Franz Schubert: Fantasia for piano, 4 hands in F minor, D. 940 (Op. 103), orchestrated by Felix Mottl, Part 2. Leon Botstein / American Symphony Orchestra Disclaimer: This piece came as a single track mp3. I divided it at what appeared to be good breaks in the music, but as the breaks are often unresolved cadences, were probably just dramatic pauses. Thus the different video parts likely do not correspond to the three or four movements of this piece. For this reason I have made a playlist for this work. Of interest to me is the first piece of artwork in these videos, a painting by Georg Friedrich Kersting (a contemporary of Schubert). The painting shows a man reading by lamp light, and I am struck by how modern looking the lamp is, until I realize it probably uses candles or maybe oil. I don't know if gas was prevalent in Schubert's time. Maybe someone can answer that. It's little details like this "contemporary" lamp that make me feel connected to the days of the great master musicians, that make me feel it wasn't so very long ago after all.
