A candidate for the canon? A new look at Schubert's Fantasie in C Major for violin and piano

Nineteenth Century Music

Volumn 20, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 205-230

  McCreless, Patrick ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 61949092310     PISSN: 01482076     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/ncm.1997.20.3.02a00020     Document Type: Review

References (46)

1. I follow the modern convention of listing the melodic instrument first in duo works with piano, in contradistinction to the practice of Schubert's time: that is, Fantasie "for Violin and Piano" rather than Fantasie "for Piano and Violin." Schubert himself used the latter title, referring to the work as "Fantasie für Pianoforte u. Violine" in a letter (21 February 1828) offering the Fantasie and a number of other works to B. Schotts Söhne. The autograph (Vienna Stadtsbibliothek MH3977/c) is untitled. See Otto Erich Deutsch, Schubert: Die Dokumente seines Lebens, Franz Schubert: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, ser. VIII, vol. 5 (Kassel, 1964), p. 495.
2. When the Fantasie was finally published by Diabelli in 1850 as op. 159, it was entitled Fantasie pour Piano et Violon composée par François Schubert. See Deutsch, Franz Schubert: Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, Franz Schubert: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, ser. VIII, vol. 4 (Kassel, 1978), p. 597.
3. Alfred Brendel, Musical Thoughts and Afterthoughts (London, 1991), p. 58.
4. The B-Minor Rondo, entitled simply "Rondo" on the autograph, was published in 1827 as Rondeau brillant pour Pianoforte et Violon ... Op. 70.
5. See Deutsch, Thematisches Verzeichnis, pp. 563-64.
6. Review from the Sammler, Vienna, 7 February 1828.
7. See Deutsch, Dokumente, p. 480.
8. Translation from Alfred Einstein, Schubert: A Musical Portrait (New York, 1951), p. 276. The emptying of the hall before the end of the performance was particularly damning, given that the concert was a matinee.
9. Review from the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 2 April 1828.
10. Translation from Einstein, Schubert, p. 276.
11. Review from the Wiener allgemeine Theaterzeitung, 29 January 1828. Deutsch, Schubert: A Documentary Biography [London, 1946), p. 715. The poor early reviews of the Fantasie were at least in part responsible for its not being published in Schubert's lifetime.
12. The publisher H. A. Probst, on writing to Schubert of his acceptance of the E-Major Piano Trio, was at pains to insist that under no circumstances was the Fantasie to be included in the agreement, since the Leipziger allgemeine Zeitung had given Slavek's performance of the work there a negative review. Deutsch, Dokumente, p. 512.
13. Paul Mies, Franz Schubert (Wiesbaden, 1954), p. 115.
14. Boris Schwarz, "Die Violinbehandlung bei Schubert," in Zur Aufführungspraxis der Werke Franz Schuberts, ed. Vera Schwarz (Munich, 1981), p. 90.
15. Schubert, Werke für Klavier und ein Instrument, Schubert: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, ser. VI, vol. 8, foreword, p. ix.
16. Schwarz, "Die Violinbehandlung bei Schubert," p. 89. Paganini's first concert, on 29 March, was only three days after a now famous concert of Schubert's own works, including "the first movement of a new string quartet," possibly the G-Major String Quartet, D. 887 (Deutsch, Dokumente, p. 503).
17. Although the 29 March concert was not well attended, Paganini's fame spread quickly in Vienna, and he stayed in the city for four months, giving fourteen concerts, of which Schubert went to at least one. Deutsch, Dokumente, pp. 505, 515.
18. Maurice J. E. Brown, Schubert: A Critical Biography (London, 1958), p. 270.
19. Quoted (without source) in Brown, Schubert's Variations (London, 1954), pp. 53-54.
20. l3 Brown, Schubert's Variations, pp. 85, 87.
21. Arthur Godel, "Zur Eigengesetz der Schubertschen Fantasien," in Schubert-Kongreß Wien 1978, ed. Otto Brusatti (Graz, 1979), pp. 199-206.
22. See John Reed, The Schubert Song Companion (Manchester, 1985), p. 383.
23. Rückert was a student and translator of Oriental poetry, the forms of which he frequently used in his own work. In addition to Sei mir gegrüsst, Schubert set three other songs from Rückert's Östliche Rosen. On the ghazal, see The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, ed. Alex Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan (Princeton, N.J., 1993), pp. 478-79.
24. See Godel, "Zur Eigengesetz der Schubertschen Fantasien," p. 200.
25. Brown, Schubert Essays (London, 1966), p. 90.
26. See also William Kinderman, "Schubert's Tragic Perspective," in Schubert: Critical and Analytical Studies, ed. Walter Frisch (Lincoln, Neb. 1986), pp. 75-82.
27. Einstein, Schubert, p. 276.
28. On the double-function sonata, see William S. Newman, The Sonata Since Beethoven (3rd edn. Chapel Hill, 1983), pp. 134-35, 373-78.
29. The formal divisions in the Allegretto and Allegro are as follows. Allegretto: A (m. 37, a small aabab form, A minor-C Major), Developmental section (m. 83, modulating, beginning in A major), A (m. 182, A minor-C major), Developmental section (m. 219, modulating, beginning in C major). Allegro: A (m. 493, a small aabb form, C major), B (m. 525, C major-A minor), Developmental section (m. 541, modulating, beginning in A minor), A (m. 555, C major), B (m. 579, A major), Developmental section (m. 595, modulating, beginning in Fmusic sharp sign minor), A (m. 611, A minor-C major).
30. Jeffrey Kallberg, "The Rhetoric of Genre: Chopin's Nocturne in G Minor," this journal 11 (1988), 238-61.
31. Dahlhaus's extensive writings on genre include discussions in Esthetics of Music, trans. William W. Austin (Cambridge, 1982);
32. Foundations of Music History, trans. J. B. Robinson (Cambridge, 1983);
33. and Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. J. B. Robinson (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1989).
34. See also Alastair Fowler, Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes (Cam-bridge, Mass., 1982);
35. and Adena Rosmarin, The Power of Genre (Minneapolis, 1985), both cited by Kallberg.
36. Peter Schleuning, Die freie Fantasie: Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der klassischen Klaviermusik (Göppingen, 1973), p. 354.
37. My discussion here is deeply indebted to Schleuning's monograph, and to his introductory essay in Die Fantasie II: 18. bis 20. Jahrhundert, Das Musikwerk, vol. 43 (Cologne, 1971), pp. 5-23.
38. See Carl Czerny's discussion in A Systematic Introduction to Improvisation on the Pianoforte, Op. 200, trans. and ed. Alice L. Mitchell (New York, 1983), pp. 86-106.
39. See Schleuning, Die freie Fantasie, p. 355.
40. Schleuning, Die Fantasie II, pp. 16-17.
41. For a thorough account of Schumann's many changes of mind regarding the title of op. 17, see Nicholas Marston, Schumann: Fantasie, Op. 17 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 23-33.
42. Alfred Brendel reminds us that only one of Beethoven's piano sonatas was performed in a public concert during his lifetime (Musical Thoughts and Afterthoughts, p. 69).
43. See Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, pp. 137-38.
44. Lawrence Kramer, "The Schubert Lied: Romantic Form and Romantic Consciousness," in Schubert: Critical and Analytical Studies, p. 201.
45. Since the argument here turns on melodic scale-degree function rather than literal register, I will refer to the tenor's line as being a third below the upper voice of the piano, even though the interval is actually a tenth.
46. In his classic essay "A Romantic Detail in Schubert's Schwanengesang," Joseph Kerman cites the Violin Fantasie - along with, for example, the song Am Meer and the first movement of the String Quintet - as works in C major that begin with a striking harmonic progression (usually tonic-"common-tone" diminished seventh-tonic) that establishes a mood but is structurally unrelated to the rest of the piece. Although I show that important linear patterns that create the progression here are motivically related to other parts of the Fantasie, Kerman's point about the harmony remains perfectly valid: the colorful chords of the beginning never recur, except when this introduction returns near the end of the work. Kerman's essay is reproduced in Schubert: Critical and Analytical Studies, pp. 48-64.