Schubert: 1816: A 19 Years Old Poet’s Journal, Three Violin Sonatinas, Lieder – David Scaroni

In 1816, Schubert was in his late teens. It was a special year for this exceedingly talented and rather introverted boy. During that year, he wrote the Violin Sonatinas, where we find quintessential Schubert. There is tenderness, irony, good humour, and melancholy (plenty of melancholy, in fact). The two instruments enter a dialogue similar to that of multi-voiced Lieder, even though Schubert followed an old fashion by calling them “for Piano Forte with Violin accompaniment”. There is some virtuosity, but always determined by musical needs, and never too extreme. There is, above all, the touching, beautiful expression of Schubert’s soul, where nostalgia and hope, longing and tenderness went always together.