Almost all of Schobert’s
music seems to belong to the 1760s, one of those decades in which
there emerges clear evidence of important changes in European
sensibility. It was the decade, for example, in which Jean-Jacques
Rousseau published Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761),
Du contrat social (1762); and Émile (1762). In doing
so he did much to prepare the ground for romanticism, with his
emphasis on the value of emotional states such as sorrow and romantic
longing, on the desirability of ‘communion’ with nature and on
that ‘freedom’ famously alluded to in the first sentence of Du
contrat social: “Man is born free, and he is everywhere in
chains”. It was also the decade in which Gluck’s operatic
reforms (Orfeo ed Euridice belongs
to 1762) would make possible the emergence of ‘romantic’ opera.
Some of C.P.E. Bach’s finest music of the empfindsamer Stil
(‘the highly sensitive style’) also belongs to these years, fittingly
for a decade which also saw the emergence of the Gothic novel
(with Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto in 1765) and the
new subjectivity of novels such as Sterne’s Tristram Shandy
(1760).
The exact date and
place of Schobert’s birth are uncertain. He appears in Paris,
as a young musician, in the service of the Prince Louis-François
of Bourbon-Conti in 1760 or 1761, just in time to respond to the
new tendencies. His compositions seem perfectly to reflect and
articulate the new sensibility - sensitive, inward, marked at
times by a pleasing freshness and spontaneity of expression. He
doesn’t entirely escape the idioms of the older sensibility; he
is not, that is to say, a major innovator - and he was probably
little more than thirty at his death. Yet his music exerted an
influence on greater musicians than himself. The young Mozart
and his sister encountered Schobert in Paris in 1763-4. The second
movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto K39 is adapted from the opening
movement of Schobert’s Sonata Op.17 No.2. On a later visit to
Paris in 1778 - some twenty years after Schobert’s death - Mozart
is known to have taught sonatas by Schobert to his pupils.
This is fascinating
and – at times – lovely music. The very first track of the CD,
the andante which opens the Quartet in F minor, is music
of considerable urgency and power, music of unexpected emotional
expressiveness. The Sonata in D minor has a marvellous opening
allegro and a tumultuous Presto. It also has a rather
dull andante sandwiched in between these two striking movements.
Herein lies the problem with Schobert. He can rarely sustain his
invention throughout the entire work and there are some rather
clumsy attempts to develop even some of his best material. So,
this is flawed music, minor music – but enjoyable and historically
fascinating.
The recordings, now
almost twenty years old, are clear and vivid; the performances
are attractive and engaging. The use of a Viennese piano of 1820
is not an entirely happy choice. Certainly it makes Schobert’s
passing resemblances to later musicians all the more striking,
but it does rather skew the balance of the ensemble. The early
editions all appear to specify the use of the harpsichord.
There have been later
and more extensive recordings of Schobert’s music – such as those
by The Four Nations Ensemble on two CDs from Gaudeamus and by
Miklos Spanyi - whose use of the tangent piano seems well-suited
to the music - and Peter Szuts on Hungaroton. They all have things
to recommend them and all contain music worth getting to know.
But this Harmonia Mundi remains an attractive sampler.
Glyn Pursglove
BUY NOW
AmazonUK
AmazonUS
Luciano
Sgrizzi (pianoforte), Ensemble 415: Chiara Banchini, Véronique Méjean
(violins), Philipp Bosbach (cello)
