Ingolf Turban, Violin

Tomoko Sawallisch, Piano

"Schubert's Violin" – Complete Works for Violin and Piano

Franz Schubert, who hardly ever owned a violin of his own, created music of wonderful inwardness for this instrument. Not a virtuoso in the conventional sense, he was a master of emotional sound speech. Like his piano works, his pieces for violin and piano also open up that sphere of the "there" in which the earthly merges into transcendence. In their dialogue, the opposing worlds of the violin – the "torn tone" – and the piano – the "bound melody" – meet to form a lyrical unity that does not "represent" anything, but simply "is".

Between 1816 and 1817 he wrote four sonatas in which Schubert took his cue from Mozart and yet went his own way. Behind the cheerful façade of the so-called "sonatinas" there is often a deep seriousness. The young composer transforms the classical form into a space of floating harmony in which melody takes the place of motivic work – music as sensation, not as construction. In the Sonata A major of 1817, this principle achieves pure lyricism: heaven and earth touch each other without ever uniting.

Ten years later, two late masterpieces followed: the Rondeau brillant in B minor (1826) and the Fantasy in C major (1827). Both are dedicated to the young violinist Josef Slawjk, whose virtuosity inspires Schubert to the intellectual penetration of the brilliant. A mysterious abyss lurks behind the glittering surface of the Rondeau – Paganini's "demonic spirit" appears transfigured as an angel's voice. Finally, in the Fantasy, Schubert transcends all boundaries of form. The work, which weaves the song "Sei mir gegrüsst" (Greetings to me) into its structure, becomes a musical symbol of farewell and redemption. Virtuoso gestures are transformed into existential expression; the song of love resonates as a distant memory – between dream, death and transcendence.

This music is not a concert piece, but a poetic revelation: Schubert's "Music of the Spheres", in which the "here" and the "there" become one for a moment.

[ Further english info text about works, composer & artists: see booklet inside ]

Double CD Programme / Tracklists: