Johann Schobert (1735-1767) - Sonata IV pour le clavecin avec accompagnement de violon et basse

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Composer: Johann Schobert (1735-1767)
Work: Sonata IV pour le clavecin avec accompagnement de violon et basse, Op. XVI
Performers: The Fοur Nаtions Ensemble

Painting: Adrien Manglard (1695-1760) - Mediterranean port scene
Image in high resolution: https://flic.kr/p/2jADuto

Further info: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Schobert-Sonatas-Op-16-Johann/dp/B0000030OZ
Listen free: https://open.spotify.com/album/39LvGB0UnS32juyAp144yA

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Johann (Jean) Schobert
(Silesia?, c.1735 - Paris, 28 Aug 1767)

Silesian harpsichordist and composer. Grimm’s testimony that he was Silesian has been generally accepted. Gerber’s Historisch-biographisches Lexicon der Tonkünstler, however, gives Strasbourg as his place of birth (though the name occurs in no contemporary Alsatian records), and Schubart in his autobiography claimed Schobert as a kinsman, supposedly from Nuremberg. Finally Riemann associated Schobert with the Mannheim school because of stylistic similarities and the dedication of op.3 to ‘M. Saum, conseiller du commerce et agent de S.A.S. Mgr le Prince Palatin’. It is possible, however, that Saum exercised his authority from Paris and that Schobert made his acquaintance there; this conjecture is supported by the fact that the records at Mannheim fail to reveal Schobert’s name. Nothing definite is known of his life until his appearance in Paris in 1760 or 1761 and his employment in the service of the Prince of Conti. For several years thereafter he published instrumental music which was engraved at his own expense (and probably in his own home) and distributed to the various Parisian dealers – an arrangement no doubt made possible by his position with the Prince de Conti, which shielded him from the exploitation of publishers. Soon after his arrival in Paris Schobert married a Frenchwoman by whom he had at least two children. In 1765 he made a single, and thoroughly unsuccessful, venture into opéra comique, with La garde-chasse et le braconnier (he had earlier contributed to a pasticcio).

The only remaining information concerning his life is Baron Grimm’s account of his gruesome death, along with his wife and one child, as a result of eating poisonous mushrooms. La Borde, who must have known Schobert personally, described him similarly as having ‘manners as gentle and as simple as his talent was extraordinary’. Opposed to these statements is Leopold Mozart’s letter of 1 February 1764, which accuses Schobert of ‘envy’ and ‘jealousy’, and concludes that ‘Schobert is not at all the man he is said to be – he flatters to one’s face and is utterly false’. In view of Schobert’s influence on the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the adaptations of his works which must have been carried out under Leopold’s guidance, these remarks seem incongruous; Leopold was probably identifying Schobert with what he regarded as the degenerate Parisian society of the time. Schobert greatly influenced Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who admired his music warmly. The work which most impressed the seven-year-old composer seems to have been the D major Sonata of op.3; imitation of this sonata and others can be traced in Mozart’s subsequent Parisian and English sonatas. Movements from Schobert’s sonatas also appear recast in Mozart’s earliest piano concertos. His fascination for Schobert’s music was not merely fleeting: when Mozart was in Paris in 1778 he taught his pupils Schobert’s sonatas, and the A minor Sonata k310, composed in Paris, contains in its Andante an almost literal quotation from a movement of Schobert’s op.17 no.1 that Mozart had already arranged years before in a concerto. #ClassicalMusic