Violin Sonata in A major, D574

While he took a seriously committed and long-term interest in the piano sonata, Schubert was nowhere near as ambitious as far as the violin sonata was concerned. Having written three short violin sonatas in 1816 and this rather longer one in A major in 1817, he never produced another – although, ten or eleven years later, he did present the Czech virtuoso violinist Josef Slavík with a startling Rondo in B minor and a no less flamboyant Fantasy in C major.

When they were first published all four violin sonatas were described as something else: the three 1816 scores were issued, just a little patronisingly, as “Sonatinas” in 1836 and the one in A major as a “Duo” fifteen years later. It is true that none of them has the stature of the more mature Beethoven violin sonatas, which would have been quite familiar in Vienna by that time, but they are all authentic and attractive examples of the form. Indeed, there is no more engaging beginning to a work of this kind than the opening bars of the Sonata in A major with its pleasantly ambling bass line and the similarly unhurried melody poised by the violin in easy counterpoint above it. Clearly, this Allegro moderato is not going to be the most dramatic of sonata movements. It is, on the other hand, abundant in tuneful ideas, its marche-militaire second subject in E minor and its contrastingly brilliant and sentimental third and fourth themes in E major being quite enough to make up for the fact that the development ignores all but the rhythmic aspects of the foregoing material.

In spite of the resourceful if generally modest scoring of the Allegro moderato and the shared bravura of the two instruments in the outer sections of the following Scherzo in A major, there is no apparently conscious effort to explore the colour potential in the combination of violin and piano sound in either of the first two movements. The Andantino begins fairly conventionally in that respect as the violin introduces its old-world main theme over C major harmonies on the piano. But then, with a suddenly dramatic gesture and a surprising change of key to G flat major, the two instruments join in a purely colouristic blend of pianissimo trills, legato arpeggios and staccato repeated notes. The experiment is not repeated in the reprise which, instead, refers back to the A flat major of the middle section and, just before the end, slips briefly but poignantly into C minor.

Although it is only slightly less abundant in melody than the first movement - with a boisterous main theme and two contrastingly lyrical secondary ideas - the Allegro vivace finale boasts a more enterprising development devoted largely to the opening arpeggio material. The same material provokes the wittily abrupt ending.

While he took a seriously committed and long-term interest in the piano sonata, Schubert was nowhere near as ambitious as far as the violin sonata was concerned. Having written three short violin sonatas in 1816 and this rather longer one in A major in 1817, he never produced another - although, ten or eleven years later, he did present the Czech virtuoso violinist Josef Slavík with a startling Rondo in B minor and a no less flamboyant Fantasy in C major.

When they were first published all four violin sonatas were described as something else: the three 1816 scores were issued, just a little patronisingly, as “Sonatinas” in 1836 and the one in A major as a “Duo” fifteen years later. It is true that none of them has the stature of the more mature Beethoven violin sonatas, which would have been quite familiar in Vienna by that time, but they are all authentic and attractive examples of the form. Indeed, there is no more engaging beginning to a work of this kind than the opening bars of the Sonata in A major with its pleasantly ambling bass line and the similarly unhurried melody poised by the violin in easy counterpoint above it. Clearly, this Allegro moderato is not going to be the most dramatic of sonata movements. It is, on the other hand, abundant in tuneful ideas, its marche-militaire second subject in E minor and its contrastingly brilliant and sentimental third and fourth themes in E major being quite enough to make up for the fact that the development ignores all but the rhythmic aspects of the foregoing material.

In spite of the resourceful if generally modest scoring of the Allegro moderato and the shared bravura of the two instruments in the outer sections of the following Scherzo in A major - which is effectively offset by the intimately chromatic violin line in the Trio section - there is no apparently conscious effort to explore the colour potential in the combination of violin and piano sound in either of the first two movements. The Andantino begins fairly conventionally in that respect as the violin introduces its old-world main theme over C major harmonies on the piano. But then, with a suddenly dramatic gesture and a surprising change of key to G flat major, the two instruments join in a purely colouristic blend of pianissimo trills, legato arpeggios and staccato repeated notes. The experiment is not repeated in the reprise which, instead, refers back to the A flat major of the middle section and, just before the end, slips briefly but poignantly into C minor.

Although it is only slightly less abundant in melody than the first movement - with a boisterous main theme and two contrastingly lyrical secondary ideas - the Allegro vivace finale boasts a more enterprising development devoted largely to the opening arpeggio material. The same material provokes the wittily abrupt ending.