Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
44
Sonata no. 15 A minor, opus 42, 0 845
composed in the spring of J825, published in
J82 as the
Premiere Crande Sonate
For Schubert A minor along with C minor
was the tragic key. Thus the three Sonatas
for piano written in this key (to which might be
added the Sonata for Violin D 835 and the elegiac
String Quartet opus 29, D 804) are confessional
works, underlining Schuberts comment Do you
know any joyful music? I do not (A parallel case
is found with Bruckner who composed three sym-
phonies in C minor). As we might expect there is
a sense of progression through this series of three
Sonatas. While the intensity of the second, writ-
ten in 1823, remains unequalled, the third, writ-
ten in 1825, goes even further in the richness of
its realization, its changes of mood, the degree of
its more chiselled development and in its broader
format frame; indeed it is almost twice as long as
the preceding A minor Sonata.
It was through self criticism, for us in exag-
gerated form, that Schubert did not apparently
consider any of the fourteen earlier sonatas wor-
thy of publication and all of them appeared only
after his death. Clearly Schubert only wanted to
present himself to the public with a Sonata that
was in every sense really grand. In a truly pro-
phetic commentary which appeared on the rst of
March 1826 in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung,
the musical magazine of Leipzig, the critic G.W.
Fink recognized the grandeur of this work: These
days many pieces of music carry the title fantasia
even though the part of fantasy is insignicant or
even inexistent; they are baptised with this name
because it sounds good. [] Here for once the re-
verse happens with a piece of music called sonata,
where we nd a major and decisive role given to
fantasy and where the name was perhaps chosen
solely because it contains the same parts and the
same structure as a sonata. Certainly its expres-
sion and its technique retain a praise-worthy uni-
ty; but within these limits the music evolves in a
manner that is so free and particular, so unexpect-
ed and sometimes so strange that it would not be
wrong to call it a fantasia. In this last respect it can
be compared to the greatest and freest sonatas of
Beethoven. We owe this particularly attractive and
truly rich work to Mr. Franz Schubert, whom we
are told is a Viennese artist living in Vienna and
still young. Still more prophetically the same
critic later in his article considered Schuberts in-
strumental music to be greater than his Lieder!
Considering the qualities and shortcomings of
these songs, we have always supposed that Mr.
Schubert would be more successful in the genre
with no rules other than those of all good music in
short in instrumental music, especially with its
vaster and freer forms. Our supposition is entirely
conrmed with this grand Sonata. This work has
great wealth of melodic and harmonic invention
that is really new and original; equally a wealth of
expression and even more diversity; it is ingen-
ious and persevering in its realization, especially
in the conduct of the parts as a whole and yet from
beginning to end it is true piano music. What
pleasure it is to read this commentary, compared
45 English |ranais 0eutsch |taliano
to the absurdities that have been written more re-
cently about Schuberts so-called incapacity in the
eld of instrumental music!
From the outset the main theme of the rst
movement has a particular expressivity and pro-
fundity. It is presented as a dialogue and in this
respect resembles the two preceding Sonatas: a
lyrical motif announced in unison, with a well-
dened rhythm is answered by a chordal gure,
rst with a gentle repetition of the notes, then,
after a second call, with a doleful cry. How else can
we interpret this crescendo which spirals up only
to end with a dissonance? The whole theme has
the character of dark foreboding. In her excellent
biography of Schubert, Brigitte Massin speaks of
a theme of burial. What follows is a rather long
harmonic progression based on the dominant E
which gives way to a march theme in an inexo-
rable manner. From the viewpoint of form this
new motif might be described as a transitional
group. But in reality it is already a second subject
whose staccato provides an extreme contrast to
the sweetness of the initial subject. And then,
after a modulation, where we might expect the real
second subject there is another appearance of the
opening theme in C minor, a minor key variant of
the relative major! The epilogue theme, in C Major,
directly contrasts fragments of the two themes by
presenting the rst in the march rhythm of the
second. It is impossible to describe the vicissi-
tudes of the main theme and its nal outburst
(exceptionally in the manner of Beethoven) in the
development section which never leaves the minor
mode. After a long evolution, it is interrupted in
the dominant of F sharp minor. What then follows
resembles a continuation of the development (the
conicting part): after a rest the main theme reap-
pears, in canonic imitation, in the softest ppp, fol-
lowed by fragments in F sharp minor, A minor and
in the dominant of C minor (with G in the bass).
From there a modulation in the style of Winterreise
takes us steadily step by step by way of B at and C
sharp to E where we again hear the second subject
like march motif. The development and reca-
pitulation are entirely fused. (Retrospectively we
might however consider the brief appearance of
the main theme in A minor, quoted after a while,
as the beginning of the recapitulation). But what
seems like a formal game is extremely serious with
each note giving the impression of being lived.
The recapitulation also follows its own course: the
epilogue theme here appears not in A, as we might
expect, but in F Major and nally passes by way of
a modulation to A minor at the beginning of the
coda which begins like a funeral march and ends
like an apocalyptic storm (turning upside down,
the last despairing cry of the theme before it is
almost crushed in the nal page).
The second movement consists of a series of
variations on a tender theme of consolation in C
Major which in mood and harmony resembles the
variations in Beethovens nal Sonata, opus 111.
The theme has the structure of an idealized string
quartet movement: played rst by the second vio-
lin, it moves to the top part only in the ninth
bar. In the rst edition, as well as in all subsequent
editions issued before 1960, four bars are miss-
ing, no doubt because of an oversight: contrary
46
to the theme and to the ensuing variations, the
middle section has four instead eight bars which
destroys the musical equilibrium. Already in 1958,
in my article Missing bars and corrupt passages
in classical masterpieces (published in the Neue
Zeitschrift fr Musik 1958, pp.635-42), I was able
to prove that this could not have been intentional.
My reconstruction of the four missing bars (with
the help of the second variation which resembles a
dance) was printed in Henles subsequent edition.
In the minor key with many dissonances, the
third variation is dramatic a lament which pe-
ters out, after a protestation into resignation.
After coming to a halt in the lowest register, like a
voice of consolation the pianistic ramications of
the fourth variation in A at Major ensue. A brief
interlude of six bars then picks up the last motif of
this variation, as if in a dream, passing by a modu-
lation to the basic clear key of this movement.
It is as if a gate was opening on to a springtime
scene or a mountain forest in summer: the piano
writing suggests horn calls the symbol of the
open air and nally evokes a feeling of deep in-
ner peace, of a mystical union with nature (like
the song Ausung, D 807). Schubert himself liked
this movement the only variation movement in
any of his piano sonatas and during the jour-
ney that he undertook in the summer of 1825 he
wrote: Particularly pleasing were the variations
of my new Sonata for piano solo which I played
alone with considerable happiness; some people
told me that under my hands the piano keys were
transformed into singing voices. If this is true I am
very content, because I cannot stand that damned
hammering which is common even among some
excellent pianists and which delights neither the
ear nor the heart (from a letter to his father and
mother-in-law of 25 (or 28?) July, 1825, written
while he was in Steyer).
The demonic Scherzo, which abounds in ten-
sion, takes us back at a stroke to the consistently
dark mood of the rst movement: it is certainly no
coincidence that the opening motif of the Scherzo
includes the same notes as at the beginning of the
rst movement, albeit in a dierent order A-B-
C-E. However while the rst movement gradu-
ally develops from melancholy passivity to quick
march progressing in an irresistable manner, the
rhythmic energy at the beginning of the Scherzo is
released, after two leaps forward in the fourth bar,
with a fortissimo.
The main section is composed in a succinct so-
nata form. The motivic work using typical repeti-
tion of the notes of the initial motif is, one might
say, Beethovenian. After the radiant ending in A
major one of the rare luminous moments in this
Sonata, the few transitional bars leading to the
trio appear to return us with the A-C-A motif to
the sadness of A minor. But to our surprise, in-
stead of ending in A minor, these notes lead us
into F major, which includes the same notes. What
follows is one of Schuberts most enchanting piec-
es, a bright, airy dance in one of the gentlest vein,
disturbed only in the middle by minor key harmo-
nies and dissonances; expressing neither sadness
nor joy, the soul is left in limbo. After this dream
of peace the return to the rst rending part of
the Scherzo seems like a sudden schock.
47 English |ranais 0eutsch |taliano
Equally contrasted is the last movement, a rondo
presenting a certain anity with the last move-
ment of Mozarts tragic Sonata in A minor, K 310:
a melancholy theme in 2/4, some explosive leaps, a
tender middle section in A major and an energetic,
tragic ending. But even more noticeable are natu-
rally the correspondances with the preceding move-
ments. Firstly the initial movement lls the same
sound space (E
2
-E
1
) as the main theme of the rst
movement. What is new however is the tetrachord
(E-D-C-B) which dominates the whole movement
in one form or another. This appears already with
the second energetic theme which is based on four
descending notes. The gentle middle section in A
major also begins with a tetrachord (C#-B-A-G#),
immediately followed by its inversion in longer
notes (A-B-C-D) which had already been heard in
the bass as a continuation of the energetic theme.
But this consolatory mood does not last. As in a
development it is followed, in D minor, by a contra-
puntal confrontation of this theme with the rondo
theme which then holds sway until the end. The last
light harmonic leap into A Major is answered by the
melancholy ending of the initial theme in A minor.
After this an almost literal repeat of the rst section
ends in an hectic A major resembling a kind of forced
smile. The coda brings no relief, quite the contrary,
again the two themes are mingled in the minor
mode. As if in combat, the central theme appears
sometimes in the high register, sometimes in the
low, and it is completely broken down until all that
remains in a nal accelerando is the concluding third
C-A. It is as if the furies had taken over the work.
Two abrupt ff chords close the work nally in tragedy.
156
0ie letzten drei klaviersonaten
Zwischen der Enstehung von Mozarts drei
letzten Symphonien (1788) und Schuberts
drei letzten Klaviersonaten im September 1828
bestehen merkwrdige Parallelen. Beide Trias
enstanden ohne ersichtlichen ueren Anlass
in erstaunlich kurzem Zeitraum und stellen bei
beiden Komponisten die Hhepunkte innerhalb
der jeweiligen Werkgattung dar. Beide Gruppen
bestehen aus je einem Werk in Moll und zwei
Werken in der Dur- Tonart, und in beiden Fllen
ist ein verborgener zyklischer Zusammenhang
zu spren. Es gibt freilich auch Unterschiede:
Anstelle des strahlenden apollinischen
Abschlusses der Jupiter-Symphonie steht
die heiter-wehmtige Abschiedsstimmung der
letzten Sonate Schuberts, so als htte er geahnt,
da ihm nur noch wenige Wochen auf dieser Erde
beschieden sein wrden.
Dem sonst so einfhlsamen Schumann
unterlief ein krasses leider oft nachgeplappertes
Fehl urteil, als er in seiner Rezension der drei
letzten Schubert-Sonaten ein durch Krankheit
bedingtes Nachlassen der Schpferkraft zu
bemerken glaubte. Von einem Nachlassen der
Gestaltungskraft kann hier aber gar keine Rede
sein, eher von einem Aufbruch in hhere, bisher
nie gekannte Regionen. Um die Gipfel weht
es eisig der neue Ausdrucksgehalt bedingt
gelegentlich Herbheiten und ruft an einigen
Stellen das Bild einer Gletscherlandschaft wach,
die weit entfernt ist von den blhenden Grten
der Jugend.