Schubert, Franz / arr. Joachim, Joseph

Franz Peter Schubert
(b. Himmelpfortgrund [Vienna], 31 January 1797 – d. Vienna, 19 November 1828)

orchestrated by
Joseph Joachim
(b. Kittsee [Burgenland], 28 June 1831 – d. Berlin, 15 August 1907)

Symphony in C (1855)
after Schubert’s Sonata in C ‚Grand Duo’ Op. 140 (D 812) for four-handed piano (1824)

I Allegro moderato (p. 2)
II Andante (p. 65)
III Scherzo (Allegro vivace, p. 107) – Trio (p. 124)
IV Finale. Allegro moderato (Allegro vivace, p. 132) – Più lento (p. 196) – Tempo primo (p. 203) – Più mosso (p. 212)

 

Preface
Franz Schubert wrote his Sonata in C for four-handed piano in spring 1824 in a state of poor health at the Esterházy castle in Zseliz (between Nitra and Budapest in today’s Slovakia) where he taught two young countesses in playing the piano. Although he called the work explicitly a ‚Sonata’ it appeared in first print as his Opus 140 in 1838, published by Diabelli in Vienna, under the title ‚Grand Duo’ that is still common today. The publisher gave the autograph score to Clara Schumann, an das a matter of fact her friends Johannes Brahms and Joseph Joachim were able to study it. Robert Schumann was the first who pointed to the seemingly orchestral setting and the symphonic dimension of the work. On 5 June 1838 he wrote in Volume 8 Number 45 of Neue Zeitschrift für Musik:
”Being familiar with his style, his way of treating the piano and comparing this work with his other sonatas in which the purest pianistic character is articulated I can only interpret it as an orchestral piece. One can hear strings and winds, tuttis, several solos, drum rolls; the large and huge symphonic form, even the reminiscences of Beethoven symphonies such as the Andante of Beethoven’s Second in the second movement or the finale of Beethoven’s Seventh in the finale as well as some paler moments that seem to have suffered losses due to the arrangement – all these aspects support my view as well. At the same time I want to come to the Duo’s defence against the accusation that it is not always correctly designed as a piano piece, that something is demanded from the instrument it cannot realize, as it has to be considered as an arranged symphony from another perspective. Let us take it this way, and we are now one symphony richer.“

At the time when the drama of Robert Schumann entered its last chapter in the mental institution Endenich Johannes Brahms took up the idea of the ”orchestral piece“ and encouraged his friend Joachim to carry out the work. Joachim orchestrated the ’Grand Duo’ in 1855 in a style similar to his own and Brahms’. The ’Grand Duo’’s orchestration was premièred on 9 February 1856 in Hanover under the direction of Joseph Joachim.

On 22 October 1872 Brahms who had just become designated director of the Wiener Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde wrote from Vienna in a letter to Joachim: ”I will get the Schubert score this very day. Your idea to renew the dedication is so simple, right, and beautiful that one could only get angry that it was necessary to be told about it. But: do you still call the work Duo? I’m doubtful that the title ’Grand Duo’ is by Schubert. Have you looked it up in Frau Schumann’s manuscript? In any case it is no duo anymore if it is written for fifty parts. Doesn’t it bear the name Symphony by Schubert, arranged after the Duo Op. 140, or orchestrated or whatever else?“
And so it happened that Brahms, in his debut concert as chief conductor of the Wiener Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, conducted the Viennese première of the Schubert-Joachim ’Grand Duo’ as main piece on the program alongside with Händel’s ’Dettingen TeDeum’, Mozart’s concert aria ’Ch’io mi sordi di te?’, and choral songs by Heinrich Isaac and Johannes Eccard. (In the following he finished the orchestration of his Haydn Variations Op. 56b; he directed the concerts of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde until April 1875, and in 1876 he set to work on the completion of his First Symphony.)
Soon after the première, in 1873, the full score and parts of the ’Grand Duo’ orchestration, now labeled as ’Symphony’, appeared in print, published by Cranz with the following dedication: ”This arrangement of F. Schubert’s Op. 140 is dedicated to Frau Schumann in friendship and admiration by Joseph Joachim.“
In his arrangement Joachim changed the finale’s tempo indication from ’Allegro vivace’ to ’Allegro moderato’ and omitted the scherzo’s tempo indication ’Allegro vivace’ wirhout replacement. Brahms – who valued the arrangement very high – as well as Joachim conducted further performances, and on 4 March 1876 Joachim directed the London première of the ’Grand Duo’ Symphony at Crystal Palace. Subsequently many other conductors included Joachim’s orchestration in their programs, and we have historic recordings under the direction of Felix Prohaska, Arturo Toscanini etc. For a long time it has been assumed that the ’Grand Duo’ is the piano reduction of the legendary ’Gastein Symphony’ that was believed to be lost but turned out to be a myth according to later research. Consequently from the late 1930s on there emerged numerous new orchestrations of the ’Grand Duo’, amongst others by Karl Frotzler (1873-1960), Anthony Collins (1893-1963), Marius Flothuis (1914-2001), Karl Salomon (1897-1974, later Karl Salmon), Fritz Oeser (1911-82), René Leibowitz (1913-72), and more recently by Raymond Leppard (b. 1927). The orchestration by Karl Frotzler, a friend and assistant of Franz Schmidt who enjoyed a good reputation as a pianist, is preserved in a legendary recording under the direction of Clemens Krauss. Be that as it may, Joseph Joachim’s orchestration is the only one that achieved a sustainable impact and entered the repertoire to some extent.

Christoph Schlüren, Oktober 2017

Performance material is available from the publisher Schott, Mainz (schott-music.com)