major, D 934, considered (like the “Wanderer” Fantasie for piano) to be nigh unplayable. But to do justice to any work of genius — perhaps especially when it is outwardly “easy” like the Schubert Violin Sonatas — remains a profound and rewarding challenge.

The relative simplicity of these works caused them to be condescendingly titled “Sonatinas” when they were first published as Op. 137 by Diabelli in 1836, eight years after Schubert‘s death. This spurious title may share responsibility for the neglect of these splendid pieces, which are no more “Sonatinas” than any of Mozart‘s or Beethoven’s early Violin Sonatas. The new Bärenreiter complete edition of Schubert on which our performances are based, has now restored the proper epithet of “Sonata” to these exquisite gems.

Little is known about the origin of the Sonatas, except that they were written in March and April of 1816, when Schubert was nineteen years old. Their highly personal, inspired yet subtle expression and their seamless, natural nobility testify to a teen-ager of extraordinary depth and mastery. His profoundly poetic character (at an age when most people are at their most prosaic) can be judged from the words he wrote in his diary that year about Mozart: “All my life I shall remember this fine, clear, lovely day. I still hear softly, as from a distance, the magic strains of Mozart’s music… So do these lovely impressions, which neither time nor circumstance can efface, remain in the mind and influence for good our whole existence. In the dark places of this life they point to that clear-shining and distant future in which our whole hope lies. O immortal Mozart, how infinitely many inspiring suggestions of a finer, better life have you left in our souls!” How perfectly Schubert’s words apply to his own music, from our perspective…