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Schubert's Gesellschaftsmusik: Music for Social Gatherings..

Sébastien Melmoth | Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS | 11/25/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

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Schubert's Gesellschaftsmusik (or, "social music") forms a large set within his oeuvre which includes the dance music (Ländler/Tänzer/Walzer), four-hand piano music, the Lieder, and the Partsongs. The importance of these genres in terms of quantity of pieces within Schubert's body of work makes them unique and is notably exceptional in Schubert when compared with Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.

(Curiously, Brahms alone closely followed Schubert in these genres.

Brahms: Lieder und Gesänger (Secular Songs for Chorus)

Brahms: Chorwerke

Brahms: Lieder & Romanzen - Secular Choruses)



Margaret Notley--(a fellow of the Nat'l Endowment for the Humanities)--has written on Schubert's social music in The Cambridge Companion to Schubert (Cambridge Companions to Music).

She recognizes that the partsong was a genre Schubert essayed throughout his life, beginning with pieces merely for home use--"the Biedermeier equivalent of the barbershop quartet," and evolving unto avant-garde concertstücke.



Withal, this beautiful collection is a milestone in Schubert's discography: 7CDs w/comprehensive 175page booklet. The Arnold Schoenberg Chorus of Vienna is surely one of the most technically assured ensembles of its kind anywhere. The soloists are known to enthusiasts of lieder and opera: Angelika Kirchschlager, Ruth Ziesak, Christoph Prégardien, Robert Holl, et alii. András Schiff on Bösendorfer is always the Schubertian par excellence. The ambient recorded sound is very fine. This 2008 issue on Warner Classics is a reissue of the Teldec set from 1997.

Franz Schubert - Complete Secular Choral Works / Erwin Ortner



(There is a superb 1996 set on CPO by Die Singphoniker, which does not include the half-dozen partsongs for women's voices.

Complete Part Songs for Male Voices (Box Set) )



Highlights include earlier efforts like the Klopstock Funeral Song (1815, Begräbnislied, D.168 [11'14]) and a complete setting of Schiller's Ode to Joy (1815, An die Freude, D.189 [8'26]).



Middling masterpieces like the famous setting of Moses Mendelssohn's translation of Psalm XXIII (1820, D.706 [5'05]); the octet setting of Goethe's Song of the Spirits above the Waters (1821, Gesang der Geister über den Wassern, D.714 [11'01]; and Kleist's God in Nature (1822, Gott in der Natur, D.757 [6'38]).



And visionary late pieces like Walter Scott's Boat Song from The Lady of the Lake (1825, Bootgesang, D.835 [5'58]; Light at Night (1826, Nachthelle, D.892 [5'50]), Grave and Moon (1826, Grab und Mond, D.893 [3'17]), and Night Song in the Forest (1827, nachtgesang im Walde, D.913 [6'40])--all settings of lyrics by Schubert's friend J.G. Seidl; and Grillparzer's cantata from Exod. 15:19-21, Miriam's Song of Triumph (1828, Mirjams Siegesgesang, D.942 [18'50]).



These and other rare gems of this genre await an enthusiast's discovery.

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See too:

The Schubert Song Companion

Schubert: The Music and the Man

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