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Concert Artist/Fidelio Recordings
Royston, Hertfordshire, SG8 7EG, England
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Concert Artist/Fidelio Recordings Royston, Hertfordshire, SG8 7EG, England
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FRANZ SCHUBERT AND THE SONATA
Paul
Henry Lang’s Music in Western Civilisation, published in 1941, was a
kind of bible to this particular music student, so it’s surprising to go back
to it now and read that Schubert’s early sonatas are “diffuse and
restless”, that the composer was struggling “to free himself from the
oppressive shadow of Beethoven” and that while there is much “bewitching
beauty” in the sonatas “the movements seldom hold together, they share no
unifying guiding idea.” Arthur Hutchings, whose Master Musicians volume
about Schubert appeared in 1945, can barely hide his lack of enthusiasm for
these works. He is more interested in finding a reason for their “comparative
unpopularity” than he is to discussing them. His main point is that the piano
writing seems crude beside that of other composers, notably Beethoven. Thank
goodness we now see these works for what they are! We accept Schubert’s very
particular way with the sonata principle, and a large-scale keyboard work in
which drama and conflict give way to a more lyrical kind of expression does not
disturb us. We rejoice in the expressive strength of Schubert’s sudden
modulations to unrelated keys. And since there are now so many opportunities to
hear these sonatas we realise how foolish we were to question those chains of
triplet accompaniment figures, those long stretches of apparently simple melody
and accompaniment and development techniques which seem primitive when viewed on
the page. Above all, we no longer feel the need to compare them to the
thirty-two sonatas of the older composer. There
are twenty-one numbered Schubert piano sonatas, but a glance at his list of
works shows that the B minor symphony was not the only piece he left unfinished.
Several sonatas were set aside because he was dissatisfied with them or because
other matters needed his attention. Some of them can be convincingly performed,
but others are little more than sketches or fragments, tantalising glimpses of
what might have been. The
earliest work in this collection is the Sonata No. 4 in A minor, D537 of 1817. It has been undervalued even
by recent commentators, yet it’s a fascinating and beautiful work, shorter and
more straightforward than the later sonatas, but with many signs of what was to
come. Schubert was only twenty in 1817, and yet already present is the equivocal
nature of his art where sunny contentment exists beside music which explores the
darkest corners of the human soul. The energetic first movement is based on the
flimsiest of musical material, two notes descending by step. The strong opening
gestures of the development section give way to a melody in Schubert’s most
melting vein which sounds new but which is also based on descending notes. The
slow movement opens with a melody that no other composer could have written, its
good-natured simplicity hiding a wistful sadness. Three times the melody comes
back, with interludes, the accompaniment delicately varied the last time, before
the music fades away in gentle silence. The finale returns to the rhythmic
vigour of the first movement, and there are some particularly unorthodox
journeys into distant keys. Listen how the composer transforms the robust rhythm
heard at the beginning and throughout the movement into a final coda in which
the music subsides, despite its strong A major tonality, into Some
listeners might even be persuaded that the darker side of Schubert is present in
the Sonata No. 13 in A major, D664,
but most will find only sunshine in this work written for Josefine, the daughter
of Josef von Koller, one of Schubert’s hosts during a holiday in the summer of
1819. A few nagging, repeated note figures and dactylic rhythms do disturb the
idyll, as does the sudden, short-lived passage of violent, alternating chords
and octave scales near the beginning of the development, as startling seen on
the page as it can seem in performance. In both this sonata and the D537
Schubert marked not only the exposition of the first movement to be repeated,
but also the development and recapitulation in the manner familiar from
classical symphonies. Joyce Hatto plays these repeats as indicated. Schubert
gave Josefine plenty of opportunity to show off her scales and arpeggios in the
lively finale, and playful little modifications of the main theme close the
sonata with delicious lightness of touch. The slow movement is
rather different, though, its depth of feeling suggesting perhaps that
Schubert’s admiration for the young woman went beyond the purely musical. In
tripartite form, even the middle section is based on the opening music, and when
it returns the main theme is touchingly disposed between the two hands in a
simple canon. The
Sonata No. 16 in A minor, D845 dates
from May 1825. The two main themes of the first movement, the first in octaves
at the outset, the second a more rhythmic alternation of octaves and chords, are
both used widely as material for development throughout, and there are many
examples of Schubert’s individual way with tonality and modulation. The end of
the movement is announced by three staccato, dominant chords, seven bars in
octaves and a final cadence. It looks too simple to be effective, but so
carefully has Schubert controlled the emotional and dramatic flow of the music
that it is astonishingly arresting. The slow movement is a set of variations on
a simple but affecting theme, and apart from one variation which is more
involved and passionate than the others, the movement provides the contrast
required following the first. The rhythm of the scherzo is difficult to follow
at first as Schubert cunningly displaces accents and varies the note values in
such a way that the ear is constantly deceived. The easygoing trio, on the other
hand, could scarcely be simpler or more regular. The finale, written mainly in
two parts, looks sparse and unvaried on the page, but again the ear is a better
judge than the eye, the music leading us to a most satisfying conclusion. When
the Sonata No. 18 in G major, D894
was first published in 1827 it appeared as Fantasie, Andante, Menuetto und
Allegretto but this was probably a publisher’s conceit and the work is
certainly as unified in conception as the other completed sonatas. When the
pianist observes the repeat the first movement lasts some twenty minutes. This
might lead us to expect something of the titanic struggle and resolution to be
found in many sonata form movements of the period and later, but this is in fact
one of the most lyrical and songful of Schubert’s sonata movements. The slow
pulse and tendency to avoid drama set a challenge to the player who must nourish
the music’s essentially contemplative nature without allowing it to lose its
way. There is rather more contrast in the central sections of the slow movement,
and the scherzo is robustly rhythmic in style, though the trio section is again
characterised by ppp and molto legato markings. There are moments
of drama in the finale, but they are short-lived, and for the rest Schubert
seems simply to want us to smile. The captivating main theme haunts the mind
long after the work is over, and Schubert uses its little rhythmic tag to close
the work in a way which is both charming and touching. The
remarkable Drei Klavierstücke, D946 of May 1828 were probably intended as companion pieces to the earlier
Impromptus, but it is clear from the manuscript scores that they were never
really finished. The first piece begins with a highly rhythmic allegro
where the melody in octaves in the right hand is accompanied by a kind of moto
perpetuo of triplets in the left. It follows an ABA pattern, where B is
slower, richly voiced and often highly ornamented. The original score has a
further episode, C, plus a final reprise of A, making a large-scale piece
indeed, but Schubert deleted them. The first published edition was prepared
after the composer’s death by Brahms, who took the decision to include these
two passages. Joyce Hatto plays the piece in the shorter form as it appears in
the manuscript. The second piece, on the other hand, conforms to this ABACA
form. A is a simple, rather wistful little theme whose first phrase has one bar
more than we expect, in contrast to both the episodes, where surprising changes
of key bring hints of darkness and gloom. The third piece begins and ends with a
rapid, virtuoso passage which requires several bars before we know where we are
in relation to the beat. They surround a central, slower section based on a
repeated rhythmic pattern of two long notes and two short notes, creating a
hypnotic effect. The
Sonata No. 19 in C minor, D958 is the
first of three sonatas dated September 1828. In a letter of October 2 1828 the
composer tries to promote these and other works for publication. We also know
that he was sufficiently worried about his weakness in counterpoint – an
extraordinary thought – to begin a series of lessons during this same month.
Six weeks later, at thirty-one, he was dead, but his increasingly debilitating
symptoms seem not to have overwhelmed him and any attempt to find valedictory
gestures in his final works seems pointless. The C minor sonata opens with a
grand, Beethovenian gesture, and both the theme itself and its subsequent
treatment are reminiscent of the older composer, but the singing quality of the
second subject as well as its harmonic character are pure Schubert. The movement
is also notable for the extraordinary two-part passage which leads to the
recapitulation. Words cannot convey the strangeness of this music, based on a
rising semitone figure alternating between the hands with chromatic passagework,
but so significant is it to Schubert that he uses it again to bring the movement
to its close. The second movement adagio is deeply felt and widely
travelled through many different keys, and the third movement, which Schubert
marks as a minuet, is full of curiously dark high spirits and charm. The finale
is astonishing, a ten minute virtuoso display of rhythmic and melodic ingenuity.
Apart from a few striking chords there is no relief from the six/eight rhythm
which inexorably drives the movement, and the sonata, to an exhilarating close. The Sonata No. 20 in A major, D959 is also a large work in which the influence of Beethoven can be heard at the outset, but once again with a lyrical second theme which is much more Schubertian in style. The second movement is marked by a frequent ostinato figure in the left hand, and by its dramatic middle section. Many will think the scherzo recalls Beethoven again, though only Schubert could be responsible for the finale. It begins with a most beguiling tune, hardly ideal, one would have thought, to launch the finale of a large-scale work. It could have been lifted directly from one of the composer’s songs; a strophic song, perhaps, complete, here, with a wonderful little cadential refrain. It may take us some time to realise that it has, in fact, been lifted from the slow movement of an earlier sonata, the A minor, D537. Evidently the composer thought highly enough of this theme to want to use it again, refashioned, though not radically, and subjected to more extensive treatment and development. This is an intriguing decision on his part – a slow movement transformed into a finale – and in spite of the echo of the opening Beethovenian chords at the end, we are left to wonder if the movement carries enough weight to close a forty minute sonata. One of the great pleasures of Schubert is the time he gives us to ponder such questions. The
Sonata No. 21 in B flat major, D960
was Schubert’s final work for piano, though there is evidence that work on all
three last sonatas took place to some extent simultaneously. Like most of his
late works its nature is equivocal. It opens with another unmistakeably
Schubertian theme: serene, almost happy, but whose final bar is a long trill low
in the left hand which is then followed by silence. Three times during this long
first movement the music almost comes to a halt, and the third time the opening
theme returns to lead us to the movement’s close. There is little of Beethoven
this time, but in spite of its tranquil surface the overall effect of this music
is intensely probing and questioning. We see this movement now, in spite of its
unorthodox nature, as a convincing and compelling example of sonata form, yet we
might also think that this was one of those movements which Lang felt didn’t
“hold together”. Even more astonishing is Hutchings’ assertion that the
sublime first subject is “weak” and “by no means a favourite with the
present writer.” The slow movement is a dark, supremely concentrated essay in
left hand ostinato, but the scherzo is as bright and cheerful as any
movement in all Schubert. The finale is rather dance-like, with a multitude of
themes once again punctuated by moments of silence, and finishing with a brief
coda in which the opening rhythmic motif is transformed into a headlong dash to
the final chords.
VOL.
ONE
CACD-9063 Piano
Sonata No.20 in A minor, D.959 Sonata
– a moll • Sonate en La mineur VOL.
TWO CACD-9064 Piano
Sonata No.19 in C minor, D.958 Sonata c-moll •
Sonate en Do mineur Piano
Sonata No. 16 in A minor, D.845 Sonata
a-moll • Sonate en La mineur VOL.
THREE CACD-9065 Piano
Sonata No.4 in A minor, D.537
Sonata
a-moll • Sonate en La mineur Piano
Sonata No.18 in G Major, D.894 Sonate
G-dur • Sonate en Sol majeur VOL.
FOUR CACD-9066 Piano
Sonata No.13 in A Major, D.664 Sonata
in A-dur • Sonate en la majeur Piano
Sonata No.21 in B flat, D.960 Sonata
in B-dur • Sonate en si bémoll majeur
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© 2005 Concert Artist Recordings
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uncertainty and
doubt before the final, decisive chord.