Recently, I met an old friend who I had not seen for some years, and he mentioned that I had been rather neglecting this blog. He was absolutely right. And here I am again.
My subject today is a work which is well-known to lovers of piano music, but rarely heard by others unless they go to some trouble to seek it out. For one thing, there aren't too many pianists out there who are rushing to dive into the repertoire for piano duo (4 hands at one instrument) or for 2 pianos.
A few years back, I wrote about Joseph Joachim's orchestration of Schubert's largest masterpiece for the piano duo, the so-called Grand Duo sonata in C major. (read it here: Was It Or Wasn't It...?)
Today's work has never, as far as I know, been orchestrated by anyone, but I know that I am not alone in feeling that it cries out for orchestral treatment. Details will follow.
This work is but one of the many miracles accomplished by Schubert in the last year of his life, prior to his passing at the untimely age of 31. I'm referring to the Fantasy in F Minor, again composed for piano duo, and one of the supreme masterpieces -- not just of the duo repertoire, but of all music. Any music lover who has not yet encountered this work is missing out on a remarkable experience.
The form almost exactly echoes that of the earlier Wanderer Fantasy for solo piano. Four movements, arranged as fast-slow-scherzo-fugue, are linked together to be played as a continuous unit. But it's not just a question of physical linkage. The musical cells from which the themes are constructed carry across from movement to movement, and the slow, pensive opening theme returns as a motto several times through the first movement and again in the finale.
That description scarcely hints at the entire world which Schubert brings to life in this masterly composition, which lasts barely 20 minutes in performance. Again, I am not alone in feeling that the grand scale of the ideas suggests a much longer work.
The work opens with a pensive theme in a characteristic dotted rhythm, set against a murmuring accompaniment. Contrasting musical ideas alternate between the many reiterations of the opening, set each time in a different key. One of the contrasting ideas is an angrier rising and falling melody played in contest with repeated octaves hammered out in falling pairs, and then turning into a triplet melody in octaves.
And it is the octaves which lead into the dark world of the slow movement. Here a typical "French overture" dotted rhythm in slow time thunders its way chordally along, erupting from time to time into cascades of triplet octaves. It ends on a cadential pause -- and the completion of the cadence comes in the opening chord of the scherzo.
This third section is a little brighter in mood, but it always strikes me as the kind of Olympian jollity that's explosive and dangerous to handle -- Jove in one of his more playful moods, perhaps. Quieter phrases are set side by each with bigger eruptions of energy, and the characteristic octaves appear again -- at the top of the harmony to "accompany" a theme heard in the lower registers. Another furious ascent in octaves leads to yet another cadential pause, played very loudly.
This time, a total surprise, the completion is the gentle opening of the first movement, which leads us by familiar paths up to the point where the angry rising and falling melody had previously appeared. What we get now is a powerful fugue, based on a 3-note motif from the opening pensive melody. This fugue is densely structured (theme and counter-subject are played simultaneously at the outset), and filled with purposeful energy despite its moderate tempo. Despite quieter passages, it never for a moment loses sight of its role, which is to provide the crown and glory of this huge edifice.
The fugue builds up by degrees to a magnificent peroration which -- surprisingly -- introduces two brand new musical ideas we have not heard before. As the fugue approaches its conclusion, the modulations grow more and more startling until the music hurtles to a dead stop on the strangest and strongest suspended cadence yet.
After a pause, the main theme resumes, but at once turns into the short but dramatically intense coda, in which one player strikes and holds the first chord of the final cadence while the other plays an astounding chain of four modulations, almost shocking in context. Only then can the music settle gently through the cadence onto the completed chord of F minor to bring this musical epic to its appointed end.
And it is the octaves which lead into the dark world of the slow movement. Here a typical "French overture" dotted rhythm in slow time thunders its way chordally along, erupting from time to time into cascades of triplet octaves. It ends on a cadential pause -- and the completion of the cadence comes in the opening chord of the scherzo.
This third section is a little brighter in mood, but it always strikes me as the kind of Olympian jollity that's explosive and dangerous to handle -- Jove in one of his more playful moods, perhaps. Quieter phrases are set side by each with bigger eruptions of energy, and the characteristic octaves appear again -- at the top of the harmony to "accompany" a theme heard in the lower registers. Another furious ascent in octaves leads to yet another cadential pause, played very loudly.
This time, a total surprise, the completion is the gentle opening of the first movement, which leads us by familiar paths up to the point where the angry rising and falling melody had previously appeared. What we get now is a powerful fugue, based on a 3-note motif from the opening pensive melody. This fugue is densely structured (theme and counter-subject are played simultaneously at the outset), and filled with purposeful energy despite its moderate tempo. Despite quieter passages, it never for a moment loses sight of its role, which is to provide the crown and glory of this huge edifice.
The fugue builds up by degrees to a magnificent peroration which -- surprisingly -- introduces two brand new musical ideas we have not heard before. As the fugue approaches its conclusion, the modulations grow more and more startling until the music hurtles to a dead stop on the strangest and strongest suspended cadence yet.
After a pause, the main theme resumes, but at once turns into the short but dramatically intense coda, in which one player strikes and holds the first chord of the final cadence while the other plays an astounding chain of four modulations, almost shocking in context. Only then can the music settle gently through the cadence onto the completed chord of F minor to bring this musical epic to its appointed end.
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