Tuesday is the 219th anniversary of Franz Schubert's birth and we're celebrating by featuring the Austrian composer's works for four hands. Tune in evey day @ 1PM when Intermezzo host Chris Wolf will feature a complete work---Only on Winnipeg's Classic 107.
Schubert's unsurpassed achievement in the piano duet includes dances, marches, variation sets, overtures, fantasies, divertissements and sonatas. Many of them written for his pupils, the daughters of Count Esterhazy, during summer months at the Count's country estate. He clearly held these works in high esteem. His first published piano duet was released in 1822 with the dedication 'To Ludwig van Beethoven, from his worshiper and admirer Franz Schubert' and he is said to have delivered the work personally to the older master.
Schubert wrote more four-hand piano music than any other great composer, all of it enjoyable, some of it amongst his finest music. The most famous, though not the best, is the first of the 3 Marches militaires, D. 733.
In the same category, but at a markedly higher artistic level, are the high-spirited 2 Marches caractéristiques, D. 886.
And, much lengthier, the once tremendously popular Divertissement à l’hongroise, D. 818.
The most imposing is the very substantial Sonata in C ‘Grand Duo’, D. 812, truly symphonic in dimensions and character, and so orchestral in conception that it was long thought to be a piano arrangement of the missing 'Gmunden-Gasteiner' symphony. Schubert's piano duets are often orchestral in nature. The 'Grand Duo' has been orchestrated several times, most notably by Joseph Joachim, as have the F Minor Fantasie and the famous 'Military March' among other duets.
The best of Schubert's duets, however, is the extraordinary Fantasie in F minor, D. 940, a work whose tragic essence is all the more affecting for the sweetness in it. Many musicians would cite it as the finest four-hand work ever written (its only rivals being two sonatas by Mozart, K. 497 and 521). Tune in on Wednesday when Chris Wolf will feature this particular work in his 1 PM hour. Shorter but if anything even finer is the passionate Allegro in A minor (‘Lebensstürme’), D. 947, a marvellously involving work.
Schubert wrote his greatest piano duets in the miraculously productive last year of his life as he continued his compositional experimentation. There is no doubt that Schubert's piano duets place great demands on their performer's sense of timbre, intelligence, speed of reaction and concern for detail. They are difficult, but certainly not unplayable.
Tune in to Intermezzo with host Chris Wolf to learn more about these beautiful works and to hear them performed by some of the most talented pianists in the world!
Source: http://www.franzpeterschubert.com/index.html
Fri, Apr 26, 5:07 PM
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