JAVS Fall 2000

19

VIOLA CoNCERTO IN E-FLAT MAJOR BY JosEPH ScHUBERT A NEW ADDITION TO THE LATE 18TH-CENTURY REPERTOIRE

by Andrew Levin

Joseph Schubert (no known relation to Franz) was a violist in the court orchestra of Dresden for fifty years, from 1788 until his death in 1837. As a court musician during this transitional time, he performed the music of the high Classical period as well as that of the newly forming Romantic style. Schubert was also a composer. He earned extra money composing orchestral and chamber works for both the theatre and the church. His work, which was respected though not widely disseminated, included two viola concertos, one in C Major and another in E-fl.at Major. The former was published in 1967, evidently for the first time. It was later recorded in 1983 by Gerard Causse and Les Solistes de Montpellier-Moscou. 1 It is a charming, lightweight piece. The latter work, however, is much more substantial and is a welcome addition to the modern violist's repertoire. The £-flat Concerto is significant in many ways. It is a fully-worked-out composition in the mature Classical style, a half hour in length; is scored for large orchestra; is a well-written com position that is a delight to both musicians and audiences; and is eminently challenging for the soloist. It contains many bravura passages, including bariolage, arpeggios, wide leaps, multiple stops, and notes pushing the upper limits of the instrument. It also contains moments of lyrical beauty and a variety of characters that will challenge the imagination of the soloist. The work, however, presents certain problems for performers. It was originally composed for chamber orchestra but was later revised, taking on additional instruments, rewritten passages, and newly-composed music. The orchestral parts are in three or possibly four different hands, and reflect various stages of the work's evolution. The solo part, too, contains added articula tions-slurs that contradict the orchestral parts in their fascination with the new Romantic style of crossing the barline. In the end we are left with a mix of styles, lacking a complete set of either the original or the fully-revised parts to guide us in performance decisions. Rather than view this as a problem, one can see it as a window into the real concerns facing late 18th-century and early 19th-century performers: how do musicians reconcile the old and new performing styles, especially if they co-exist in a single set of parts? This author recommends retaining the differences (mostly in articulation), though the per former is certainly welcome to choose other solutions. These contradictions, though, make up only a small part of this concerto's interest; regardless of the performer's stylistic approach, this is a work sure to please. Life Little original research has been conducted on the life of Joseph Schubert in recent times. The most thorough information available is from Gerber's Neues Historische-Biographisches Lexikon Der Tonkiinstler, 2 published when Schubert was in his fifties and still composing. The majority of sources since then are based on Gerber's article, although two recent contributions by Ottenberg 3 and Laux 4 add some new information. The following paragraphs are derived mostly from Gerber. Joseph Schubert was born in Warnsdorf in Bohemia, in 1757, where he received his first musical training from his father, a choirmaster. He later studied in Prague and then, in 1778, in Berlin. In 1779 he entered into the service of the Margrave Heinrich von Schwedt as a chamber musician, though he also composed a number of operas, which were performed at that time. Schubert then moved to Dresden in 1788, where he was employed as a court violist in the Hojkapelle until his death on July 28, 1837, at the age of 80.