Presents
Johann Schobert
Quartet in E flat Major for 2 Violins, Cello and Piano, Op.7 No.1
Not a great deal about Johann Schobert (circa 1720-1767) is known. He was born somewhere in Silesia, then part of the Austrian Habsburg Empire sometime around 1720. He pursued a career as a pianist and composer, primarily in Paris where he spent most of his life and died after eating some poisonous mushrooms. Contemporaries considered his compositions the equal to those of C.P.E. Bach. He came to the attention of music historians because of his intersection with the six year old Wolfgang Mozart whom he met while Wolfgang and his father Leopold were residing in that city. Schobert's music influenced the young Mozart to a considerable extent, so much so, that Mozart borrowed several movements from Schobert's piano sonatas for use in his own concertos.
The Quartet for 2 Violins, Cello and Piano is the first of a set of three which were published in Paris in the early 1760's. They are rather interesting not only because they are a definite link between the older baroque sonata form and the emerging modern piano quartet but also because Schobert's handling of the parts was rather advanced for the time. The work is in three movements. It begins with a heart felt Andante indictative of its minor key. The middle movement is a Menuetto, more in the then current French style rather than that of the Mannheim school. The work closes with a lively Allegro.
We have reprinted an early edition from the 18th century. It is clean and easy to read but not like a modern edition. We have, however, made a new piano part and is a piano score, that is, it also has the string parts. This is a historically valuable work but also one which can stand on its own merits.
Parts: $16.95
