Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig" , the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in...(+)
Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig" , the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, a String Quintet,
the three last piano sonatas, the opera Fierrabras, the
incidental music to the play Rosamunde, and the song
cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. He was
remarkably prolific, writing over 1,500 works in his
short career. His compositional style progressed
rapidly throughout his short life. The largest number
of his compositions are songs for solo voice and piano
(roughly 630). Schubert also composed a considerable
number of secular works for two or more voices, namely
part songs, choruses and cantatas. He completed eight
orchestral overtures and seven complete symphonies, in
addition to fragments of six others. While he composed
no concertos, he did write three concertante works for
violin and orchestra. Schubert wrote a large body of
music for solo piano, including eleven incontrovertibly
completed sonatas and at least eleven more in varying
states of completion, numerous miscellaneous works and
many short dances, in addition to producing a large set
of works for piano four hands. He also wrote over fifty
chamber works, including some fragmentary works.
Schubert's sacred output includes seven masses, one
oratorio and one requiem, among other mass movements
and numerous smaller compositions. He completed only
eleven of his twenty stage works.
Schubert set the poem "An den Mond" (To the Moon) twice
and each is a masterpiece in is own right. Although the
first, strophic, version of 1815 is blessed with an
enchanting melody Schubert probably felt the need four
years later (this second version is undated but recent
paper studies have revealed that it is most likely a
work from 1819) to create something more complex to
mirror the shifting moods of the poem. This is
melancholy music, yet sweetly tender, and by some
musical alchemy suffused with the silvery glow of
moonlight. Schubert is almost always fond of strong
bass lines which support and buoy up the vocal line,
but here he changes his rules: the voice part floats
free, unanchored, aspiring upwards, seldom touching the
tonic. The piano's right hand doubles the voice,
normally an unwise practice, but here it aids
beautifully the communing of the poet below with the
moon above. He then addresses the stream—it is
probable that Goethe wrote the poem after a friend's
suicide in the Ilm near his own house in Weimar. The
water, like time, flows inexorably, changing or
destroying all in its path, and in this setting (unlike
the first) we hear this water journey in turbulent
modulations. Only a true friend, the poet says, can
understand his mingled emotions. The final stanza of
the song depicts this longed-for intimacy in a
miraculous way. The moon continues to shine in the
piano part while the singer buries his head in the lap
of the music and the vocal line delves beneath the
surface. The ineffable distance between lunar serenity
and the dark labyrinthine torments of the heart is
measured in a vocal span of nearly two octaves.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Schubert)
Although originally composed for Voice and Piano, I
created this Interpretation of "An den Mond" (To the
Moon D.296) for Flute & Strings (2 Violins, Viola &
Cello).
PARTITION