Franz Schubert: Violin & Piano

This album contains most of the works for Violin and Piano by Franz Schubert, performed by Mihaela Martin, leader of the Michelangeli String Quartet, and Elena Bashkirova, who is well known for her playing skills of classical and romantic music.

Schubert’s music is always associated in my imagination with a journey in a horse-drawn carriage. Outside, the scenery is flowing by. Cities, mountains, rivers, lakes, villages. At times the carriage slows down, then it speeds up again, but I always have that feeling of being on a journey. Not on foot and not on horse, but in a carriage on wheels.” (Elena Bashkirova)

The year 1816 ushered in a series of new beginnings for 19-year old Franz Schubert. He had applied for a music teaching job in Laibach (and soon would probably be overjoyed in secret that he was turned down, thus avoiding the task of school teaching, which he abhorred). He sent Goethe a notebook with songs of his pen, hoping, in vain, that he would be allowed to dedicate them to the “prince of poets”. He dreamt of his future wedding with the soprano Therese Grob. And he composed incessantly. Apart from countless songs, Schubert’s catalogue already included a half-dozen works for the stage, three masses, sixteen string quartets, overtures, piano music, and choir pieces. Now, in the course of just a few weeks, he wrote his 4th Symphony, the “Tragic”. A cantata likewise flowed from his pen. And the Stabat Mater. Fourteen new songs. Furthermore: three sonatas “for fortepiano and violin”, his first chamber music works for violin.