Schubert, String Trio No. 1 in B flat, D471

Sunday evening I had a very special chamber music treat.  I've mentioned on this blog that I go most Sunday nights to my friend's house for dinner with him and his family, board games with his kids, and then violin sonatas (we're working our way through the Mozart sonatas for a second time).  But my friend is also a cellist, and his nearly ten-year-old son is a rapidly advancing violinist (almost done with Book Four of Suzuki, if I recall correctly).  A couple of months ago, his parents thought to give him a gift of a chamber music session with me and his father, and asked me to pick the piece.  I chose Schubert's single movement String Trio No. 1 in B flat, D471.  I'd heard it at a Chameleon Arts Ensemble concert a few months previously, and thought that it was the right length and character for this purpose.

Sunday evening we had our first run through of the piece, and it was a wonderful musical experience.  My young friend has all the makings of an excellent musician (I'd expect nothing less, knowing his father!)  Confident, attentive, musical, a joy to play with!  I hope to do so again often in the months and years ahead.

And I think the piece I chose was just right.  It was a bit of a stretch for my young friend, both technically (going up to fifth position in one place), but also musically.  The Suzuki books concentrate almost exclusively on folk songs and Baroque music, so Schubert's early Romantic harmonic vocabulary initially confused him greatly, particularly in the development section.  But he practiced the piece a lot, and surmounted the technical difficulties, as well as implanting Schubert earworms into his entire family.  (I have a friend who says the only way to get a Schubert melody out of your head is with another Schubert melody!)