Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig", the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in ...(+)
Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig", the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, a String Quintet,
the three last piano sonatas, the opera Fierrabras, the
incidental music to the play Rosamunde, and the song
cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. He was
remarkably prolific, writing over 1,500 works in his
short career. His compositional style progressed
rapidly throughout his short life. The largest number
of his compositions are songs for solo voice and piano
(roughly 630). Schubert also composed a considerable
number of secular works for two or more voices, namely
part songs, choruses and cantatas. He completed eight
orchestral overtures and seven complete symphonies, in
addition to fragments of six others. While he composed
no concertos, he did write three concertante works for
violin and orchestra. Schubert wrote a large body of
music for solo piano, including eleven incontrovertibly
completed sonatas and at least eleven more in varying
states of completion, numerous miscellaneous works and
many short dances, in addition to producing a large set
of works for piano four hands. He also wrote over fifty
chamber works, including some fragmentary works.
Schubert's sacred output includes seven masses, one
oratorio and one requiem, among other mass movements
and numerous smaller compositions. He completed only
eleven of his twenty stage works.
"Suleika II" (D.717 Op. 31) as marvellously inventive
and unusual though it is, is less touching as a piece
of music than Suleika I. For a start, it is less
vulnerable. In the first Suleika song, she waits for
news and hangs breathlessly on Hatem's wind-borne
message; in the second however, despite the bereft tone
of some of the words, Schubert's music implies that
Suleika is mistress of the situation – it is she who
is using the West wind as her messenger and her almost
imperious wish (who could disobey a diva capable of a
high B flat?) is its command. The miracle of Suleika I
is that it manages to be both epic and intensely
personal – we are drawn to the heart of the girl's
longing in a way inconceivable in an aria. On the other
hand, Suleika II was almost certainly deliberately
shaped as a virtuoso display piece for both voice and
piano. When Schubert is in this mood to show that he
can write public as opposed to private songs, an
operatic dimension creeps into the music at the expense
perhaps of the still small voice, not dependent on show
or scale, which lies at the heart of his greatest
Lieder. On the other hand, this song is no empty
vehicle for high notes and digital dexterity – it is
filled with the most sumptuous and subtle detail; when
the two Suleikas are performed as a pair (as they
almost always are) it provides an effective foil to the
profundities of the first.
A number of the reviews of the time emphasise the
oriental character of the piece and the piano writing
is certainly unique in all Schubert. The broken octaves
which sidle around the keyboard do splendid service in
simulating the wind it is true, but there is a
voluptuous feminine sway, redolent of the harem, in
this slinky music; in the right hand the tiny bells of
head-dresses and ankle bracelets seem to be tinkling in
the breeze. Janissary music (emulating the Turkish
sultan's bodyguard with their bells, cymbals and drums)
was still very much the rage in Vienna, and a number of
Viennese piano makers made pianos which incorporated
Janissary effects. There was for example a piano by
Georg Haschka (according to C F Colt a fine
accompanying instrument for the voice) made in Vienna
circa 1825, which apart from the four normal pedals
(including bassoon stop and una corda) had a pedal with
cymbal and bell effects on the bottom octave of the
strings. Could it be that Schubert, in his attempt to
write popular music 'addressed to a wide public',
incorporated the latest tricks of the piano makers to
further enhance the oriental character of the piece? If
this were the case, the composer seems carefully to
have planned where the sound of bells would be
appropriate: quieter passages of the song's
accompaniment do not venture deep into the bass clef,
but at jauntier or more passionate moments, the left
hand plunges down to the lower octave on the first
downbeat, only quickly to leap high out of the area of
the piano where the percussion pedal was operative.
There is also often a convenient semiquaver rest in the
right hand coinciding with the downward leaps which
would have allowed the exotic sound to be heard without
drowning the rest of the accompaniment..
Source: Hyperion
(https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dw.asp?dc=W2076_GBA
JY9301918)
Although originally composed for Voice and Piano, I
created this Interpretation of "Suleika II" (D.717 Op.
31) for Flute & Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).