Mozart & Schubert: Sonatas & Sonatinas

David Breitman, fortepiano & Beth Wenstrom violin

About this concert of music by the two Viennese masters, David Breitman writes:

On January 1, 1764, when Mozart was not quite eight years old, he and his sister performed for the King of France, Louis XV, at Versailles.  This was part of the family’s grand tour of Europe, which included stops at London and Paris.  While in Paris, Leopold Mozart arranged for the first publication of his son’s music: opus 1, a pair of sonatas for keyboard with violin accompaniment.

In 1778, at the ripe age of 22, Mozart presented another “opus 1.”  This too was published in Paris, and, again, the works were Sonatas for keyboard and violin—six sonatas, K. 301–306, two of which are on this evening’s program. They represent a new style, in which the right hand of the keyboard is an equal partner with the violin This was made possible by the expressive possibilities of the fortepiano, and Mozart went on to compose another dozen sonatas for this combination.

Almost forty years later, Schubert composed the set of three pieces that are today known as “Sonatinas” – his op. 137 from 1816.  They are substantial, four-movement works, but they do resemble the Mozart sonatas in one important respect: they are playable on the same five-octave fortepiano that Mozart  composed for (Schubert’s piano music from this time was geared for the larger instruments that had become common in Vienna by 1810).

We don’t know whether Schubert consciously looked to the Mozart pieces as models, but it is tempting to picture Schubert (who hadn’t written anything for this combination before) playing through Mozart’s opus 1, then picking up his pen.

Schubert certainly mines a darker vein:  two of the three Sonatinas are in minor keys, while all but one of Mozart’s 16 keyboard/violin pieces are in major, but we hope you will enjoy contemplating the similarities as well as the differences between the two Viennese masters.

Pianist David Breitman directs the Historical Performance program at Oberlin. He is equally at home with the fortepiano and the modern piano, and enjoys both solo and ensemble playing. Recent seasons have included Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto and Choral Fantasy on both historical and modern pianos, and several performances at the renowned Cobbe Collection of historical instruments outside of London. His collaboration with baritone Sanford Sylvan spans more than thirty years, with several hundred recitals and four CD’s, ranging from Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, to the premiere recording of The Glass Hammer, a major song cycle by the Cuban-American composer Jorge Martin. He has recorded the Mozart piano-violin sonatas on historical instruments with Jean-François Rivest for Analekta, and, in a collaboration of a different sort, he is one of seven fortepianists on the 10-CD recording of the complete Beethoven piano sonata cycle on CLAVES. Breitman’s most recent projects involve more Beethoven: a recording of the violin sonatas with Elizabeth Wallfisch will be complete by the end of 2012; the cello sonatas with Jaap ter Linden are projected for 2013. He now shares his enthusiasm for this repertoire with students in the courses “Performing Beethoven’s violin/cello sonatas,” and is currently working on a book titled “Time-Travel for Pianists: How Today’s Players Can Learn from Yesterday’s Instruments.”

Beth Wenstrom is a dynamic performer, taking her skills as chamber musician, soloist, concertmaster and orchestral violinist around the US and internationally with a variety of ensembles. She has been praised for her “vitality and eloquent phrasing, as well as agility” (The Strad) and The New Yorker has described her chamber performances as “elegant and sensual, stylishly wild.” As a soloist and concertmaster, Beth has performed with Trinity Wall Street Baroque Orchestra, Sebastian Chamber Players, New York Baroque Incorporated, Baroque Orchestra of Maine, Quodlibet Ensemble, as well as William Christie’s Les Rencontres musicales en Vendée in Thiré, France. She has appeared in the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Apollo’s Fire, and TENET as well as other ensembles. Beth is a founding member of Wayward Sisters, winner of the 2011 Early Music America/Naxos Competition as well as a founding member of the “vital and vibrant” ensemble, ACRONYM (Classics Today).
She has served as concertmaster of the Richmond County Orchestra on Staten Island. She also loves recording with artists such as children’s singer-songwriter Justin Roberts and film score composer Evan Wilson.

Born, raised and musically trained in Fairbanks, Alaska, Beth continued her education with a BM from Oberlin Conservatory, an MM from NEC and a DMA from SUNY Stony Brook. She received a Graduate Diploma from The Juilliard School in the inaugural class of the historical performance division. Her principal teachers have included Marilyn McDonald, Lucy Chapman, Pamela Frank, Soovin Kim, Cynthia Roberts and Monica Huggett.