Violin Sonata (Duo) in A major, Op.162, D574

No violin sonata has a more engaging beginning than Schubert’s in A major. The easy-going left hand of the piano part and the spontaneously melodious violin line poised above it signal immediately that this is going to be a work of much charm but no great seriousness. In fact, none of Schubert’s violin sonatas is very serious. Although he had life-long ambitions for the piano sonata, he lost interest in the violin sonata at a comparatively early stage in his career: having written three short examples in 1816 (published as Sonatinas in 1836) and this rather longer one (published as a Duo in 1851), he never produced another.

It would be a mistake, on the other hand, to underestimate the imaginative quality of any of these works. The lyrical Andantino of the Sonata in A major, strategically placed between a brisk Scherzo and a similarly brisk finale, is a particularly fascinating inspiration, not least in its bold but casually accomplished modulations and its poignant attraction to minor harmonies near the end.