Classical Music | Music for Duo

Recorded on 03/13/2007, uploaded on 01/19/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Variations on an Original Theme in A-Flat Major, Op. 35, D813            Franz Schubert

Piano duet was a very popular medium in Vienna. For Schubert, duets were not just a profitable enterprise, but also a means to have his music heard by friends, who would delight in performing together during private soirees. These variations were written in 1824, during Schubert's summer engagement by the Esterhazys in Upper Austria. While there, he fell in love with the younger of his two pupils, Countess Caroline. It was presumably for Caroline and her sister that Schubert wrote these Variations as well as the Sonata known as the Grand Duo. There are seven variants on the twenty-four-measure theme, which is ideally suited to such treatment. The transformations to which Schubert subjects his march-like and, at the same time, lyrically restrained theme, are full of subtle chromatic coloring and bold harmonic progressions. Schubert maintains interest for both performers with a wealth of textures and a variety of rhythmic configurations.      Michael Cansfield

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.