Schubertiade I FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828) July 19 Sonatina in D Major for Violin and Piano, op. posth. 137, no. 1, D. 384 (March 1816) Allegro molto Sunday, July 19, 10:30 a.m., Stent Family Hall, Andante Menlo School Allegro vivace Aaron Boyd, violin; Gloria Chien, piano Lieb Minna, D. 222 (Stadler) (July 2, 1815) DES Schubertiades feature an intermission reception hosted in Wiegenlied, op. 98, no. 2, D. 498 (author unknown) (November 1816) A partnership with Ridge Vineyards. Joélle Harvey, soprano; Gloria Chien, piano Trio in B-flat Major for Violin, Viola, and Cello, D. 581 (September 1817) Allegro moderato ERTI SPECIAL THANKS Andante Minuetto: Allegretto B Music@Menlo dedicates this performance to Eileen and Joel Rondo: Allegretto U Birnbaum with gratitude for their generous support. Aaron Boyd, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola; Brook Speltz, cello INTERMISSION CH FRANZ SCHUBERT S Heidenröslein, op. 3, no. 3, D. 257 (Goethe) (August 19, 1815) Joélle Harvey, soprano; Jeffrey Kahane, piano Piano Sonata in G Major, op. 78, D. 894 (October 1826) Molto moderato e cantabile Andante Minuetto: Allegro moderato Rondo: Allegretto Jeffrey Kahane, piano Moritz von Schwind (1804–1871). Study for An Evening at Baron von Spaun’s, 1868. Art Resource, NY The Schubertiades In this millennial time of inescapably ubiquitous music, it is perhaps we parted.” On January 12, 1827, Franz von Hartmann reported to his necessary to recall that until 1900 or so the only way to hear music was diary: “To Spaun’s, where there is a Schubertiade...We had a splendid to be present in the place where it was being performed—there was sonata for four hands, glorious variations, and many magnificent no way in those olden days to record it and play it later or to transmit songs...Then we had a delicious repast, and several toasts were drunk. it by air or wire to some distant spot. Ergo, music lovers either had to Suddenly Spaun arrived and said we must drink to brotherhood, pay to have music played for them (at a public concert or, for the rich, which much surprised and pleased me. Then we tossed some fellows by an in-house ensemble), go to church, or make it themselves. This in a blanket...At last we took leave of our kind hosts and went helter- last alternative was, of course, the most immediately accessible to the skelter to Bogner’s [café], where we smoked a few pipes, and in the swelling middle classes, and evening musicales around the household street, Schwind, running and flapping his cloak, gave a striking illu- piano became an integral part of family and social life for all those who sion of flying.” The musical highlights of these Schubertiades included aspired to refined and gracious living. the matchless songs that poured from Schubert throughout his brief The acme of nineteenth-century domestic music making was life, his performances of his own piano works—dances, sonatas, four- reached in Vienna in the 1820s with the evenings of music and Gemüt- hand numbers, character pieces—and such chamber pieces as could be lichkeit that orbited around the modest but incomparable genius arranged among the musically literate participants. of Franz Schubert—the Schubertiades. “Last Friday I had excel- Though the Schubertiades and the genteel world that fostered lent entertainment,” wrote Josef Huber in a letter dated January 30, them have long since faded, the timeless essence of the conviviality, 1821. “Franz [von Schober] invited Schubert and fourteen of his close warmheartedness, and joy of living of those soirées has come down acquaintances for the evening. So a lot of splendid songs by Schubert to us in the music that Schubert created for his friends, music such as were sung and played by himself, which lasted until after ten o’clock in that heard in this festival of his music. Schubert continues to reach out the evening. After that, punch was drunk, offered by one of the party, with a smiling gentleness to touch us, to cheer us, to renew us, and to and, as it was very good and plentiful, the party, in a happy mood, make us, too, his friends. Welcome to the Schubertiades. became even merrier; so it was three o’clock in the morning before Program Notes: Schubertiade I DES Notes on the Program by Dr. Richard E. Rodda A FRANZ SCHUBERT According to the Laibach advertisement, the winning appli- (Born January 31, 1797, Vienna; died November 19, 1828, Vienna) cant “must be a thoroughly trained singer and organist, as well as an ERTI Sonatina in D Major for Violin and Piano, op. posth. 137, no. 1, equally good violin player.” Schubert had already authored literally B D. 384 hundreds of compositions for voice and keyboard that could be used to support his application, but his works for violin had all been within U Composed: March 1816 an orchestral or chamber ensemble context. He was trained in violin Other works from this period: March 1816: At least twelve songs, (though he preferred playing viola in the Schubert household quartet CH including Abschied von der Harfe, D. 406; Die Herbstnacht, D. 404; and and in the amateur orchestra that sprouted from it), but he had not S Der Flüchtling, D. 402; Sonatina in a minor for Violin and Piano, op. yet written a piece featuring the instrument, so in March and April posth. 137, no. 2, D. 385; Sonatina in g minor for Violin and Piano, op. 1816, he quickly composed three sonatinas for violin and piano. It is posth. 137, no. 3, D. 408 unknown, however, whether he intended these works—conventional 1816: Symphony no. 4 in c minor, D. 417, Tragic; Eight Ländler in in form and idiom and modest enough in their technique to be acces- B-flat Major for Piano, D. 378;Konzertstück in D Major for Violin sible to students—to enhance his chances at Laibach or to be played at and Orchestra, D. 345; Stabat Mater in F Major for Soli, Chorus, and the convivial Schubertiades at which he and his friends met to savor Orchestra, D. 383 the latest products of his flourishing genius. When Schubert did not Approximate duration: 12 minutes get the job in Laibach, he decided that he had had more than his fill of teaching. He left his father’s school that spring to devote himself to Between 1814 and 1816, Schubert worked as a teacher in his father’s composing full-time and never again held a regular position. school in suburban Vienna. He cared little for the situation and The three sonatinas of 1816 (published as Opus 137 by Anton soothed his frustration by composing—in 1815 alone, he wrote nearly Diabelli in 1836, eight years after the composer’s death) demonstrate 150 songs, the Second and Third Symphonies, a mass and some other Schubert’s devoted study of Mozart’s works but move beyond those church music, several piano pieces, and a half a dozen operettas and “piano sonatas with the accompaniment of violin” in the indepen- melodramas. The torrent of music continued unabated, and he stole dence of their instrumental parts. The main subject of the Sonatina enough time from his pedagogical duties to compose some two hun- no. 1 in D Major—a climb up and down the tonic chord trailed by a dred pieces between the Third Symphony and the Fourth Symphony few chromatic scale notes, which is remarkably like the opening of (Tragic), completed in April 1816. Music, not teaching, was his passion. Mozart’s Violin and Piano Sonata in a minor, K. 304—is stated at the Schubert, however, was apparently not yet quite ready to give himself outset in unison by the two partners and provides virtually all of the over completely to his art, so when an advertisement appeared in the thematic material for the genial dialogue that composes the remain- Wiener Zeitung on February 17, 1816, for a position at the German Nor- der of this compact sonata-form movement. The Andante is a pretty mal School at Laibach (now Ljubljana), he applied for the job. instrumental song in three-part form (A–B–A), whose expressive content is heightened by its melancholy minor-mode central section. The closing Allegro vivace is a sunny rondo based on the dapper mel- *Bolded terms are defined in the glossary, which begins on page 94. ody trotted out by the violin to launch the movement. FRANZ SCHUBERT Einstein, because “he was not clear in his mind about the form.” In Lieb Minna, D. 222 (Stadler) that year, however, he did finish two symphonies (nos. 4 and 5), a can- Composed: July 2, 1815 tata in honor of the sixty-sixth birthday of his counterpoint teacher Antonio Salieri, a Magnificat, a Stabat Mater, and a large number of Other works from this period: July 1815: At least twenty songs, songs, including Der Wanderer. After being inspired by the Rossini including Geist der Liebe, op. posth. 118, D. 233; and Das Sehnen, fever then sweeping Vienna to compose an Italian-style overture in op. posth. 172, no. 4, D. 231; Fernando, Singspiel in One Act, D. 220; May 1817 (D. 556), he turned his attention to the piano and completed Claudine von Villa Bella, Singspiel, D. 239; Hymne an den Unendlichen, seven sonatas by August, which he played at the Schubertiades and at D. 232 the homes of wealthy patrons (whose fine pianos he loved to try out). In September, Schober’s brother returned from Paris, and the penni- Wiegenlied, op. 98, no. 2, D. 498 (author unknown) less composer reluctantly removed himself from his room in the city Composed: November 1816 to his father’s home and school in the suburbs.