Mats Bergström - Schubert Arrangements (2004) [SACD]

We guitarists like to think of Franz Schubert as an esteemed colleague. Even though he wrote such a small amount of music for our instrument, he actually owned two guitars: one made by Staufer (whom I shall return to) and one by Enzensberger. To what extent he actually played them we do not know. Let me first of all give an account of what Schubert did write for the guitar; a relatively brief labour. There are three manuscripts: Terzetto, D 80 "Zur Namesfeier meines Vaters" for three male voices and guitar, Quartetto, D 96 for flute, violin, viola and "cello (actually an arrangement of Wenzeslaus Matiegka"s Notturno, Op.21) and an early version of Das Dörfchen, D 598a. Works with guitar that do not exist in manuscript but appear in early, printed editions are a further five multi-part Lieder for male voices and piano or guitar (a second version of Das Dörfchen, D 598, Die Nachtigall, D 724 and Geist der Liebe, D 747 from Opus 11 as well as Naturgenuss, D 422 and Frühlingsgesang, D 740 from Opus 16), Die Nacht, WoO for solo voice and guitar and the fifteen waltzes from D 365 in Original Tänze for flute or violin and guitar. That is all! Yet we have become accustomed to hearing works by Schubert performed on the guitar. I have myself had the pleasure of performing the song cycle Die schöne Müllerin on numerous occasions in a well-received version for baritone and guitar. Two further works that lend themselves very well for guitar transcription are the two sonatas included on this disc, that in D major for violin and piano and that in A minor for arpeggione and piano. The latter has long been popular among guitarists keen on chamber music, while the former work is a more recent addition to the guitar repertoire. The manuscript of Schubert"s Sonata in D Major, D 384 is dated "März 1816" and bears the title Sonate pour Pianoforte et Violons [sic]. In 1836 Diabelli & Co. published this and two more sonatas as Opus 137 with the title Drei Sonatinen für Piano-Forte und Violine. My arrangement for violin and guitar was made after both Schubert"s manuscript and Diabelli"s printed edition. (It is not sure, or even probable, that the latter is actually based on the former version. Musicologists believe that yet another manuscript existed. Indeed a fragment of a second manuscript has been found, consisting of the last six bars of the third movement.) Both versions have identical passages but differ from each other in several sections of varying length. The current arrangement has previously been recorded by Gil Shaham and Göran Söllscher (DG) as well as by Joakim Svenheden and me (BIS), in both cases on modern instruments; if one can call a Stradivarius "modern". Arpeggione, guitare d"amour and guitar-violoncello are all names for a musical instrument that was constructed in 1823 by the Viennese guitar-maker Johann Georg Staufer, the very man who had built one of Schubert"s two guitars.