Arnold Schönberg: Phantasy

Arnold Schönberg: Phantasy for Violin with Accompaniment of the Piano op. 47 (1949)

Recital-Lecture mit / with Ulrich Mosch

Sarah Saviet (Violine / Violin)
Nicolas Hodges (Klavier / Piano)

When Schoenberg’s Phantasy for Violin with Accompaniment of the Piano, composed four years earlier, was first performed on 26 July 1953, at the Darmstadt Summer Course as part of a chamber music festival honoring the composer, it was a work of highly topical contemporary music. Schoenberg, whose 150th birthday was celebrated last year, was particularly in focus of the Summer Course at that time, as he was throughout the 1950s. The performers of this premiere were the violinist Rudolf Kolisch, a former composition student and brother-in-law of the composer, who was closely associated with the performance aesthetics of the Viennese School, and the young pianist Else Stock. At another performance with Kolisch the very following year, Eduard Steuermann sat at the piano, a former student of the composer as well who had championed Schoenberg‘s work for decades, most recently as the soloist in the premiere of the piano concerto. The Violin Fantasy, Schoenberg’s last completed instrumental work, shows the composer at the height of his twelve-tone composing and has lost none of its artistic power to this day. Using examples, the lecture will explore the work’s genesis, its interpretational history, and performance issues.