Lot 155: SCHUBERT, FRANZ.

Autograph manuscript of the first movement of the Sonata for Violin and Piano in G minor D.408, signed and dated above the music, ("Aprill 1816 Franz Schubert[paraph]ia")

the composing manuscript of the whole movement, with the title "Sonate III", notated in brown ink on four systems of three staves each, with many deletions and revisions, including to the opening subject, and other important motifs, with one bar deleted and two rewritten in pencil (by another contemporary hand) on the last page of the movement, comprising 145 bars in all

6 pages, oblong 4to (24 x 30.5cms), the music finishing on the 5th page, and with an ink drawing and a stave-bracket drawn by Schubert on the 6th page, 12-stave paper ("Welhartiz" watermark), the leaves loose, April 1816

This is an attractive and important manuscript of a well-known violin "Sonatina" by Schubert. There is no other autograph of this movement, though the remaining movements of the sonata exist in a collection in Malmö. It was published after the composer's death in 1836 by Anton Diabelli of Vienna, who gave it the unauthentic title "Sonatine" (Op.137, no.3). Despite Schubert's autograph title for the piece, It is is still generally known as a "Sonatina" rather than a "Sonata".

This manuscript is evidently Schubert's first draft of the piece: the composer is still working out and revising the main subject in the opening four bars. He evidently wrote it at considerable speed, making immediate revisions as he composed the piece on paper, yet with all the dynamic and articulation marks already present. It gives an immediate and vivid impression of the white heat of creative energy.

This is a very characteristic chamber movement by Schubert. A great deal of the exposition is given over to the lyrical second subjects in major keys rather than the opening motif in G minor. Moreover, Schubert does not recapitulate these sections in the home key: instead, the passage originally in B flat now returns in E flat and the passage originally in E flat returns in B flat. It is only during the codetta that the music returns to the home key of G minor, at the end of which the opening motif is recalled in the final few bars. In this manuscript, the move from E flat to B flat on the last page has been altered in pencil (bars 121-123), in another hand, introducing a change to the rhythm. It is possible that this revision is in the hand of the publisher Diabelli, in whose first edition this reading appeared.