Schubert‘s piano sonatas: Attempt at a chronological survey and description

based on Michael Endres’s CD recording.

First of all, a few explanatory words : Schubert’s piano sonatas have been part of my life for
at least 30 years now and thus everything I can say about them is of course highly subjective.
In this article I’m trying to describe these works especially from the interpretative point of
view. In order to achieve this I took as a basis one of the few existing “complete recordings”,
the one made by Michael Endres and issued in Germany by Capriccio. My purpose is not
primarily to write a critique of that recording, but to use it as a kind of reference point in order
to crystallise my thoughts about the compendium of Schubert’s piano sonatas and their
interpretation. Obviously there is nothing we could call a “reference recording”– these works
are far too complex to be explored in only one recording, and their reception also depends
closely on the listener’s state of mind. Therefore the comparison between various recordings
should primarily aim at describing what isn’t so easy to pour into words.

Schubert’s piano sonatas entered the history of recording quite late (Schnabel was a pioneer in
this regard, albeit a timid one) and “complete recordings” of them aren’t so numerous – we
will quickly understand the reason for the use of quotation marks with regard to “complete”.
Apart from Endres’s series, we will find, in the following survey, allusions to other
“complete” series (the pioneer Wührer, the nowadays unjustly forgotten Klien, Kempff on
DG, Dalberto on Denon/ Brilliant, Schiff on Decca, Weichert on Accord …), as well as to
several recordings of individual works. With one exception the works are presented in the
order in which they appear in Deutsch’s chronological catalogue. The reader who desires
more information as a result of this survey will find it not only in the standard literature about
Schubert, but especially in Andreas Krause‘s dissertation Die Klaviersonaten Franz
Schuberts Form – Gattung – Ästhetik (Bärenreiter 1991), the reference book on the subject.
The recording history of Schubert’s piano sonatas has also experienced a positive upturn in
recent times. The last few years have seen the completion of a Schubert collection by Alain
Planès on Harmonia Mundi, a series dedicated explicitly to Schubert’s fragments by Gottlieb
Wallisch on Naxos and the beginning of a new Schubert project by Gerhard Oppitz.

Part I: the beginnings (1815-1818)

The first attempts

Schubert is something of a late starter as far as the piano sonata is concerned, and there is no
obvious explanation for this. His early piano fantasies, as well as the accompaniment of his
first songs, are enough of a proof that he quickly got familiar with the instrument. The string
quartets he composed in 1813 and 1814 show that he was quite at ease with the classical
cyclic form. Maybe what happened was just what Haydn once answered an inquiring mind in
another context: Schubert didn’t compose a piano sonata earlier because nobody wanted a
sonata by him earlier. Thus it happens that he began to work on his first piano sonata as late –
for him- as February 1815. At that time he had already completed, among other works, a
dozen string quartets, a symphony and a Mass, and was working on his Second Symphony
D125. Nevertheless, from this point on, the piano sonata would be part of his creative life
until the very end, until the late summer of 1828 when he wrote his last masterpieces. No
other genre of instrumental music was related in such an intricate manner with the evolution
of his musical language, and the journey through Schubert’s piano sonatas, even if it starts a
bit late, is therefore a fascinating one.
D157: the first sonata, in E major, begins in an insouciant Mozartian way, which surprises the
listener who is familiar with Schubert’s 1814 or 1815 works, for it is much less daring than,
say, some of the early quartets, but it offers a ballad-like andante, where the evanescent sound
and the part played by silences give us more than a glance into the future. The minuet is solid
in Haydn’s manner but its trio recalls unmistakably the spirit of Schubert’s Deutsche Tänze.
This first sonata, which was preceded by the Allegro in E major D154 Schubert discarded
after composing the exposition and 32 bars of development, is unfinished, for the lack of a
finale, but actually the remaining movements don’t display a really stringent cyclic
conception, so that the absence of a fourth movement isn’t so cruel, all the less so as the
minuet has enough energy to conclude the work. Endres plays it with delicacy, especially in
the second movement, which he renders with a particular sensitivity. He draws the Andante
slightly towards an Adagio, which fits well the character of the movement (and makes us wish
all the more he didn’t do exactly the contrary in the C minor sonata D958). A slight tendency
towards the “mechanical” can be observed in the first movement (more about this later) but
here it’s hardly noticeable. On the other hand he thankfully doesn’t try to overload this first
movement and have it express more than it actually does (which is Dalberto’s drawback).
This is a successful introduction to the cycle.
D279: The second sonata, in C major, is similarly unfinished in three movements. Some have
seen the unfinished Allegretto in C major D346 as a possible finale, but this remains a
speculative solution. Listening to this sonata, one gets the feeling that Schubert was aiming at
something greater, and maybe looking in the direction of Beethoven, which results in more
pathos and less lyricism than in D157. Endres doesn’t manage to play with the same carefree
spirit as, say, Kempff, but at least he doesn’t try to overload the work. The result is a bit paler
than in D157, which is also the fault of the composition itself. However, Endres has a
tendency to give undue prominence to the treble. Dalberto, on the other hand, is more
discriminate in his voicing, and this is better suited to the sonata. Endres is nearer the mark in
his performance of the Minuet. Here Schubert has left his Beethovenian ambitions aside and
gives us a healthy Ländler in A minor. The trio of this minuet, in A major, is rhythmically
well integrated and just a little more aristocratic, so that this third movement concludes the
work quite effectively. However, nobody will complain if the Allegretto D346, a charming
Moment musical, is used as a Finale and thus brought to a broader audience.
D459 or the phantom sonata: In 1843 the Leipzig editor Klemm printed a collection of Fünf
Klavierstücke (Allegro- Scherzo- Adagio- Scherzo- Allegro patetico). They were also
published under this name in the old Gesamtausgabe. In 1930, however, a manuscript was
discovered; it was dated “August 1816“, bore the title “Sonate” and contained the first and the
second of these five pieces, only the first being complete. This prompted scholars to rename
the work “Piano Sonata in E major“, the name it bears in Deutsch’s catalogue, and to declare
it Schubert’s first complete piano sonata. But there are some question marks. A sonata in five
movements is not only complete – it is even more than complete for the Schubert of 1816.
Moreover, the second movement is entitled Scherzo in the 1843 edition only; in the
manuscript it is simply called Allegro. Unusually for Schubert it is in the home key of E major
and, surprisingly, doesn’t fit into the Minuet or Scherzo theme but is in sonata form. The
editors of the Neue Gesamtausgabe considered that there were too many unresolved questions
and decided that the manuscript (which had disappeared in the meantime) provided evidence
for only two movements of an (unfinished?) sonata to which they assigned the number D459,
while the remaining three pieces of Klemm’s collection were given the number D459A.
The story doesn’t end here, for not only was the lost manuscript recently rediscovered but
another manuscript contains both the Allegro patetico in Klemm’s collection and a
fragmentary Adagio in C major D349. Thus it looks as if the Leipzig editor, perhaps advised
by Ferdinand Schubert, had combined movements from various sources, eventually making
his own completion of the unfinished finale of the sonata (D459) which he placed as second
Klavierstück. If this was really the case, he wouldn’t have done anything substantially
different than many modern Schubert specialists who try to “reconstruct” his fragmentary
sonatas. The Austrian musicologist Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, who published an exhaustive
study of Schubert’s fragments, retains the idea of a probably unfinished Sonata in E major
D459 (the first two Klavierstücke) and hints at another (unfinished?) Sonata in E major, D
deest, which would be made out of the Allegro patetico of D459, the Adagio in C major D349
and possibly the Rondo in E D506. This speculative sonata hasn’t been recorded yet.
Wilhelm Kempff, whose recording was made before the restructuring of D459, could easily
convince the listener that this is a very homogeneous lyrical work, where Schubert shows his
unaffected and dancing side, as well as echoing the spirit of his songs (the accompanied voice
in the Adagio or the “Questions and Answers” interplay in the Allegro patetico). Michael
Endres, on the other hand, decided to omit this work completely. Thankfully other pianists
don’t follow this line, for, in spite of their awkward position in the Deutsch catalogue, these
five pieces deserve to be played in public, and this won’t happen if the pianists hide behind
the musicologists’ disagreements. Of the recent recordings, Dalberto and Schiff have
included them in their series. Neither has got the sense of obviousness Kempff communicates;
with them the collection doesn't sound so naturally as a sonata. However, Dalberto,
less effusive than Kempff, manages to maintain the unity of a discourse in the diversity of its
chapters, while Schiff seduces with a kind of mischievousness. The 1816 Schubert, who could
give his fourth symphony the title “Tragic”, could also compose an Allegro patetico without
falling into Tchaikovsky’s suicidal mood.
In these first sonatas Schubert is still in search of his own pianistic language. In many points
he remains indebted to Mozart and Haydn, and now and then a trill is there to remind us that
the harpsichords and early pianos weren’t capable of producing sustained tones which, oddly
enough, brings to mind French harpsichord music of the 18th century. We know that Schubert
didn’t own a piano until the autumn of 1814, and his earliest song manuscripts show he wrote
their accompaniment with a harpsichord in mind (instead of the “Pianoforte” he would soon
require he writes “Cembalo”). His father is said to have offered him a five- octave Conrad
Graf piano after the successful premiere of the F major mass D105 in 1814. Anyway the spirit
of Baroque ornamentation, which had been probably taught him by Salieri, would gradually
become a hallmark of Schubert’s language in the way he made use of its stylistic elements for
his personal purpose.
In December 1816, however, a decisive change took place in his life: the nineteen-year-old
composer left his parents’ home – and school - to become an independent artist. He first
moved to his friend Franz von Schober’s home, where he could compose without being
disturbed and where he was free to use the fine instruments there. Free from teaching at his
father’s school, he was also free from composing for the family string quartet and decided that
he no longer required Salieri’s teaching. Thus he had all the latitude necessary to explore the
domain of the piano sonata with more intensity.
The time of the fragments – or: a visit to the master’s workshop
We are now coming to the time in which we meet more and more “problem babies”. After the
phantom sonata D459 we can find some 30 sonata movements that can’t all be unequivocally
combined to form larger-scale works; and some of them didn’t even reach the final double
bar. We are entering Schubert’s composition laboratory, as it were. At that time the still
unknown composer couldn’t think of publishing his sonatas (for the record, he would decide
in the spring of 1817 to offer his Erlkönig, albeit without success, to the Leipzig editor
Breitkopf und Härtel – and it was not until 1821 that it was published by Diabelli in Vienna as
his op. 1), nor did he appear as a pianist in any public concerts. He played the piano in semi-
public events to accompany his own songs, but was still far from thinking of his sonatas as
concert pieces.
This gave him the freedom he needed to experiment, and he took advantage of it with regard
to all the aspects of the sonata: structure of the movements, relationships between them,
multi-movement architecture, harmonic structures … Therefore we shouldn’t consider the
sonatas of the years 1817-1818 as rounded final products, like Beethoven’s, for instance,
which their author managed to have published early in his career, or those of Mozart, who
played them in concerts or gave to his pupils and friends. Moreover, we should keep in mind
the fact that Schubert was composing at a time when the aesthetic of the fragment was
developing. Since Winckelmann had uttered his admiration for the antique torsos, the
fragment had earned the status of a work of art and writers like Tieck, Friedrich von Schlegel
and Novalis had produced literary fragments of their own. We may not go as far as to think
that Schubert composed fragments on purpose, but he certainly wasn’t compelled to complete
them since no publisher or concert agent was pushing him. We can look at some of Schubert’s
“problem children” of that time the way we look at Leonardo’s or Rubens’s drawings, which
are simultaneously sketches and masterworks. And while a symphony sketched on two
systems will always lack the symphonic dimension, the sketch of a piano work can be
performed on the piano anyway. Maybe, after all, we should go so far as to consider that in
some cases Schubert applied to the piano sonata the non finito technique used by sculptors.
D537: The first sonata of 1817 is no problem child in this regard. It’s a complete A minor
sonata in three movements and bears the date “March1817”.
The first movement is an Allegro ma non troppo, which shares only with the initial movement
of D664 the particularity that Schubert prescribes not only the repeat of the exposition, but
also of the development + recapitulation (those of you who have read Brian Newbould’s
Schubert - The Music and the Man will have already bid farewell to the prejudice that
Schubert strewed repeat signs in his scores without consideration). Actually this sonata lives
from repeats, even more so than the obsessive D960. Those are not only the formal repeats of
constituent elements of the movements as mentioned above, but also repeats of entire phrases
in the second movement and, especially in movements 1 and 3, repeats of motives which
appear like blocks that don’t avoid displaying their lines of fracture. In this case one should
speak of accumulation rather than repeats, for a rhythmical cell can go unchanged through
variations of harmony, melody or dynamics, resulting in a dramatic crescendo. Although he
doesn’t play quite all the repeats required by Schubert, Walter Klien, who respects the careful
indications of dynamics in the score, succeeds in recreating Schubert’s plastic organization.
In spite of a rather slow tempo Endres starts well, but unfortunately he doesn’t stay on the
same line. After the exposition his ‘mechanical’ side shows again, and this is particularly
cruel in this case, for he stays by the letter of some “formulae”, hardly respecting the changes
of colour or dynamics, without attempting to shape them by means of rubato, accentuation or
phrasing. Instead of creating the effect of accumulation, he monotonously repeats them in a
clone-like fashion. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli mastered this plasticity in a sumptuous
way; unfortunately Endres remains too defensive and his interpretation lacks much of what
makes the novelty of this movement.
The second movement is an Allegretto quasi Andantino in rondo form with a main theme that
will appear again in the finale of the A major sonata D 959. Endres starts quite well again, but
his tempo is again on the slow side and soon (already in the first couplet) a certain rhythmical
stiffness appears. Kempff is more faithful to the tempo marking and maintains a certain
fluidity while Dalberto, who also plays the movement at a rather slow speed, shows a better
feeling for shades of colour and intensity – an accurate reminder that Schubert actually
composed for a fortepiano where it was possible to have an almost organ-like registration.
Our experience of Endres’ playing in the third movement, Allegro vivace, is the same as in the
first movement, so that one is quite relieved to hear the final chord without knowing exactly
how it was reached, because he substitutes a strict linearity for Schubert’s spatial organization
of time. Here, as throughout the work, Endres seems to be only half concerned with the
dynamic markings and, unfortunately, never produces a true ff. Dalberto succeeds in giving
more individuality to the different motives in this movement. There is more tension and more
energy emerges from the contrasts. Alain Planès, on the other hand, doesn’t enhance the
dialectic so much. His rendering is rather oriented towards the future and his realization of the
various rhythmical cells is conditioned by the sound of the instrument. This interpretation is
also quite convincing.
This first sonata of 1817, the product of Schubert’s intoxication with his new-found freedom
and his encounter with a first-rate instrument, marks a great leap forward. It shows the energy
of youth, combined with a three-dimensional conception of sound and the first hints of
“heavenly lengths”.
D557: After that explosion of energy, this sonata in A flat sounds somewhat harmless. It has
also been considered unfinished, since it ends with a movement in E flat. This third
movement, however, has all the characteristics of a finale. This sonata is light hearted, is
stylistically related to D279 and thus displays far less individuality than D537. However, the
second movement, in ABA form, conceals something of a surprise. While the A part unfolds a
simple melody in a seemingly harmless way, B unleashes something like a feverish Bach
prelude, which recalls the fourth Moment Musical.
Endres chooses rather slow tempos and enhances the Mozartian character of the outer parts of
the second movement. He succeeds in giving a convincing rendering when other interpreters
(Kempff, for instance) rather give the impression that this sonata is too lightweight. Proof
enough that it isn’t are the various interpretative insights it enables. Dalberto plays it like an
improvisation, which gives the central part of the second movement something of a jazzy feel,
while Radu Lupu plays it in a thoroughly unaffected way but with a beauty of tone which
enhances harmonic progressions that are not really as simple as one may think at first hearing.
D566/506: Here we come right into the centre of Schubert’s workshop. How many
movements does this E minor sonata contain? - one, as published in the old Gesamtausgabe,
two, three or four? Actually, in the first complete edition of Schubert’s works only the initial
Moderato was present in 1888; the second movement (Allegretto) was added to it in 1907,
then a manuscript came to light which contained three movements (it disappeared
subsequently), the third of which was an Allegro vivace Scherzo in A flat. Finally the Rondo
in E major D506, which had been published separately, was added as a finale. Now we have a
manuscript of the Moderato (with the title “Sonate I”), a copy of movements 1 and 3 and a
copy of the rondo D506 which bears the title “Sonate- Rondo”. Given the situation of the
sources, the idea has been mooted that the three movement manuscript, of which the last page
only was published as a facsimile, could actually have been a compilation, but it is no longer
possible to check this. Then there is the additional question, which can also be asked of other
atelier works, whether the Rondo D506 possibly could be an alternative (eventually
discarded?) finale.
Philological arguments speak in favour of each possible solution. Most interpreters (Kempff,
Weichert, Schiff, Klien among them) play two movements; Wührer plays three, Dalberto and
Schuchter four. Richter plays his own three-movement solution in which he shifts the Scherzo
between the Moderato and the Allegretto. This Allegretto definitely has a conclusive
character, so that either Richter’s editorial choice or a two-movement version can convince,
while the addition of the Scherzo without concluding Finale sounds unsatisfactory. The four-
movement solution is given a convincing rendering in Gottlieb Wallisch’s recently issued
Naxos recording, while it falls to pieces with Dalberto. He lets the second movement escape
too hastily, but plays the scherzo in quite a charming way. The rondo finale starts too stiffly,
however, and doesn’t manage to come to life. On the other hand Kempff, Weichert and Schiff
are convincing in the two-movement solution. Endres is too subjective here and without a
feeling for the large curves. The second idea of the first movement shows him in a hectic and
nervous mood; he speeds up the end of the second movement, as if he wanted to have it over
today rather than tomorrow, is quite unconcerned in the second theme of the scherzo, and the
trio doesn’t sing ... And yet the fact that Sviatoslav Richter was interested in this sonata
should make us take it seriously. The first movement is short and concise but bears the seed of
many an initial Moderato of the later sonatas. The Allegretto has the character of a ballad
while the scherzo which, by the way, is the first of Schubert’s scherzos for piano (if we
discard the enigmatic phantom sonata D459), shows the composer’s pleasure of escaping for
once the tight corset of the minuet and of displaying a rhythmic cell in various harmonic and
melodic lights. Its last bars, however, call literally for a following movement. Is this the
Rondo D506 or doesn’t this E major piece rather belong to the world of D459? There will
probably never be a definitive answer.
D567: this is a further interesting piece directly from the workshop. In June 1817 Schubert
composed a three movement sonata in D flat, which he gave the title “Sonate II” and Deutsch
gave the number D567 in his catalogue. However, it wasn’t until two of his sonatas had been
published - this brings us to 1826 - that he reworked it completely for publication. This
eventually took place posthumously in 1829 when the work appeared as “dritte Sonate”(third
sonata). Compared to the 1817 version in D flat, the first thing that comes to attention is the
transposition to E flat. Apart from this, Schubert has reworked or composed anew the
development of the outer movements, smoothed the tonal relationships and added a minuet as
a third movement, the trio of which is drawn from the scherzo D593,2 that he composed in
November 1817. One more prejudice has to disappear: that Schubert would have composed
“like an apple tree gives its apples”. The E flat sonata which came to light in this manner was
given the number D568, for Deutsch thought the reworking had taken place immediately after
the composition of D567, an idea that is rejected today. The editors of the revised version of
the Deutsch catalogue, however, decided to cancel the number 567 and have both scores listed
under D568, as first and second version, but this is likely to cause more confusion. In practice
it seems that the custom of retaining 567 as the Deutsch no. for the three-movement 1817
version in D flat has established itself.
D567 hasn’t received much favour from the interpreters and doesn’t even feature in most of
the “complete recordings”. Wilhelm Schuchter made another phantom sonata out of it by
taking the D flat version, incorporating some of the changes Schubert made for D568, and
inserting as a third movement the scherzo, D593,2. This is the version that he recorded and
isn’t admittedly the best method of making the listener familiar with the work. Fortunately
Martino Tirimo and Gottlieb Wallisch recorded it in its original form recently, so that we can
listen to it in the context of the 1817 piano works. A lyrical, rather sombre Andante in C sharp
major is framed by two movements in sonata form, respectively Allegro moderato and
Allegretto, both of which are structurally unusual – with a long, quiet and nearly tri-thematic
exposition and a very free recapitulation. There is no real development between exposition
and recapitulation but rather a kind of short modulating transition. The few bars of this
transition in the third movement, however, manage to go through two explicit changes of key.
This sonata, in its 1817 version, impresses with its much unified tone. The three movements
are hardly contrasted and the melodic themes are closely related beyond the boundaries of the
movements. Since the outer movements have no real development, one could go as far as to
say that, with this sonata, Schubert forsakes the tradition of having themes interacting, in
order to present us with a collection of related themes, the centre of which would be in the
Andante. Quite inconspicuously Schubert defines here one of the aspects of his own
aesthetics: the contemplative character. Our attention should be drawn to the tonality: the
flattened keys have always been chosen by Schubert for intimate, introspective works, so that
we can speak of a personal message with this sonata which presents its main tonality in its
two variants: D flat major, C sharp (enharmonically D flat) minor, D flat major. There are no
tonal tensions between the movements, but a sometimes audacious harmonic progression
inside them. In this regard, the modulating transition between exposition and recapitulation in
the third movement has a kind of mysterious seduction and is enough of a reason not to forget
the 1817 version of this sonata, for in D568 it will be substituted by a genuine development.
D570/571: The visit to the workshop continues. Here we have an Allegro moderato in F sharp
minor, which breaks off before the recapitulation and bears the title “Sonate V” (D571), also a
complete scherzo in D major and Allegro in F sharp minor, which likewise breaks off before
the recapitulation (D570). Additionally some have seen in the untitled piano piece in A major
D604 an Andante that would provide the slow movement of a complete four movement
sonata. This could easily have remained a subject of merely philological speculation if
Schubert hadn’t hidden in this work some of his most charming pianistic ideas, in a quiet and
lyrical mood. Thus we can see in D571, for instance, something like a monothematic fantasy
in sonata form. Some have seen here the influence, conscious or unconscious, of Beethoven‘s
Moonlight sonata, but we could as well look in the direction of some of Schubert’s night
songs, which have a similar atmosphere and several of which are in the key of A major. Also
impressive is both the three-part writing and the function of the bass, which is centered on
long-held chords that need the resonance of a modern piano, so that Chopin comes to mind.
Given the elements we possess, we have the impression that this sonata should have continued
on the path opened by D567. Unfortunately, Schubert left it in a state which doesn’t enable us
to draw definitive conclusions about the development of his aesthetics. And the next sonata
will again be completely different …
Endres, like Kempff, Klien and Wührer, doesn’t include this atelier sonata in his series.
Tirimo and Weichert each offer his own completion of the outer movements and provide a
four-movement solution that is quite able to convince the listener of the beauty of this work.
Dalberto doesn’t shun the fragmentary and plays the outer movements non finito, which
actually fits well his understanding of this work as nocturnal poetry. Schiff gives us only the
(unfinished) first movement D571, albeit again with great sensitivity. In the context of his
recording of Schubert’s sonata fragments, Gottlieb Wallisch has chosen incomprehensibly to
tear the Scherzo and the Allegro D570 apart and to shift D604 between them.
D575: this time everything looks quite unproblematic. It is a complete four-movement sonata
in B major which bears the title “Sonate VI” and the date of August 1817. But this time too
Schubert has allowed us a glance into his workshop. Although the original manuscript has
disappeared, we’re left, aside from the first edition of 1846, with a complete copy as well as
the composer’s sketches for all four movements.
The world we enter with D575 is quite different from the one we left with D567 and D571,
much more extroverted, with wide leaps and swift changes of dynamics. It is also a bit more
classical: the themes of the first movements, for example, are much more differentiated than
in the earlier experiments, and this is more in concordance with the classic tradition. The loss
of poetry is offset by a gain in vitality. And the pleasure of wandering across the tonalities
hasn’t disappeared.
As is the case with the phantom sonata D459 and with D568 one can’t escape the risk of
being spoiled by Kempff, as it were. Listening to him, one gets the impression that everything
is in its right place and that this sonata just can’t be played another way. A look at the score
makes clear that he differentiates very sensibly the shades of legato, portato, marcato and
staccato and that he respects attentively the indications of dynamics (although, now and then,
he indulges in a non written diminuendo – but the omission of a dynamic marking was surely
the publisher’s mistake). It thus becomes clear that this sonata, with all its energy that sounds
as if it were drawn from the obsessive repeat of one rhythmical cell, actually comes to life
through the art of shading.
Dalberto chooses relatively slow tempi and, although this approach convinces with D568, it
somehow misses the point here. The scherzo and particularly its trio are really charming, but
the spell is broken in the last movement, which bears the indication Allegro giusto and where
Dalberto doesn’t manage to find the “giusto”. Schiff brings us back to Kempff’s world. He
doesn’t differentiate the dynamics as subtly, but compensates with a fine sense for harmonic
coloration. Walter Klien has got more energy than Kempff, which enhances the healthy
character of this sonata. Somehow with D575 we are reminded of Schubert’s evolutionary
strategy. Having explored a path (in this case that of the poetic conception of a cyclic work)
as far as reaching the point of no return (namely the incomplete state of D570/571), he
undertakes a strategic retreat to more familiar fields, from which he’ll start his next
exploration. Having listened to Kempff’s deceivingly ‘definitive’ reading and to Schiff’s and
Klien’s convincing alternatives, Endres’s interpretation is only a disappointment. Here once
again it is as if he is saying: “why on earth did I accept to undertake a complete recording?”
Also present here from beginning to end is the impression that that he is ‘cloning’ various
motives – presenting them in an absolutely identical manner on each appearance – an
impression we already had listening to his recording of D537.
D612/613: Back to the workshop! We have reached the spring of 1818 and, after the happy
conclusion of the laboratory vintage of 1817 with D575, Schubert is ready for more
experimentation. The manuscript, dated “April 1818”, contains two movements of a C major
sonata (D613). The first one, Moderato, is actually entitled „Sonate“, but it breaks off
somewhere during the course of the development. The second one, very probably a finale, is
composed up to the end of the development, and Schubert noted 4 more bars with pencil.
From the same period there is a completed Adagio in E major (D612). This would invite the
reconstruction of a three movement sonata, either by means of a completion of the two
movements of D612, or, as Andreas Krause accurately suggests, with an attacca transition
between the Moderato and D612.
There are arguments in favour of considering D612/613 as a pure atelier work and omitting it
from recording series, which Wührer, Klien, Kempff and Endres have done. The completion
of the first movement is not limited to deriving the recapitulation from the exposition, but the
development has to be completed too. And the music itself is unfortunately not really
convincing. Schubert makes another experiment here, that of an ornamented virtuoso style.
He had already tried it in the fantasy D605A but here it permeates the language completely.
Although he will later compose virtuoso music again and again, some of which belongs to the
finest of his art (Wanderer Fantasy, Rondo Brillant for violin and piano …) here Schubert is
purely decorative, and there is no offence in saying that it’s not his real domain. The
experiment is thus aborted, but this doesn’t mean that Schubert forsakes ornamentation
forever, as we’ll see in the next work. But now he knows where the parting line between
ornamentation and decoration lies. After all, this is also the purpose of an experiment, isn’t
it?
Weichert and Dalberto include this sonata in their series, and present it as a sort of drawing
room piece, which brings a mundane Schubert to mind. The result is, as expected, somewhat
uncomfortable. Wallisch realizes the attacca transition between movements I and II, but he
can’t prevent some monotony.
D625: here we have another problem child and another kind of problem. This sonata in F
minor is known by a copy which contains three movements, of which only the second one, a
scherzo in E major, is complete. The introductory Allegro breaks off before the recapitulation
and the 70 last bars of the finale are sketched on one system only. However, a catalogue
which was made by Schubert’s brother Ferdinand for the first biographer, Heinrich Kreißle
von Hellborn, showed the incipit of four movements, the second of which was the Adagio in
D flat major D505 which Ferdinand had published, shortened and transposed into E, as an
introduction to the rondo D506, of which there is also a complete copy.
This gave way to several different reconstructions. Some pianists, like Kempff, play only the
‘original’ three movements; some play the Adagio before the scherzo, some after it. Andreas
Krause also mentioned the fact that scherzo and Adagio may have been alternative second
movements and that Schubert may not have been able to choose between them.
Endres plays the scherzo as second movement and the adagio as the third. He plays the first
one in Badura-Skoda’s completion, at the risk of a rather brisk modulation which doesn’t
sound really Schubertian; Wührer’s completion on the other hand is smoother while Planès
goes the simple way. Dalberto and Richter play it as a fragment and Tirimo plays an elaborate
completion which leads us far from Schubert’s original.
Finally Endres succeeds in being a “conductor at the piano” in the first movement, which
enables him to give something of a symphonic thickness to the piano texture. In the scherzo
he aptly manages the differentiation between the rhythmical staccato chords and the legato
ones which serve as a colourful background for melodic fragments, keeping the right balance
between all these elements, while in the trio, with its relatively simpler structure, he displays
the right feeling for Schubertian understatement that is missing in his interpretation of some
of the earlier sonatas. In the Adagio D505 we meet the wanderer, who was cruelly absent in
D568 and D575, but one wishes that he were a little more polyphonic (Dalberto gives this
movement an energy which causes it to appear, not as a resting place, but as an element of the
dramaturgy). Nevertheless, the delicacy which was absent since D157, is present again here.
In the finale some formulae threaten to glide into the mechanical (or to stumble), but Endres
remembers soon enough that these formulae are architectural elements and he manages to
conclude this drunken perpetuum mobile with great effect...
This “sonate fantastique”, which can be situated somewhere between Beethoven‘s
Appassionata and Chopin‘s Sonate Funèbre, shows that the experiment of D612 wasn’t made
in vain and that Schubert could bring the virtuoso out of the drawing room. In the first
movement there is a trill in every second bar, but these trills are on transitional notes, which
confers on them a structural instead of a showy character. While these trills derive from the
“harpsichord trills” of the earlier sonatas, Schubert in his workshop looks also into the future,
for in the scherzo he places two g’’’’ sharps , which couldn’t be played on any instrument of
the time. What gives weight to the statement that these trills, which play an important part in
Schubert’s piano music – not only in his sonatas but also in the accompaniment of his songs –
are the result of his habit of playing on older instruments, is the piano part of his Trout
Quintet. There the themes wander back and forth between the instruments, from the piano to
the strings or vice versa, and where the pianist has to play a trill, the strings in the
corresponding places are generally given a sustained note.
Up to now Endres has not made a particularly positive impact. Apart from D625, only D157,
D279 and D557 can really be rescued, and those three are certainly not the most ambitious of
Schubert’s early sonatas. The success of D625, however, raises hopes as far as the later works
are concerned,
This period of experimentation with the piano sonata is really fascinating. Now that we have
the technical possibilities, we can dream of a multimedia recording on MP3 which would
allow us to make acquaintance with these experimental products in “variable geometry”. Thus
the incomplete movements would be available in the shape Schubert left them as well as in
several possible reconstructions; we could combine the single movements of the unfinished
sonatas and listen to alternative combinations of them as well as the attacca transitions, and
could enter briefly this laboratory of sounds and test the solutions and the concepts Schubert
may have had in mind.
Part II: the mastery of the form (1819-1826)
Schubert‘s sonata workshop was active especially during the years 1817 and 1818. After 1818
his activity as a composer was concerned more particularly with the domain of the symphony.
One speaks generally of Schubert’s “years of crisis”, for the unfinished compositions became
more frequent, but maybe it would be possible to find a less pessimistic description – without
reviving the old Lilac Time clichés of course.
After the sixth symphony (C major D589) it became clear for Schubert that the Otto Hatwig
concerts and the orchestra of the Convict were no longer able to keep pace with his
development. The composer just grew too quickly for his surroundings. We can have an idea
of how quickly he was developing when we consider that it took several attempts to premiere
the Great C major symphony, an event which took place as late as in 1839, and that, although
the orchestra was no amateur band but the famous Gewandhaus of Leipzig conducted by no
less than Felix Mendelssohn, the symphony had to be played in an abridged form!
The symphonies Schubert composed after D589 were also atelier works. These were the
fragmentary symphonies in D major D615 and D708A, of which we have a two-system
sketch (particell) (two unfinished movements for the former, four movements, among them a
virtually complete scherzo, for the latter), the symphony in E major D721, which was
composed to the end, but only the first 111 bars of which were fully orchestrated – and for
which Schubert required the largest orchestra of all his works, the Great C Major included –
and the famous symphony in B minor D759, the “Unfinished“. Schubert himself was fully
aware of the quality of the two finished movements - otherwise he wouldn’t have sent them to
Graz as a present - but he was also aware of the fact that only his next attempt would have led
to a complete four movement symphony that would unmistakably bear his mark: the Great C
major symphony composed in 1825-1826.
It’s not difficult to understand why, in the years between 1819 and 1823, the piano sonata was
only in the background. There are surely many reasons for this: apart from the symphony
projects we can mention Schubert’s renewed interest in the opera, which brought him closer
to social recognition, personal reasons like the frequent changes of housing, the absence of a
piano, also changes in the structure of Viennese society…
Two isolated sonatas in three movements and two short fragments
D655: a fragment in C sharp minor of 73 bars, actually the exposition of a movement in
sonata form, which has been recorded by Gregor Weichert and more recently by Tirimo,
Massimiliano Damerini and Gottlieb Wallisch, and for which the word "tantalising" seems to
have been invented.
A modulation to G sharp minor introduces the second subject in B major, and then a kind of
chromatic fantasy starts which leads to G sharp major, after which a transition bar introduces
the seconda volta. Schubert is rather in his D625 mood here and one wonders what kind of
development would have followed. As it stands, however, this fragment could certainly be
included in concert programmes, for instance as an encore.
Of all four pianists, Damerini is the only one to play it come scritto and to repeat the
exposition after the transition bar. Weichert cancels this bar and adds a concluding chord,
while Wallisch, rather oddly, plays the transition but not the repeat. Damerini also chooses a
slightly quicker tempo than the others; this enables him to enhance the feverish character of
the piece and also suits the lyrical second subject quite well.
D664: the “holiday sonata”. We know this sonata only from its first publication of 1829;
however, documents of the time mention a piano sonata Schubert composed in Steyr during
his summer holidays of 1819 for his landlord’s daughter, a fine pianist he had befriended, and
we have several reasons to think that this work is none other than our Sonata in A major
D664. In the booklet of Endres’s recording it is treated with some disdain, which it doesn’t
deserve at all. In fact it is one of Schubert’s very few works that are perfectly poised. This
doesn’t mean that all the others are inferior, simply that Schubert’s aesthetics are not the
aesthetics of balance. Only in his songs one can find here and there such an example of
perfect poise, for instance in "Der Jüngling an der Quelle" D 300, which shares with the
sonata the key of A major.
In the first movement Schubert requires, apart from the standard repeat of the exposition, also
that of development plus recapitulation. One recalls that this was also the case in D537. There
the main concern was that of creating a superstructure in which all the repeated elements of
the movement would be presented in perspective, as it were. Here one would rather say that
the case is similar to that of a strophic song.
In his earlier strophic songs, let’s say those from the years 1815-1816, Schubert notates
generally one strophe of music with repeat signs. In his later ones however, he often writes
down the sometimes slight changes between the different verses. Modern interpreters have
restored the practice of ornamentation which was current in Schubert’s time (and against the
exaggerated use of which, by Vogl for instance, we know he protested) and thus shed a new
light on the earlier songs, enhancing notable features of Schubert’s melodies: their flexibility
and their ability to be combined equally convincingly with different layers of meaning. In the
two major works of the summer of 1819, our sonata and the Trout Quintet D667, Schubert
makes an intensive use of the repeat sign, thus giving the interpreters the opportunity to
savour the melodies and to display them in several shades.
For the spirit of the song is present from the beginning here, and much is written in the style
of an accompanied voice, in shades of p and pp. Some passages in octaves in the first
movement allow the pianist to display her dexterity, but the main part of it consists of legato
phrases which are to be played as if sung in a single breath. The second movement, an
Andante in D major, has the delicacy of the slow movements of Mozart’s concertos. It is the
domain introspection and understatement, and it quite takes the listener’s breath away when it
ends in a no man’s land between D minor and D major. We are rescued by the sparkling finale
which has a cathartic effect right from the outset. Here dance is combined with melody, so
that the shadows which had begun to appear in the second movement disappear quickly.
Although the character of the themes suggests a rondo, this finale is actually in sonata form,
with a due repeat of the exposition. When all repeats are cancelled, only bare bones are left of
this sonata, and the balance is severely damaged.
The difficulty of interpretation here consists precisely in keeping the balance. The work itself
is more robust than one would think at first hearing and several interpretative styles are
possible, but it demands honesty, for any histrionic pose (let’s say à la Vogl, if we pursue the
comparison with the songs) would destroy it. One of the most seductive recordings is
Wührer’s. Although it was made in the 50s, it provides all the repeats; Wührer’s and
Schubert’s native Vienna is recalled in the waltz structure of the second subject of the finale
and more generally by the ability to hide gravity behind a smile. Alfred Brendel on the other
hand makes of this holiday work rather a kind of uniformly sombre psychodrama, and the
repeats are not pleasant as with Wührer but rather heavy.
Endres, although he unfortunately doesn’t respect the second repeat of the first movement, is
quite good here. He finds the delicacy and poise for the first movement, and also the right
balance between enhancing details and providing the general overview. He also finds
incredible nuances of piano for the counterpoint of the second movement and almost reaches
the point the French describe as "mourir de douceur", where “douceur” (sweetness) is
combined with “douleur” (pain). For the finale he also finds the strength for a forte which
doesn’t threaten the balance of the whole. Other renderings are possible, of course (Arrau,
Dalberto, and Richter are but some of the other few, who play the second repeat in the first
movement, and each one manages to express his own vision of the work), but this one is
convincing.
D765A (former D994) is a short fragment (38 bars) of an Allegro in E minor. It hasn’t been
recorded until recently, first by Tirimo then by Wallisch. These few bars are promising, too,
but fortunately the next sonata will realize these promises in an effective way.
D784 or the other extreme: After the carefully poised D664, Schubert offers us quite an
exercise in deconstruction this time, but a precisely organised one. The author of the booklet
doesn’t seem to like it either; for him it doesn’t sound “pianistic” enough and he’s busy
looking for string quartets, oboes or other instruments in the score.
This leads us to some reflections: first of all, what is a “pianistic” sound? We could easily
answer that there was no pianistic sound in Schubert’s time, for there was no piano as we
know it today. There was the fortepiano, and those of us who have made a point of listening
to music of the time played on a fortepiano will have noticed that the sound is much more
variegated than the sound of modern pianos, and also that it varies a lot from one instrument
to the other. The pianistic sound we have in mind comes from the middle of the 19th century
and is related primarily to three names: Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann. Significantly all three
were in one way or another familiar with Schubert’s music, and his writing for the piano
(especially as song accompaniment) influenced their own pianistic style. And it was
Schumann himself who pointed how well written for the piano Schubert’s music is. Thus we
could actually reverse the perspective and state that Schubert was in the process of inventing
the pianistic sound which would be established by his three successors.
Coming back to D784, we can state that this sonata has an “orchestral” sound, like piano
pieces by Mussorgsky or Scriabin, or like Polonaises by Chopin. But an orchestration would
only be a reduction, would deprive it of the fascination of the many voices coming from one
instrument. It’s true that it doesn’t in any way conform to the common Schubert clichés.
Instead of charming melodic themes we get the power of rhythm and dynamics which range
from ppp con sordini to ff with extremely brisk changes, including many staccati and
sforzandi. In this sonata we would look in vain for the “fair maid of the mill” romantic but we
get compressed energy and the state of the manuscript (a fair copy possibly made with the
purpose of a publication) shows that everything is meticulously noted. And while pre-echoes
of Mussorgsky can be heard, Schubert also looks back to the Baroque era with his treatment
of rhythmical ostinati and of four-bar periods. On the other hand, until then Schubert had
seldom gone so far in the use of harmonic colour, so that Debussy’s impressionism comes to
mind. Not bad actually for a sonata which is supposed to be “un-pianistic”!
This A minor sonata with its contrasts, fractures, rocks and cliffs has already been
successfully recorded several times. Endres doesn’t succeed completely this time. In the first
movement, particularly in the development, he shows his mechanical side again, although the
orchestral perspective of the sound invites rubato. Endres shows no awareness of sonority in
this movement. Radu Lupu interprets it in a Baroque way, as it were, while Dalberto is again
expressionist, almost hallucinated, and Planès on the other hand gives all piano and
pianissimo nuances a mysterious, almost threatening quality. Endres remains on the surface of
this Allegro vivace, playing nothing but the notes, just splashing forwards.
At least with this sonata (in fact, already with the Wanderer Fantasy D760) Schubert takes
possession of the piano as a “sound machine”. While until the A major sonata D664 the piano
was primarily an instrument, the identity of which was subordinated to the music itself, in one
word, its vector – and this still in a Mozartian sense - (even if the high lying music of D664
was probably composed with the sound characteristics of a fortepiano in mind), from D760
and D784 onwards, it becomes quite an actor, the way the organ had been already for a long
time. Similarly in this way to Beethoven in his “Hammerklavier” sonata, Schubert takes
control of the instrument, drawing it into extremes of sound, of rhythmical differentiation, and
of dynamics. This is surely related to the technical improvements made to the fortepiano at
that time, the result of changes in the nature of the demand for the instrument, and also related
to evolutionary changes in the society in which Schubert himself was involved, directly or
indirectly.
Social crisis (the so-called Carlsbad Decrees, enacted in 1819, were aimed at restricting
significantly freedom of expression), a damaged health with the resulting psychological
consequences, but also a strengthening of his identity as a composer (first publications and
public performances), all these are factors which would influence Schubert’s music from 1820
onwards. The sonata D664 had still been composed for a piano dilettante and a friend; the
Wanderer Fantasy, however, was commissioned by a virtuoso –whom Schubert probably
overestimated. Another factor is also the emergence of a new generation of piano players, of
which Karl Maria von Bocklet, the dedicatee of the sonata D 850, is a representative. Of
course, according to friend Stadler, Schubert himself belonged to the “old school“ of pianists
and disliked the “vermaledeyte Hackerey“ (accursed chopping) displayed by the new one, but
he was too much of a musician to close himself to the new possibilities of expression which
were now open to him, and consequently to use them for his own purpose.
This explains the new dimension of Schubert’s piano music from that time on. The late
sonatas are not “better” than D537, D575, D625 or D664, but are of another kind. Of course
the two sonata worlds are not completely divorced, as there are several points of contact
between them: the theme of the second movement of D537, for instance, which would
reappear in D959, also the reworking of D567 for publication, which gave birth to D568, and
so on. Nevertheless the first piano sonatas Schubert provided for publication were D845 and
D850, and this quite quickly after composing them. And, apart from D567 / 568, he didn’t
consider having his earlier works published, nor did he complete the quite progressive D625
for publication. On the other hand, in the last months of his life he was very active in
searching for publishers for his just finished trilogy D958-959-960.
The first cyclic works
Schubert’s second major offensive in the field of the piano sonata took place in 1825. But
now the situation was completely different from what it had been eight years before. Since
1821 he’d been a published composer, mainly of songs and dances, but his op.10 (dedicated
to Beethoven) were the Eight Variations on a French song for piano duet D624, his op.15 no
less than the Wanderer Fantasy, his op.29 The String Quartet in A minor D804, and his op.30
the sonata in B flat for piano duet D617. One feels that the time was now ripe for the
publication of a (solo) piano sonata. Added to this is the fact that 1824 was for Schubert a
chamber music year: the harvest of that year brings us the Variations for flute and piano
D802, the Octet D803, the Arpeggione sonata D821, as well as the String Quartets in A minor
and in D minor D804 and D810. Moreover, the summer he spent at the Esterházys in Zseliz
brought a fine series of works for piano duet, among them the great sonata in C major D812,
which is so opulent that Schumann thought at first that it was the reduction of a symphony. It
is well known that Schubert, in his own words, wanted to find “the way to the great
symphony“- and it’s also well known that he would eventually find it. But when we take into
account the fact that, in his letters from Zseliz, he writes very critically about his earlier works
(“there is nothing good in them except for you the fact that they are by me”), it becomes clear
that he was attempting to put his own seal on the traditional genres, including of course the
piano sonata.
The detour he made across the chamber music field is actually a fortunate one. It was the
result of social circumstances (as in 1819 for the Trout Quintet or in 1824 for the Octet), of
requests from virtuoso friends of the “avant-garde“ and, of particular importance, the
friendship with Ignaz Schuppanzigh, who had already premiered Beethoven’s last quartets
and was therefore open-minded enough to accept Schubert’s most personal compositions. At
that time Schubert composed his chamber music for players who were up to its challenges and
the fact it was first performed semi-privately was not always a disadvantage (we only have to
think of the acerbic criticism the Fantasy for violin and piano D934 received when it was
premiered in public in 1828). Significantly, of all the chamber works Schubert composed in
the so-called “years of crisis”, only one remained unfinished: the Quartettsatz in C minor
D752.
Probably the importance of the Wanderer Fantasy for this evolution has been underestimated.
For it actually represents more than a quantum leap. In this regard too we should bid farewell
to the Romantic perception of Schubert as a composer: he definitely composed much for his
drawer, but when he got a commission, and a richly paid one, he didn’t protest, neither did he
forsake his standards. In this case he was asked for a virtuosic fantasy. He did his best,
received money for it and also a quick publication which helped spread his name as a
composer of demanding piano pieces. This is by no means to suggest that the Wanderer
Fantasy has no artistic value. The Deutsch numbers are also here to remind us that the
Fantasy came directly after the Unfinished Symphony, so that it probably was, at least
unconsciously, a means of getting out of the compositional cul-de-sac he was stuck in.
If the idea of introducing variations on his popular song The Trout into what should become
the Trout Quintet was probably suggested to him by the dilettante cellist Paumgartner who
initiated the composition, one can’t say the same in the case of the Wanderer Fantasy. The
Wanderer was one of Schubert’s most famous songs at the time and at least the publisher
would have seen the value of a Wanderer Fantasy in terms of marketing, all the more so in a
time when the “Erlkönig waltzes” and other types of derived products were flourishing.
Nevertheless it was published under the name of “Great Fantasy for the pianoforte” and didn’t
receive its now familiar name until the second half of the 19th century. Thus we can reliably
admit that the reference to the song was a genuine compositional decision by Schubert
himself, who succeeded in making his Fantasy op.15 a strongly structured work, not only with
the seminal introduction of the Wanderer variations, but also in combining a cyclic
macrocosm with the microcosm of a sonata movement, this being focussed on one rhythmical
cell present from the very first bar. From now on, Schubert would be the composer of cyclic
works, and he would show a great mastery in engineering large works, the movements of
which would be parts of a greater whole. True, this idea was already in germination in some
of the experimental works of 1817-1818, and with D664 our composer had succeeded in
creating a sonata out of one mould, but this unity became a major principle with the
Wanderer Fantasy, which represented for Schubert an important step forward in the direction
of the great cyclic form he was aiming at. The string quartets D804 and D810 would be the
next step, with regard to the integration of lyrical elements as well as the maturation of the
cyclic form.
D840 should accordingly be the last “problem child“ among Schubert’s piano sonatas. Of this
C major work we have two completed movements, a nearly complete minuet with a
completed trio and a far from finished Rondo-Finale. Nevertheless this sonata, which was
erroneously given the name „Reliquie“ because, for marketing reasons, its first publisher
(Whistling in Leipzig) wanted to sell it as Schubert’s last sonata, is highly interesting, for it
offers us a last glance into the workshop, precisely at the time when Schubert was about to
realize his own conception of the sonata. Schumann was given the manuscript by Ferdinand
Schubert and he was so impressed by it that he urged publication. At least Whistling did a
good job in publishing all four movements as he found them, so that we can forgive his
marketing trick, all the more as the manuscript was cast to the four winds afterwards and
some of the sheets disappeared. Looking at the title sheet we also notice that the date “April
1825“ was written by Schubert with the calligraphy of those years that made it easy to take a
5 for an 8, which led also to the erroneous dating of the great C major symphony.
For this sonata Schubert could possibly have thought of one of his atelier works, more
particularly the E Minor sonata D566. He had probably left that work in no definitive shape
(we keep in mind that there are several possible reconstructions), but had forgotten neither the
forward-looking and promising elements nor the challenge of integrating them into a four
movement architecture. D840 would develop many of the characteristics of the earlier work,
albeit more systemically and with more focus. In the first movement Moderato, for instance,
the first theme is the outworking of a chord while the second is rather cantabile, with
rhythmical cells that grow from the accompaniment and wander across the registers. The
entire range of the instrument is required for this extended exposition. The development is
rather short and concerns only the first subject, but is all the more powerful as a result. An
important part is played by a small rhythmical cell (not unlike the Fate motive in Beethoven’s
Fifth Symphony) which enlivens the whole movement. A new element is the extended coda,
quite a counterweight to the development, which brings the movement to a resounding
apotheosis.
The dialectic of the classical sonata has nearly disappeared, replaced by a proper dynamism
which takes its energy from the rhythm– and not only from the rhythm, but also from the
harmony, for the harmonic plan is much more complex and audacious than in the classical
sonata. This disappearance of the dialectic provides the foundation for a new type of
organisation of time which will be characteristic for Schubert’s large scale works. Schubert’s
time is defined by the melody and the harmony, particularly in the large Moderato
movements that open many of his sonatas. The melodic structure of time is underscored by
the indications of diminuendo or ritardando, which are then followed by an a tempo; the
harmonic structure is articulated around zones of harmonic stability opposed to zones of
modulation, which can be audacious, even keen (in his time Schubert was often blamed for
modulating too frequently) .
The first movement of the Reliquie, in which these structures first appear neatly in Schubert’s
piano music, has a truly symphonic grandeur, which is no surprise when we remember that
the composer was getting close to the target of his symphonic quest. The Andante in C minor
that follows impressed Schumann so deeply that he had it published separately. It is a true
symphonic ballad for two hands. Formally it is in sonata form without development and with
a coda, but here too the contours get blurred. The themes belong to those Schubert melodies
one seems to have known for ever. And, in this movement as in the preceding, the registers of
the piano are explored in all their diversity. The coda, which unites C Major and C minor,
brings it effectively to a close, perhaps too clearly, for at the same time it gives the impression
that it closes the diptych of two first movements rather than the Andante alone.
Going further after this wasn’t an easy task. Here Schubert doesn’t choose a sparkling
Scherzo but a moderate Minuetto. Faithful to his cyclic conception of the sonata he tries to
insert it into the global design by means of an obvious remembrance of the chordal motive
from the first movement, but then this motive threatens to be too dominant. Also the style of
this third movement soon becomes too discursive for a minuet and doesn’t easily fit into the
classical pattern with its repeats, still less as Schubert’s tonal fantasy has led him away from
the original A flat major as far as A major. And so he writes etc etc … and puts down his pen,
thinking probably that he’ll find a solution later, for he composes the trio. And we’re thankful
for it, for this trio in G sharp minor is a little gem of a slow waltz.
The last movement is entitled Rondo, but Schubert probably changed his mind during the
composition, for it is actually in sonata form and breaks off after 30 bars of development (the
entire fragment of this fourth movement has 272 bars). Surprisingly it moves almost
exclusively in the higher registers and its dynamics are mainly in shades of piano. “Soft and
bright”, as it were, an atmosphere which doesn’t seem to fit so well with the remainder of the
sonata. After the sumptuous sound of the Moderato and of the Andante, and also after the
exuberant Minuetto, one was awaiting a grandiose conclusion (somewhat in the style of the
finale of the Great C Major Symphony, which was still to come), but what we hear is
unfortunately too innocuous. In order to re-establish the balance, this bright exposition should
be followed by a mighty development, then a very independent recapitulation should lead to
an explosive coda, but even if this were to succeed the framework of the sonata would be
destroyed.
We are thus left with what amounts to a landscape of ruins, which probably affected Schubert
far more than the unfinished state of some of his experiences from the years 1817-1818. He
had probably a publication in mind and this sonata should have been, like the quartets of the
preceding year, one of the steps “on the way towards the great symphony“. But, after the
grandiose failure of the B minor symphony, after all the successfully completed cyclic works
from the years 1823 and especially 1824, once again he was not in the position to complete a
large scale work. There are many reasons for this: the concluding character of the Andante,
the adventurous harmonic plan of the Minuetto, the lack of dynamism in the finale, the
dominating weight of the first two movements, which moreover provides a unity after which
continuation would have seemed like an appendix … But the evidence is that here, as in the
case of the Unfinished, Schubert didn’t succeed in putting his personal seal on the four
movements of a traditional form, although he didn’t stray far from the target.
We are actually not so unfortunate with this situation. Landscapes with ruins have their
peculiar charm, all the more as, unlike architecture, music doesn’t force us to the choice of
one solution and we can compare different options:
- Tearing down completely the unfinished parts, in order to display the finished ones
fully to their advantage. This is the two-movement solution presented by most
interpreters: Klien, Kempff, Barenboim …
- Making a careful consolidation of the unfinished parts, which in this case would mean
composing some bars of transition between Minuetto and Trio and eventually
suppressing a few bars of the finale. This is the four-movement solution presented by
Richter, Wallisch, Kontarsky, or Dalberto.
- Completing the unfinished parts, for which unfortunately Schubert didn’t leave us any
clue. The task is particularly hard for the fourth movement, for either one adds as little
as possible and gets a seemingly complete sonata with too short a finale, or one has to
make up for two thirds of the finale. And although the listener recognizes “true
 Schubert” at once, there is nothing more difficult than composing “false” or “mock”
Schubert \which is easily identifiable even by the non-specialist Perhaps this is the
reason why a completion like Křenek‘s, where the departing line between Schubert
and the completion is quite clear, is not so wrong. Anyway such a solution recalls the
method used by modern architecture to complete destroyed or damaged buildings.
Another aspect of the landscapes with ruins is that the ruins often were used as construction
material for later buildings. Fortunately in this case this doesn’t mean damaging the ruins
themselves. Material from the Reliquie will however appear again, in the next sonatas, but
also in the Great C Major Symphony and in the Sonata in B major D 960, among others.
Friedrich Wührer‘s recording of the Reliquie in Ernst Křenek‘s version is actually a good way
to get to know the work. He lets the melody unfold in the first movement but has a fine
feeling for the architecture of the whole. This is particularly remarkable in the way he has the
obsessive motives emerge progressively and almost imperceptibly from the accompaniment
till they take possession of the entire space.
Endres has opted for the two-movement solution. Unfortunately his performance is not really
convincing. He is again too matter-of-fact, alternating interesting ideas with colourless
moments, and swings the leg now and then for a dance, without a true overview of the whole.
He doesn’t quite avoid stumbling and his choice of fingering sometimes militates against him
(as in the bars just before the development in the first movement). The wanderer is again
cruelly missed in the second movement. Also, in this symphonic sonata, he lacks the feeling
for architecture. Far too often he just plays a melody with accompaniment, unaware of the fact
that many voices are hidden in the piano texture of the Reliquie, and that they are in dialogue
with one another. If you want to listen to the two-movement version in all its splendour, you
should opt for Walter Klien. Andras Schiff, on the other hand, offers delicacy and
understatement, while one can only wish Radu Lupu had recorded the Reliquie.
D845 was Schubert‘s first published sonata. However, the Viennese publisher Pennauer not
only did a poor job, including the omission of some bars in the second movement (bars 44-47
which have been restored by Paul Badura-Skoda and are now inserted in most editions of the
work), but was also responsible for losing the manuscript of the work, which deprives us of
many a useful piece of information. The time of the atelier works and of the successful
isolated moments is over; here we have the first sonata Schubert composed for the public. He
actually performed it in public – and with success- during the concert tour he undertook in
Upper Austria in the summer of 1825. The work of the “chamber music year“ that had just
finished resulted in a greater variety of pianistic colour. The author of Endres’s booklet
manages to find bagpipes and horns here; what he seems to ignore on the other hand is that
the fortepiano offers the composer the means to escape the constraints of the instruments of
his time (particularly as far as the winds are concerned, for which uncomfortable tricks had to
be found in order to play some notes of the scale). It is not by chance we find that D major is
the key of most atelier symphonies, while the piano sonatas are more adventurous in their
range - F minor, D flat major or B major, for example. The composer is limited in his choice
of keys for the instruments of the orchestra; with a fortepiano, however, he can try each
possible key and each modulation that comes to his mind and can indulge in the luxury of
emulating the sound of various instruments. This is precisely what Schubert does here,
making profitable use of the resources of the fortepiano.
The similarities and family relationship between D840 and D845 have been noticed often
enough. It looks almost as if, tormented by his failure at a point where he was so close to his
target, Schubert had decided to try again. We could almost speak of a Reliquie trauma, the
overcoming of which would leave its marks on the following sonatas.
As in D840, the first movement of D845 is a Moderato and the first subjects of both sonatas
are very similar, except that here Schubert elects a dotted rhythm, which already carries more
energy. This Moderato, which unfolds from the somewhat mysterious first bars of the main
theme up to a really epic stature, shows a great mastery of architecture. As in D840 the
development concerns only the first theme, but the recapitulation is so well integrated that we
notice we’ve reached it only when we get to hear the second theme. And, as a pendant to the
development, the vast and mighty coda now combines both subjects. We are not in so closed a
structure as in D840 and we feel that the energy which was liberated in this movement will
carry us far enough.
Perhaps conscious of the, as it were, ‘autistic’ character of the first two movements of the
Reliquie and in order to avoid the trap in which he’d fallen there, Schubert remembers the
solution which had proven so successful in his string quartet D810: he conceives the second
movement, Andante poco mosso, as theme and variations. Not only is this one of his most
successful sets of variations (and the composer playing it at the piano in the summer of 1825
became aware of this directly, as he mentions in a letter to his parents), but also, as in the
Death and the Maiden quartet, it moves without a break from the calm lyrical theme to more
tormented areas. The coda, pp, then decrescendo, then diminuendo, is not conclusive like the
coda of the second movement of the Reliquie, but rather evanescent.
This calls literally for the next movement, which this time is not a measured and somehow
enigmatic Minuetto, but a true Scherzo with affirmative syncopated rhythms (derived from the
rhythmic cell of the first movement), in which three times a unison A introduces a chord of E
major that doesn’t resolve in A minor until the fourth bar. All this happens piano till in the
fifth bar the E major chord explodes ff and resolves in the sixth. The rhythmic, dynamic and
harmonic energy of the first movement is thus fully recovered and continues to vitalise this
Allegro vivace.
The Rondo finale is really a rondo this time, a true Kehraus with a fluid refrain pp which will
reappear several times. Here Schubert didn’t attempt at all costs to find a novel way to
conclude this very personal sonata. Analogies with the rondo which concludes Mozart’s A
minor sonata K 310 have been found and one could say that Schubert here like Mozart there
transforms energy in motion. But then we also have the Scherzo rhythm, which appears ff,
sequences of f chords which recall the first movement and a daring harmonic plan which
doesn’t lead to A major as one would expect, but comes back to the affirmation of A minor
and a recollection of the coda of the first movement.
Compared to D840, D845 is perhaps less daring, less experimental and less forward-looking,
but it is indubitably more successful and illustrates splendidly Schubert’s mastery of the great
form. This “Première Grande Sonate“, which the composer proudly dedicated to Beethoven’s
Archduke Rudolf, was actually well received by the critics and has become a favourite even
of pianists one wouldn’t associate directly with Schubert, like Maurizio Pollini. It was also the
work Kempff played in his last concert. Endres unfortunately doesn’t find the entry point to it.
The first movement lacks the necessary epic character; the balance is again shifted towards
the treble and the pianist is again close to stumbling. The second movement lacks the
necessary rubato (we remember that this was the movement in which the pianist Schubert
transformed the keys in “singing voices” according to contemporaries), the third lacks fantasy
and the fourth dynamism.
Therefore a better alternative, or rather better alternatives, are quickly found. Radu Lupu and
Andras Schiff display the whole symphonic riches of the sonata, while Dalberto enhances the
breaks in continuity, giving the rhythmic cells the function of a signal. The young Israeli
pianist Amir Katz chooses to underscore the tragic, depressive character from the initial
Moderato to the final accelerando, while Massimiliano Damerini’s interpretation is
concerned with the drama. Gulda, Pollini, Brendel are some of the other convincing
interpreters of D845.
D850 This is the one Schubert sonata that should bear the title “Hammerklavier“! Here he
goes to any attainable extreme - to the limits of tone, of volume, of the fortepiano, as well as
of pianistic dexterity. He’s probably also taken fully into account the shrill sound of the
extreme heights (as in “Die Krähe” in Winterreise). The author of the booklet didn’t manage
to hear a marimba this time...!
In this sonata Schubert pursues a very specific trajectory. D850 starts with an atomic
explosion, as it were, and ends with the softest breeze. After D845, it is another way to
overcome the defeat of the Reliquie. Rhythm plays a particularly important part in the first
movement and it is not long before the interplay between binary and ternary rhythms begins,
an interplay which will last through all four movements. The development is short and
concerns only the first subject, as in the foregoing works. The brisk and strong changes of
dynamics, the long sustained chords, the utilisation of an extremely wide register, all are
elements which enhance the “fortepianistic“ character of this sonata.
The second movement, Con moto, starts similarly with strong emphasis on the rhythm, but the
rhythmical subject gets a lyrical answer. After this the energy is transferred from the
rhythmical to the lyrical theme, as it were, so that the movement can end with a coda based on
the first subject, in which the energy ebbs away softly.
This strategy is followed in the scherzo. Here again we have a Ländler with a particularly
well-defined rhythm, which is what we would certainly expect both of a third movement and
of a movement of this sonata that has enhanced rhythmical qualities from the beginning
onwards. However, this strongly rhythmic theme is answered by a more lyrical idea. The
binary-ternary interplay is especially refined here and leads by way of contrast to a Trio,
which is written almost entirely in crotchets and provides an overall crescendo-decrescendo
curve. Schubert‘s trick in this movement, in order to have the energy ebb away, is to eschew a
simple da capo, and write out the repeat of the scherzo, where he shifts the balance of energy
almost imperceptibly. To achieve this, he uses excursions in a higher register and adds
ornamentation.
Schubert is here, as so often, Janus-like, for this sonata, which is so clearly composed for the
fortepiano and which is dedicated to a virtuoso of the young guard (Karl Maria von Bocklet),
who would surely have enjoyed displaying all his energy on the keyboard, is suffused with the
spirit of ornamentation. This spirit invades the work almost imperceptibly, but more and more
from movement to movement. These ornamentations which have their source in harpsichord
music, have an architectural value here, and enhance the trajectory of the work. It was still
possible to play the A flat sonata D557 or even the A major sonata D664 in a harpsichord-like
way with improvised embellishments, but that is no longer possible in this new work.
And so the last movement begins with almost harpsichord-like music. It is a true rondo this
time, with two extended couplets that recall not only the first three movements, but also the
earlier sonatas D840 und D845. The refrain comes in a more ornamented fashion each time,
higher and more fragile, so that this sonata, which had started with the explosion of a
resounding chord ff, ends pp diminuendo (or almost, for it is followed by two concluding bars
piano), and it is not possible to locate precisely where the mood or the style changes.
Endres’s recording of this sonata is a rather convincing one. His performance of the first
movement, Allegro vivace, certainly has a great vitality; perhaps he could have been less
restrained in the forte passages. Most pianists here tend to ignore the vivace, some even the
Allegro, the extreme being Ingrid Haebler who plays it almost like an Andante. Dalberto,
Ashkenazy and Richter are some of the few who face the challenge; they give us an
extraordinary piece of virtuosity, full of energy.
The architecture of the third movement in Endres’s recording could also have been a bit more
transparent and there could have been a little more contrast in the finale but these are only
small flaws in a successful recording.
At first hearing Dalberto seems to be inspired by the mood of fantasy in the first movement;
this and his bright playing underline the relationship between the first and last movements and
underscore the cyclic concept of unity in diversity. But in fact, like Richter, he respects
carefully Schubert’s tempo indications (un poco più lento for the second subject, quickly
followed by a tempo, and più mosso for the coda), while Endres tends to mix tempo and
dynamics. Challenging as it is, this Allegro vivace is no “virtuoso music” rewarding for a
narcissistic keyboard lion. Kempff is one of those who don’t hurry the first movement, but his
keen awareness of sonority enables him to enhance the polyphonic design of this movement
and of the following ones - another way to underscore the unity of the work.
Here is the place to mention D568 again. Although we don’t know exactly when the
reworking took place (Pennauer again lost or destroyed the manuscript!), we can assume that
it was after the publication of D850, as the numbering suggests. D850 was the “second great
sonata“, on the manuscript of D894 Schubert put the indication “Sonate Nr. 4“, and, when
D568 was eventually published, it was entitled “Sonate Nr. 3“. What led Schubert to rework
one of his atelier sonatas and why precisely this one? Looking for the answer will no doubt be
more illuminating than the answer itself which we’ll probably never know. Anselm
Hüttenbrenner speaks of an extremely difficult C sharp sonata that Schubert offered a foreign
publisher and says that he was terrified by the complexity of the key and demanded a
transposition. Although Hüttenbrenner’s memories are by no means very reliable, we could
perhaps keep in mind the fact that the new main key was dictated by reasons of accessibility.
Perhaps we could speak of the last stage in overcoming the Reliquie trauma. D850 had been a
tour de force in showing that a “soft and bright” Rondo finale can conclude a sonata that
begins with an explosion of energy. D845 had shown that a differently conceived second
movement can help go further. It also showed the necessity of leaving the “autistic” world of
introspection. Is this what prompted Schubert to face the challenge of his most contemplative
sonata till then?
In any case the two recently published sonatas earned much praise and one can almost assume
that Schubert was in a sort of euphoric state of mind in the first months of 1826. The
composition of the C major symphony was proceeding well and the works that were
published got positive reviews, even in papers outside Austria; in a word he was becoming
recognised as the “composer of the future“. The reworking of an earlier atelier sonata, in this
case D567, would then have almost a symbolic character. We’ve also noticed the relationships
between the themes of D567, beyond the boundaries of the movements. This is perhaps what
appealed to Schubert at the time he was realising his own conception of cyclic works.
Andreas Krause‘s sentence: “Apart from many notes the two works have […] hardly anything
in common“ is of course meant in a provocative way, but it’s highly accurate. Let’s start with
the movement Schubert altered least, the second one. It is transposed from C sharp minor to G
minor. Of course Schubert couldn’t have transposed it up one tone, as he did for the rest of the
sonata, because then he would have reached E flat minor, which would have been at least as
off-putting as the D flat major of the original key of the sonata! Andreas Krause notices that,
with the basic key of G minor, the various keys explored in this movement get integrated into
the overall design of the work as related ones, but this could also have been achieved with a
half tone transposition down to C minor. Thus we have to come to the conclusion that
Schubert’s purpose was not only to smooth the tonal relationships but also to brighten the
sound. The alterations of the text itself are limited to some more turns and some added
ornamentation, and to shades of dynamics, which are all in the softer direction (we meet a
ppp several times). “Soft and bright“ is clearly the device here, with quite a harpsichord-like
notation, which can’t hide the fact that we are in the presence of a genuine work for the piano
that requires the full sonority of the instrument, especially in the piano passages.
If we go back to the first movement, we notice that, similarly to the beginning of the Reliquie,
it starts with the outworking of a tonic chord. This chord soon becomes a structural element
which binds the four movements together. Another unifying element is the cantabile, together
with the ‘ballabile’ one could say, for the listener often feels as if invited to a dance. Here
also, as we already noticed for the slow movement, ornamentation plays a major part and the
somewhat archaic style of writing, including harpsichord-like trills, is also striking. The
alterations Schubert made for D568, such as the development sections in the outer movements
(in movement I it is a melodic enlargement of the modulating transition in D567, in
movement IV it’s entirely new), now support the melodic-harmonic organisation of time. And
of course “soft and bright” remains the watchword. One detail is significant in this regard:
where the first movement of D567 had a plain ff chord before the final chord, in D568 we
have a broken pp. Unfortunately there is no way of knowing if such an alteration was made in
the last movement, for the last sheet of the manuscript of D567 was lost.
The third movement of D568, Menuetto, is new. Here Schubert takes, with slight changes, the
trio in A flat from the Scherzo D593, 2, and frames it in a most delicate Menuet Antique, the
origin of which is to be found in the minuet of the … Reliquie.
What surprises most is the stylistic unity of this work, which doesn’t at all betray the nine
years of its conception. This sonata is not the place for strong explosions of feelings, but is
characterised by delicate shadings. The interpretative concepts vary between two poles: that
of the serenely smiling 1817 sonata, which is rendered with great success by Kempff, and that
of the future-oriented work, as displayed by Planès and especially Dalberto, who sounds quite
expressionistic in his engineering of silence and the precise graduation of the degrees of
dynamics. With him one is reminded almost of the spectral Andante of the symphony D936A
death prevented Schubert to complete. He’s also particularly convincing in his shaping of
ornamentation and in his differentiation of repeats. Between these two poles we find Klien,
Wührer, Schiff, the last one succeeding in giving a particularly poetic interpretation of this
sonata.
Unfortunately Endres remains quite expressionless here. He lacks interpretative power and his
playing is mechanical. His performance of the second movement is somewhat laborious ; in
the third movement he displays once more a 'vermaledeyte Hackerey' of the purest quality and
in the fourth he ignores the "moderato", as if he wanted to finish it as soon as possible. There
is a complete lack of delicacy and the silence is not integrated into the music. Once again he
tends to favour the treble. His execution of the last movement confirms one’s earlier doubts
about the sense of his undertaking a “complete recording.
Having arrived at this point, we may certainly wonder whether we should deplore the fact that
D840 remained unfinished, for the “Reliquie trauma“ was definitely one of the forces which
stood behind the composition of D845, D850 and D568. These three works illustrate
Schubert’s conception of the piano sonata as a cyclic work, the movements of which unfold
according to a melodic-harmonic organisation of time and form part of an elaborate overall
design. Nevertheless, each of these works preserves a strong individuality, not only in musical
expression and language but also in the use of the instrument. And we are still on the path that
began with the Wanderer Fantasy.
Not surprisingly the next sonata, D894, is also known as the Fantasy-Sonata. Here Schubert
dares to designate the first movement as Molto moderato e cantabile. One is reminded of the
initial Moderato of D840 and D845, but also of the cantabile character of D568. And in fact
this sonata is something like the completion of the general offensive of the years 1825-1826.
The writing is refined to the extreme and the structures are clear.
On the other hand, this sonata isn’t distant from the universe of the Lieder. Many songs by
Schubert are defined by a rhythm that gives an initial pulsation (Nachtstück D672,
Nachtviolen, Pause...). The same happens here. The rhythmic cell is given in the first two bars
pp, repeated on the dominant in bars 3 and 4, and comes again mf in bar 5. Bar 1 actually
consists of two tied chords separated by a semi-quaver in anacrusis. Again an anacrusis leads
to bar two, which is made of staccato chords. These are the leitmotivic cells present in all four
movements. As in the songs mentioned above, the initial rhythm sets up the quiet “musical
breath” of the movement, and this quiet breathing also determines the pace of the dancing
second theme.
The exposition is predominantly quiet (ppp is reached at bar ten), while the development
starts ff and reaches fff after nine bars. After the softer interlude of D568 it is clear that
Schubert finds again pleasure in taking full possession of his instrument. This first movement
also makes clear that the repeat of the exposition is required. As Schubert didn’t require it
systematically (it is not intended in the Symphony in E major D729 for instance; and one of
the cuts in the last movement of the Trio in E flat was precisely to cancel the repeat which is
present in the manuscript), this should undoubtedly suggest that it is to be played when
written. And the harmonic and dynamic structures also confirm that the repeat should be
played. The exposition ends in B minor. The transition to the G minor of the development
only makes complete sense once one has experienced the return back to G major for the
repeat.
The second movement, Andante, alternates a cantabile refrain all in shades of pp and ppp with
varied verses which are bipartite: a first part made of ff chords and a second one, pp, that is
quite simply an accompanied song. The third movement is this time neither a fiery Scherzo
nor a minuet “in the old style“, but a stylised Ländler, which has a concentrated form of the
secret leitmotiv of the sonata, the repeated chords, as its central rhythmical cell. And we could
perhaps say that the fourth movement marks the definitive victory over the Reliquie trauma.
We remember that Schubert had stipulated a rondo there, which had transmuted to a
movement in sonata form – and stopped soon after the exposition. Here he gives no
indication of form, but composes a true sonata rondo. It starts as softly and brightly as the last
movement of the Reliquie, with the same emphasis on the leitmotivic rhythm, but here a
stroke of genius brings a large episode in E flat major, C minor, C major, which emerges quite
surprisingly pp and increases to ff. This should be a matter of reflection for all those who try
to complete the finale of the Reliquie. The last surprise: in this sonata, which of all the
Schubert sonatas is probably the one with the greatest number of fff indications, all four
movements end pp.
This sonata, in which particular importance is deliberately attached to a cantabile sound,
which opens on a sustained chord, and which integrates dynamics as a constructive element,
is fully dedicated to the “modern“ fortepiano of Schubert’s time and is appropriately entitled
in the manuscript “Sonate fürs Pianoforte allein”. But Schubert wouldn’t be Schubert if he
hadn’t integrated some memories of the old style into the modern: there is a harpsichord trill
in the first movement which appears in the recapitulation when it was absent in the
corresponding part of the exposition, and there are all those broken chords, gruppetti, and
small embellishments in each movement that literally call for an improvisatory style of
interpretation in which the pianist should add some and cancel others. And in fact the spirit of
improvisation is present on all levels of this sonata, which fully justifies the name of “fantasy
sonata“.
In his interpretation of this sonata Endres gets nearly everything right. The mechanical aspect
has disappeared, the contrasts are present and the counterpoint is underscored when necessary
… One could perhaps point out that he already shows all his aces in the exposition of the first
movement when he plays a very loud forte, so that it is hardly possible to move up to other
dynamic level for the ff and fff of the development.
Other renderings are possible too, like those by Alain Planès, who makes fine gradations of
dynamics and nearly improvises the ornamentation, Radu Lupu, who explores the entire
spectrum of dynamics between ppp and fff and dares a softer repeat of the very soft
exposition, or Michel Dalberto, whose Molto moderato is really slow without losing anything
of its tension. If this movement is hurried, which is the case with Wührer, for instance, it gives
the impression of flight, and this is totally opposed to soft and confident breathing. Of course,
since it is molto moderato e cantabile, the breath control of the implicit singer plays its part,
too, and Vladimir Ashkenazy and even more so Sviatoslav Richter and Massimiliano
Damerini seem to rely on an extraordinarily gifted one, for they choose a very slow basic
tempo. The Italian pianist derives the character of all four movements from the tempo of the
first: his Andante goes at a rather slow pace, and his Allegretto doesn’t hurry either, so that
the four movements are well balanced in time. He also extends the cantabile to the whole
sonata, especially to the E flat-C episode of the finale and discreetly enhances the
leitmotivically repeated chords, so that his rendering of the sonata as a lyrical cyclic work is
particularly convincing. The older interpreters tend to make it sound more harmless,
enhancing the lyrical moments and reducing the impact of the fortissimi. It is this which
detracts from Arrau’s well paced performance as well as from András Schiff’s, which a
beautifully phrased minuet can’t rescue completely.
The mixed up feelings expressed by Endres in his recordings of the first sonatas are confirmed
here. Only D894 and D664, and in a certain measure D850, manage really to convince. In any
case the riches of the sonatas of this period can’t be explored by only one recording. The
Reliquie deserves to be heard in different presentations, and the four succeeding sonatas,
which illustrate Schubert’s inventiveness in dealing with the concept of a four-part cyclic
work and his own understanding of the sonata form as well as his curiosity in exploring the
resources of the instrument, give plenty of scope for several interpretative styles. And the
riddles of the isolated D784 aren’t solved in a single recording either.
Part III: The Last Three Sonatas
With D894 Schubert must have become aware of reaching a climax of the same order as what
he achieved with the Great Symphony in C major or with the String Quartet in G major D887.
He had effectively created his own forms and filled them with meaning and expression. On
the other hand he could also take the measure of the growing distance between him and his
contemporaries Attempts to have the symphony performed failed, and there are anecdotes
concerning disagreements Schuppanzigh and Schubert had about a string quartet in 1826.
Also, at the beginning of 1827, Franz von Schober clearly expressed his dislike of the last
sonatas,1 and the publisher Haslinger had to disguise the G major one as “Fantasy, Andante,
Menuetto and Allegretto“.

This is probably one of the reasons why the major centres of interest were shifted in 1827: the
compositions of the year for piano solo were the two series of Impromptus D899 and D935,
while in the field of chamber music Schubert entered a new domain with the two Piano Trios
D898 and D929… Another external element was to change things completely, however:
Beethoven‘s death in the spring of 1827. Then, exactly one year later, came the success of the
first (and only) public concert. In 1828 Schubert undertook a new symphony, the Tenth
D936A, which looks far into the future. New masterpieces were created, like the String
Quintet D956 and the Mass in E flat D950, all of which offer new insights… Somehow it
looks as if Schubert were thinking “Now that Beethoven is dead, you’ll have to deal with me,
whether you like it or not”. The future would prove him right, for after his own death his
works were published with an impressive regularity … After his death of course, for,
according to cabaret artist Helmut Qualtinger: "In Wien musst erst sterben, damit sie dich
hochleben lassen. Aber dann lebst lang”, which can be translated as “In Vienna you have to
die first, before they say ‘long live’. But then you live for a long time”.

This is the context in which Schubert composed his last three piano sonatas. They were
conceived from the beginning as a trilogy. The preserved sketches show simultaneous work
on all three and Schubert offered them as a package to the publishers, adding that he’d like to
dedicate them to Hummel. There is irony, pride, but also an honest admiration in this
decision. Hummel was a pianist of the “old school”, like Schubert himself, but he was
instrumental in establishing a “modern way” of playing the instrument. His „Ausführliche
theoretisch-practische Anweisung zum Piano-Forte-Spiel“(“Comprehensive theoretical and
practical instructions in playing the pianoforte) were published precisely in 1828. His last
piano sonata, in D major op. 106, had been published by Diabelli as early as 1825 and we can
assume Schubert knew it.

Of Hummel’s six piano sonatas (plus three attributed to him), it is the only one in four
movements. It is elegant and pleasant, but somehow unsurprising, and it’s difficult to see in it
a contemporary of D845 and D850. It seldom forsakes the middle and the upper registers of
the instrument. The slow movement shows a kind of horror vacui far removed from the way
Schubert uses silence in his works, and is more likely to recall the D612/D613 experience
with its overflowing ornamentation. The scherzo – here in second position – is perhaps the
most original movement with its obsessive rhythm, while the finale repeatedly gives the
1
Diary of Franz von Hartmann, Jan 6th, 1827
curious impression that things always stop when they start being interesting – this is true of
the sonata as a whole – and is capped by a short coda that generates a feeling of frustration.
Schubert must have been perfectly aware that his own compositions and Hummel’s inhabit
completely different worlds, not only as far as the piano sonata is concerned, but also the
piano trio, another favourite genre of the older composer. But, during the journey to Vienna
Hummel undertook in 1827, when he improvised on the piano on the occasion of Beethoven’s
funeral, the old master and Mozart’s pupil had the opportunity to meet Schubert and he
praised him publicly.

In dedicating his sonata trilogy to Hummel, Schubert certainly wanted to acknowledge the
master’s authority, and also to present him with the state of the art in sonata composing, as it
were. In the summer of 1828 he would have had no idea that it would be his Opus ultimum,
for he completed and also performed it before his final illness. It is more probable that he
thought the old and sick Hummel wouldn’t be on this earth for much longer. The sonatas were
eventually published in 1839, four years after Hummel’s death, with a dedication to Robert
Schumann, and the dedicatee could neither recognize their importance nor hide his
disappointment.

After the sonatas from the years 1825-1826 with their rather audacious answers to the
problem of a cyclic work, the sonatas from 1828 first give the impression of more conformity
to the tradition. In any case they are less demonstrative, less audacious. They don’t make
excessive demands on the instrument, their proportions are well balanced, in a word they are
more ‘conformist’ than the earlier masterworks, or at least they look like this at first sight.
This was surely the reason that the Romantic Schumann, who admired the 1825-1826 works,
was disappointed, but one shouldn’t forget that Schubert did not belong to the generation for
which provocation per se represented an artistic value and for which the great artist could
only be a poète maudit. Hence also the decision to dedicate them to Hummel, as the generally
self-critical Schubert wrote in a letter to the editor Probst. In the meantime he had also
completed the two series of Impromptus D899 and D935, as well as the Klavierstücke D946
and thus perfected the unity of isolated movements. Now he had “merely” to combine it with
his own conception of the cyclic work. In this context one should also remember the songs of
the years 1827-1828, in which Schubert had enriched his language with new elements, harsher
contrasts e.g. or on occasion an economy of means bordering on the austere - not only in
Winterreise, which first comes to mind, but also in several of the post-Winterreise songs, like
those to texts by Leitner, or the songs of the Schwanengesang, more particularly those to texts
by Heine.

In the autumn of 1828 Schubert had the proud desire to publish a trilogy of sonatas. Perhaps
we still have in mind the seemingly haphazard numbering of his 1817 works, which leads us
to think he had planned a collection of six sonatas, a current practice in Mozart’s time. He
was certainly conscious of the fact that each of his new works lasts longer than a complete
sonata trilogy by Mozart or Haydn. As so often two widely spread clichés are in contradiction
here, the one according to which he’d be the “master of the short form“ and the one of the
“heavenly lengths”. The B flat sonata remains one of the longest in the whole piano literature,
as the Great C Major symphony is the longest purely instrumental symphony before
Bruckner. We should remember Einstein’s words: “What distinguishes genius from talent is
condensation, which is related to brevity but is not identical with it”. More accurately one
should say that Schubert is a master of the organization of time, in his short works as well as
in his seemingly endless ones, for he succeeds in making us forget the physical dimension of
time.

The interpreters who pretend that they do the public a favour when they cancel the repeats are
actually primarily doing themselves a favour. Packed auditoriums have followed Radu Lupu
or Sviatoslav Richter for over twenty minutes through the meanderings of the opening
movement of D960 in a trance-like state.

Before we enter the universe of the last sonata trilogy, we should perhaps consider a recording
by Sebastian Knauer, presented as the world premiere recording of the “Sonate oubliée”
D916B. It looks as if all lovers of Schubert’s music could rejoice about the discovery of an
unknown sonata, the existence of which would be confirmed by a number in the Deutsch
catalogue, a proper name and finally a recording. Unfortunately this is nothing more than the
latest attempt at enlarging Schubert’s oeuvre with a new work (one remembers the
“Symphony in E major” ‘unearthed’ by Günter Elsholz for instance). In this case, however,
(almost) all notes are by Schubert himself.

It started with the discovery of two sketches among the manuscripts of the unfinished opera
“Der Graf von Gleichen” D918. Otto Brusatti, who made the discovery in 1978, published
them as “sketch for a Klavierstück in C major (respectively C minor)” and they entered the
Deutsch catalogue as D916B and D916C. These sketches, which were first shown to the
public in the big Schubert exhibition of 1978 in Vienna and, like most of the Schubert
collection of the Vienna Town and State Library, can be seen online at www.schubert-
online.at, are written with pencil on two systems and concern two works in sonata form
composed as far as the end of the development section. Independently of their status as
sketches, these intended Klavierstücke are really interesting, for D916B presents the first
stage of the opening theme of the D major symphony D936A, while D916C enters the domain
of the Klavierstücke D946 and contains pre-echoes of the third movement of that symphony.

Pianist Jörg Demus and musicologist Roland Söder were convinced that they are the outer
movements of a sonata and created a new edition. Unfortunately their arguments in favour of
this thesis are anything but convincing. That D916B is “clearly not an impromptu but the first
movement of a sonata” is more or less what Schumann said about D935/1. That this sonata
was to mark the beginning of the last trilogy is a mere assumption: the key doesn’t speak in
favour of this, nor does the fact that the sketches were not found among the extended sketch
material for the last sonatas. That Schubert would have “forgotten them” seems a revival of
the old cliché according to which Schubert was a kind of an idiot just able to compose
fantastic music. As he was busy with Graf von Gleichen until he was literally on his deathbed,
he had these sketches to hand. Also they are nothing more than this: sketches, written with
pencil, with neither an indication of an instrument nor the word “Sonata” we find even on
small fragments like D655 or D768A. The assertion becomes all the more fanciful when one
looks at the movement Demus and Söder chose to make a three movement sonata: the
Allegretto D900. Not only has modern research established that it dates much more probably
from the years 1822-1823, but it also looks as if it is the two-system sketch of an orchestral
work rather than a genuine composition for piano.

None of these objections deterred Knauer from recording the “Sonate oubliée” however,
which is fine insofar as it makes it possible for us to listen to these fragmentary pieces and
have a look into Schubert’s workshop in the last year of his life. The recording is rewarding
from this point of view, but shouldn’t be mistakenly regarded as the recording of a new
sonata, nor should it be placed on the same level as the sonata trilogy which was planned as
such and completed by Schubert himself.

The first piece of this trilogy, D958, has remained in the shadow of the two others. Schnabel,
for example, didn’t hide his dislike of it and decided to record D850 instead. It is true that it
doesn’t fit most Schubert clichés and that it requires much from the pianist without giving
him, as in the Wanderer Fantasy, the opportunity to shine in concert. Like D850 it starts in an
assertive way, but it doesn’t attain the lyricism of the finale of the earlier work. Neither does it
display the “serenity” of D894, the singing quality of D664, or the mystery of the Reliquie.

This sonata in the most Beethovenian key of C minor opens with a first subject that recalls the
opening theme of Beethoven’s variations WoO 80, also in C minor and in ¾ time. The
reference is obvious enough to be intentional, but on the other hand C minor is also the key of
the Fourth Symphony, the one Schubert himself had called “Tragic”, and the opening motive
is already present in Kriegers Ahnung, No.2 of Schwanengesang, which is also in C minor
and in ¾. Somehow we have here a system of cross references, perhaps Schubert’s
affirmation of “[his] place on earth” after Beethoven’s death, if we are to trust his last words
as quoted by his brother Ferdinand.

Schubert’s subject, forte, is even more assertive than Beethoven’s. It starts in a lower register
than Beethoven’s theme and climbs higher, but the weight of the bass gives it a stronger
gravity. The two hands drift apart until scales rush downward over four octaves. It is only
after a second descent that one reaches a more lyrical zone, accompanied by semiquavers,
with a variation of the opening subject. The second subject, a melody in E flat, seems to come
home only when it is repeated with a triplet accompaniment. This melody too evolves into a
semiquaver figure with a descending design which leads to new semiquaver falls terminated
by ... Beethovens’s Fate motive, which is repeated in falling octaves. It then vanishes from
decrescendo to diminuendo until it is ended abruptly with a f chord.

The elements present in this exposition will nurture the entire trilogy. The brief but strong
development enhances them: the dynamic contrasts, the melodic exchanges between the two
hands, the repeats in octaves, the role of the semiquavers, the function of the rhythmic
signals ... and the attraction to the lowest reaches of the keyboard. The recapitulation is
announced by a return of the rhythmic signal from the beginning, now in the bass and below
chromatic scales in semiquavers that had started as an accompaniment before taking on a
melodic role. Compared to the exposition, the recapitulation is more concentrated, even more
contrasted. It brings the second subject as expected in C major, but C minor is reinstated in
the coda, together with the echoing octaves and the falling design. The movement literally
expires in a succession of C minor chords pp.
What had started like a Beethovenian struggle ends in despair and what follows is one of
Schubert’s most tragic movements, a ballad-like Adagio in A flat. A flat is a “funeral tone”
according to C.F.D. Schubart (der Gräberton), and is also, according to Schilling, the tone of
piety (der fromme Sinn).2 It is the key of Im Abendrot, Psalm 23 and the slow movement of
the Tragic Symphony. It is the key of the sixth Moment musical, the “Plaintes d’un
troubadour” as well as the trio of the Grande Marche Funèbre for piano duet in C minor. Of
the Moment musical Richter says: “One must wait for a silence of death and then play as if
one were continuing this silence, so that nobody notices that the silence has been broken”3 -
and this applies to this movement as well. It starts with a kind of threnody sempre legato in
shades of p and pp, in which some have seen a quotation from the Adagio molto of
Beethoven’s fifth sonata op. 10 no. 1. But what strikes us most in this respect is that
Schubert’s theme is much less adorned than Beethoven’s, reduced to its essence as it were.
Actually throughout this sonata Schubert demonstrably makes almost no use of the
ornamentation which has become one of the hallmarks of his piano style, and which we will
find again in the following works. Here there are no trills, no mordents, no grace notes - just
one figure in hemidemisemiquavers that appears as a kind of punctuation mark and will
punctuate, unchanged, the other appearances of this theme. This threnody is only harmonised,
not accompanied.

It is answered by a more hymn-like theme with a semiquaver accompaniment, which grows to

ff and evolves into static semiquaver triplets. Again here there is only one gruppetto as
punctuation mark. The threnody comes again, legato, accompanied by semiquavers this time,
but this accompaniment disappears while the music enters the thinner sounding region of the
treble. The hymn returns, counterpointed by a garland of semiquaver triplets staccato which
sounds somewhat ghostly, as if silence were actually counterpointing the melody, and is again
attracted by the static repeated triplet form. Staccato figures of semiquavers accompany the
threnody when it returns for the last time, but they again vanish and the theme dissolves
gradually into silence.

As only Mozart did before in some of his piano concertos, Schubert makes silence into music
in this adagio. Pursuing the course he adopted in Winterreise or in some of the songs on texts
by Leitner (Des Fischers Liebesglück) or Heine (Ihr Bild), he reaches an extreme austerity
and has us look into an abyss of solitude in which each modulation has a stronger impact.
Janus-like as ever, this Adagio is related not only to the slow movement of the symphony
D936A he was composing at the same time, the Mahlerian Andante in B minor, but also to the
slow movement of D568 and even to the introduction of silence in his very first sonata D157.

Significantly the dominant E flat is missing from the final chord and will have to wait until
the beginning of the third movement, which can’t be a witty Scherzo or an elegant Menuetto
of course, but comes as a stylised Ländler, disguised as a minuet in C minor, not unlike the
third movement of the Reliquie. There it was soon submersed by the rhythmical ostinato, here
its solidity dissolves into fragments. In both cases the trio is a Valse triste, here in A flat, thus
enhancing the harmonic pivot of the work: C minor – A flat major.

2
Cf Walther Dürr & Arnold Feil: Reclams Musikführer – Schubert Suttgart 1991, passim.
3
Youri Borissov: Du côté de chez Richter, Arles 2008 p.225 – my translation
“When one has looked long enough into the abyss, then the abyss looks into one“, Nietzsche
said. This is precisely what happens in the finale, a fantastic dance of 717 bars (as a
comparison: the complete Wanderer Fantasy has 721 bars!). Highest virtuosity is required
from the performer here (according to Richter it is “horribly difficult”,4) but this is no
showpiece for extrovert pianists, rather the last of Schubert’s great tarantella finales, after
those of the quartets D810 and D887. It is an exhausting ritual dance, a cavalcade which
unfolds out of the liberated triplets which in the first movement accompanied the second
subject in its second appearance, recalling the rhythmic signal of that movement, the octave
echoing, the falling scales, and combining all these elements in a restless sonata rondo.

No wonder then that D958 didn’t meet with the same favour as the other works of the
triptych, for it is an interpretative challenge. It has none of Schubert’s richly accompanied
melodies and doesn’t offer any resting-place, except perhaps in the minuet, where there is just
enough time to take a breath before the exhausting finale. According to Dalberto it is
“thoroughly, definitely pessimistic, [...] a work that resolutely says ‘no’ to everything”.5
Perhaps because of its expressive strength it was one of the Schubert sonatas most performed
by Sviatoslav Richter.6 The recording Richter made in the 70s was also one of the very few
with which he was explicitly satisfied, just finding that the fourth movement was “slightly on
the fast side”7 (10 years earlier, nevertheless, he had played it even more quickly in concert).
This recording has lost nothing of its appeal.

Dalberto is very close to Richter in his tempi, but even more extreme in his interpretation. The
very first chords are literally slammed, as is the subito fortissimo in the hymn-like part of the
adagio or those chords which come after the long decrescendi in the finale, while his
pianissimi, especially in the second movement, are almost whispered. According to his
conception of the work he presents us with the uncompromising rebelliousness of a 31 year-
old young man. Another approach is Lupu’s, who substitutes open revolt with Viennese
ambiguity of smile and tears, comfort and pain. Like Dalberto he plays the sonata without a
break, in the spirit of the Wanderer Fantasy, but his tempi are all much slower. The Adagio
thus has a touch of tragic resignation, in the first movement the melodies in the deep register
have a sort of threatening softness, while in the finale he manages to suggest the impression of
speed, like a race in slow motion. These two almost contradictory approaches are equally
captivating. András Schiff, on the other hand, presents a “kaleidoscopic” interpretation,
enhancing the polyphony by giving prominence to alternately different voices (the way he
differentiates the exposition from its repeat in the first movement is fabulous) while
maintaining a unified design. Walter Klien gives us a more analytic rendering, especially in
the earlier movements, and plays the fourth one rather slowly, so that in his hands it becomes
less immediately tragic but more obsessive.

4
Bruno Monsaingeon: Sviatoslav Richter Notebooks and Conversations p.352
5
Liner notes to his Denon recording – my translation
6
According to the figures computed by Monsaingeon, Richter played D664 65 times in his
life, D958 63 times and D625 62 times, these three being far ahead of the other Schubert
sonatas Richter played. Sviatoslav Richter Notebooks and Conversations p. 401
7
Bruno Monsaingeon: Sviatoslav Richter Notebooks and Conversations p.205
It is hardly surprising that, in this sonata where the expected “Schubertian appeal” is seldom if
ever present and where the Viennese musician unfolds aspects of his talent he had just hinted
at before, other famous Schubert interpreters are not really at ease. Kempff remains very dry
in the first movement, without legato for the second subject. In the second movement he’s too
quick and somehow indifferent, close to droning, while he’s too harmless in the fourth. Arrau
doesn’t trust the violence and tries to temper it, missing the climaxes in the first movement
and becoming almost sugary in the finale. Brendel does not convey all the dynamic nuances,
especially in the finale. On the other hand, these nuances are accurately displayed by
Maurizio Pollini, whose sense for drama and harmonic colour balances his somehow
distanced approach. Among the pianists of the younger generation Paul Lewis is surprisingly
positive in his first Schubert recording, dedicated to D784 and D958, combining a flawless
technique with an involvement unexpected from so young an artist.

Endres doesn’t find the key to this sonata. He doesn’t manage to display the polyphony in the
first movement, which he balances by a differentiated accentuation. But where Schubert, this
one single time in his late sonatas, composes an Adagio, he interprets the slow movement, in
tempo and in character, as an Andante, and this should be enough to disqualify him. As a
result the movement loses the weight of silence and Endres tries to compensate for this with
external elements, like rubato or differentiation of sound. These are anything but welcome in
a movement like this, where the expression relies mostly on fragility. The trio of the minuet
loses its shape, and in the finale prominence is invariably given to the treble, while
unmotivated changes of tempo give the impression that the pianist is at his happiest when he
can splash again on the surface, so that the listener is quite surprised when the end is reached,
without knowing precisely how. Listening to this movement in Endres’s recording, one
becomes aware that one’s thoughts are free to wander around in different directions that are
completely alien to the music. Other interpreters, each one with his own conception, capture
more efficiently the spirit of this rondo in which the different excursions irresistibly bring the
attention back to the central theme, the hopeless devilish ride.

D959 After C minor, A major. Three sharps instead of three flats. The feverish element which
characterized D958 is absent here and instead of it a lofty mood is displayed. This becomes
clear from the opening chords ff, which are echoed by an A in the depths of the left hand, and
this combination of echoing and falling becomes a structural element which we’ll meet again
in the following movements. Another distinctive sign of this sonata is the interplay of the two
hands, which requires several hand-crossings, and the way motives are shared between both
hands (Hummel would have been delighted!). After the grandiose exposition, which ends in
shades of p, ppp, pp, Schubert again has a surprise in store: the development, which starts in
A minor, is founded on a one-bar motive which appeared for the first time ppp and almost as
an afterthought nine bars before the end of the exposition. It comes again at the end of the
recapitulation of course, and this time it introduces the coda, which brings back the opening
chords, but this time all in shades of pp und ppp, and with such tonal indecisiveness that this
movement, which started in an affirmative way, becomes mysterious and unstable in
extremis, preparing us for the following one.

This Andantino in F sharp minor starts piano and is almost reminiscent of the Andante of the
Reliquie, albeit with an even thinner texture. Instead of unfolding like a ballad, it proceeds in
a circular fashion, similarly to the lost wanderer of Winterreise. But then comes one of the
most extraordinary moments in all piano sonatas by Schubert: a whirlwind of semiquavers,
then demisemiquavers, then triplets blows literally across the tonalities, till a trill on a G is
reached, first in the right hand, then in both. The wind has already grown in strength from pp
to mf, but it continues blowing, soon f then ff, crescendo, until C sharp minor chords slow it
down at first and after three more bars p it is definitely stopped by D major chords spread
over four octaves. This episode of anarchy, which recalls the apocalyptic falling scales in
D958, ends with a threatening trill on a low A. The trills in this movement have little in
common with the harpsichord trills of the first sonatas (or Hummel’s silence-filling trills, for
that matter), they are architectonic elements. Nevertheless they seem to have summoned the
spirit of old instruments, for, after a varied and ornamented reprise of the first part, the
movement ends with alternating broken chords diminuendo down to a ppp.

The Scherzo begins with more broken chords, allegro vivace. This is one of the very few
scherzi by Schubert, in which the spirit of jest is predominant (Scherz in German, scherzo in
Italian). It is expressed here in the cascade of chords, in the asymmetric construction (16 +
63), in its sforzati, in its brisk accents … The trio in D major on the other hand, un poco più
lento, is far more introverted and silence plays a very important part. This sonata, the centre of
the trilogy, becomes from movement to movement a more stable edifice, in spite of all the
destabilizing forces: the alien development and the threatening coda in the first movement, the
wind of anarchy in the second one, the mockery and the contrast between overt humour and
introverted reflection in the third.

The fourth movement, Allegretto, an extended sonata rondo, starts with a theme that has
already appeared in various shapes over a period of 14 years in Schubert’s music: from the
second symphony through the opera Die Freunde von Salamanka and the A minor sonata
D537, the Octet D803, to the 1826 song Im Frühling on words by Schulze… Here, as in
another masterpiece, the Rondo for piano duet D951 composed shortly before, the key of A
major appears in its most cantabile form. The structure disappears behind the expression, as in
many a song of which the listener can’t say whether it is strophic or through-composed. The
predominant feeling is again of loftiness, of a calm melodic stream which also combines the
structural elements present from the beginning, like the falling echoes or the elaborated
interplay of both hands, before bringing us back to the chords which opened the work.

The central element of the trilogy is thus a perfectly rounded work, which draws its energy
from centrifugal forces and therefore gives a feeling of great stability. Once again we meet a
more familiar Schubert here, at least in the rich melodic flow of the finale, but the
revolutionary undertones of D958 haven’t disappeared and they explode violently in the
Andantino. However, while many see in the finale the expression of reconciliation and
serenity, Dalberto notices instead a discouragement8 which will lead to the resignation of the
next sonata.

Unfortunately Endres again misses the point completely. He ignores most of the indications of
dynamics, transforms each crescendo in an accelerando and each decrescendo in a
diminuendo. This is particularly disturbing in the finale, for which he first of all chooses too
8
Liner notes to his Denon recording
fast a tempo, and which can’t unfold as the melodic stream it is. When Schubert indicates a
tempo, Endres has already altered the tempo so many times in the meantime that this typical
element of the construction of time loses its meaning. Also he labours to keep the balance
between the hands, so that complete moments of melody get drowned in the accompanying
figurations in the treble register. How one can respect the dynamic indications without losing
one’s individuality as an interpreter is shown by Planès, who nevertheless could have
displayed more lyricism in the finale.

Once heard, Radu Lupu’s recording of this sonata is almost impossible to forget. His beautiful
sound leaves Endres far behind, and he completely understands Schubert‘s conception of time
(one is regularly surprised by the indications of duration in his recordings, for they have little
in common with the time one feels passing by). In the finale one gets the impression that he
doesn’t play the piano, but the organ, for he knows how to master all the voices of his
instrument. Andràs Schiff sounds as if he wanted to avoid by all means the reproach of
sentimentality. This approach proves quite rewarding in the first three movements, which
become energetic and assertive, but in the finale he unfortunately becomes slightly too
aggressive. Dalberto offers an analytic rendering which seduces because of its clarity,
especially in the finale where Schubert’s complex architecture becomes comprehensible.

D960 “A Schubertian Grail”, Dalberto says.9 Fate decided that this sonata, which was meant
to conclude the 1828 trilogy, actually seals Schubert’s complete oeuvre, and this influences
our perception. Nevertheless this work was definitely conceived with a sense of finality in
mind and this by a Schubert who masters his sonata language thoroughly.

The first movement is again a Molto moderato and once more it begins with a melody we
think we have known for ever. This movement already started a long time before its first note
sounds, not only figuratively, for the melody is related to the Mignon song Nur wer die
Sehnsucht kennt D 877,4, which itself derives from the fourth and last version of Ins stille
Land D403 to a text by Salis, the first version of which was composed in 1816. It is also a
relative of the second subject of D958. There are no energizing chords as in D958 and no
entrance portal as in D959, but an eight bar melody pp and legato, which lands on a trill on a
deep G flat, the “most uncanny trill in the history of music” according to Valery Afanassiev.10
A second start will eventually lead to the same landing point. Only the third start will find the
harmonic means of moving further into the exposition. The deep lying trill which structures
the whole first movement is a distant relative of the harpsichord trills we know from the first
sonatas. It is also related to the trills which send shivers down our spine in many a song
accompaniment and which have been heard already in the Andantino of the sonata in A major,
but it behaves differently: it is set in the depths of the piano, where the natural resonance of
the sounds is richer (which also explains why it may sound fuzzy on the modern piano). It is
like a womb, cradle and grave of the musical thoughts. It is therefore not by chance that the
bars which conclude the prima volta and lead back to the repeat also land on this trill, this
time fortissimo, one more reason not to omit the repeat. In this movement Schubert is in his
most contemplative mood. There are no open conflicts, as in the classical sonata, but a long

9
ibidem
10
Liner notes to his ECM recording
meditation. As in the Reliquie, the main subject returns in different melodic and harmonic
shapes like recollections in a dream. It is not confronted with a rhythmical ostinato this time,
but the recollections of the theme are punctuated by the trill, which appears like a signal at the
crucial moments and again at the very end of the movement, after which the final chords
sound like an ellipsis.

The second movement, an Andante sostenuto in C sharp minor, starts in this meditative mood,
which is also the mood of the beginning of the Andantino in D959, this time combined with
the austerity of the Adagio of the sonata in C minor. But here in the central part neither the
resignation of D958 nor the rebellious character of D959 appears, but rather the solace of a
melody, which is a relative simultaneously of the theme of the first movement and of the
finale of D959, a true hymn this time that, unlike the Adagio of D958, blossoms over a rich
accompaniment. This melody appears in A major then in the home key of B flat major. The
repeat of the first part is not literal, for the polyphony of the hymn has left its mark, and the
movement ends in C sharp major, carpeted with bass tones which recall the trill of the first
movement.

After these two movements one might fear a return of the Reliquie syndrome. And indeed if
only these two movements had survived, one would think Schubert had composed a perfect
diptych. But now he knows how to bring us further, neither with a measured minuet as in
D958 nor with a witty scherzo as in D959, but with a fleet-footed Allegro vivace con
delicatezza in B flat major, which brings to mind Mendelssohn’s world of fairies. We stay in
B flat, minor this time, for a more introspective trio which brings distant echoes of the
Andante. Three bars of coda discreetly close this glance at a utopia.

The finale, Allegro ma non troppo, is a true sonata rondo, but it is launched by a G in octaves,
which will sound as a signal through the entire fourth movement. The flow and also thematic
allusions recall D958, which underlines the homogeneity of the trilogy. This lofty finale is not
as lyrical as the parallel movement in the A major sonata, nor does it possess the tragic quality
of the finale of the C minor sonata, but it concludes this meditative work and simultaneously
the whole trilogy in a serene and melancholic manner.

The Grail can at best be seen, contemplated, but not touched, even less possessed. This is the
case with this sonata. Each interpretation is but an approach, an approximation, which brings
its share of disappointment, for hardly any can realise the ideal D960 we have in mind. On
occasion the failure is due to a discrepancy between the first two and the last two movements,
as with Ashkenazy, who starts magnificently but doesn’t stay on this level, giving the
impression of a hardly fitting appendix after two glorious movements. Not so Planès who,
after two initial movements with fine shadings of dynamics and a quite fairy-like scherzo,
remains in the same mood for the finale, avoiding all extremes so that it sounds like a smile
from beyond. Badura-Skoda’s rendering on a Bösendorfer, on the other hand, sounds well
but a look at the score reveals that the dynamics are Badura-Skoda‘s and not at all Schubert’s.
Dalberto again enhances the contrasts so that his performance is not a “fine careless rapture”
but more an uneven path of self-discovery. On the other hand Damerini surprises with an
unusual finale. He is perhaps the only pianist on record to play this Allegro really ma non
troppo and to respect completely Schubert’s indications of dynamics. The G signal resounds
literally through the movement and, played at this tempo, the reminiscence of the finale of
D958 becomes much more obvious. In this interpretation this movement isn’t Schubert’s
“final and definitely unsuccessful attempt at cheerfulness” anymore – to quote Dieter
Schnebel11 – but the worthy conclusion of the trilogy.

A look at the score makes us wonder if it is really the same Endres who recorded D958 and
D959. Whoever has listened to his recording of the first two parts of the trilogy will be
surprised that here, in the third piece of the triptych, he respects the indications of dynamics,
doesn’t mess the tempi and keeps the balance between both hands. Then comes a touch of
very sensitive rubato and some pleasant ornamentation (e.g. in the form of appoggiaturas),
which makes his performance of D960 a very convincing one. Strangely no dates are given
for the double CD which includes D894, D959 and D960.
To conclude

At the end of the journey I would say that Endres‘s recording of Schubert’s piano sonatas is
hardly the ideal means of entering this world. Although there are some fair to unqualified
successes (D625, D664, D894, and D960), he misses the point with too many central works
(D568, D840, D845, D958, D959 …). Also in his series some important works like D459 are
missing. If I had to recommend one “complete recording” I would rather choose Dalberto’s. It
has the advantage that it also offers all the important (and some of the less important) piano
pieces, that the level of interpretation is seldom less than acceptable and that, last but not
least, the 14 CD’s that were first issued by Denon have been re-issued by Brilliant Classics at
a very affordable price. Unfortunately András Schiff’s series on Decca are no longer
available, and this deprives us of a sensitive and poetic reading. Kempff’s recording for
Deutsche Grammophon is extremely attractive as far as the earlier sonatas are concerned, but
is too smooth for the later ones. Walter Klien on the other hand, has stood rather well the trial
of time. Massimiliano Damerini’s recording series for Arts seem to have been interrupted,
which is a great pity, for the 5 CDs that have been issued reveal a very personal reading,
which is nevertheless extremely faithful to Schubert’s indications and spirit.

The only recording series that can make a claim for absolute completeness is Martino
Tirimo’s on EMI (also no longer available). It provides all sonatas and all fragments,
generally in a completion by the performer himself. Unfortunately Tirimo’s renderings of the
great (and complete) sonatas are seldom convincing. Also his completions of D625 and
particularly of the finale of D840 are very personal and surely more effective in the concert
hall than on record. An interesting series is Gottlieb Wallisch’s on Naxos, for he undertook to
record nearly all of Schubert’s “problem children”. In contrast to Tirimo, he presents the
unfinished works in their fragmentary shape, so that these 3 CDs are quite attractive and a
welcome complement to “complete recordings” by others.

The reader has already noticed that I seldom mention Sviatoslav Richter. The reason is simply
that his renderings are in every respect beyond all comparison. Richter had in his repertoire
the sonatas D459, D566, D575, D625, D664, D784, D840, D845, D850, D894, D958 and

11
Schnebel’s first essay on Schubert : Auf der Suche nach der befreiten Zeit, in „Musik-
Konzepte Sonderband Franz Schubert,“ Munich 1979 p.77
D960. There are studio or live recordings of all of them, also of the seldom played
Hüttenbrenner Variations, of some isolated Moments musicaux and Impromptus and of the
Wanderer Fantasy (and also of several works for piano duet with Benjamin Britten). The
studio recordings of D845 and D850 he made in the 50s were the first ever recordings of
Schubert’s sonatas in the Soviet Union. D850 is also included in the series Richter in Prague.
They offer rhythmical differentiation (most sensitive in the second movement of D845), a
precise respect of Schubert’s indications (which includes a breathtaking Allegro vivace in
D850). Whoever is not familiar with his Schubert playing should start with D850, the
Wanderer Fantasy or D958. Here the virtuoso Richter shows what a great musician he is. His
renderings of the sonatas which begin with a Moderato first movement need getting used to,
for with him molto moderato is really molto moderato and time nearly stands still. Glenn
Gould, although acknowledging he didn’t particularly like Schubert’s long sonata movements,
said he was fascinated by Richter’s interpretation of D960, saying that it was “like a hypnotic
trance”.12 It is true that Richter could manage to keep the tension even in moments where
hardly anything seems to happen, for instance in the first movement of D894, where he
awakens in us the desire for each and every note. His live recordings are very variable as far
as the sound quality is concerned, so that we can be thankful to the BBC for preserving some
of his performances in nearly optimal quality.

I haven’t’ mentioned recordings made on period instruments either. It is clear that the study of
the evolution of Schubert’s piano style is hardly complete if it is not related to an analysis of
the contemporaneous evolution of the instrument. Nevertheless, playing on a historical
fortepiano alone doesn’t make a successful recording and I hope to write soon a review of the
recordings on historical instruments. Two “complete recordings” - by Malcolm Bilson and
Paul Badura-Skoda – are available, as well as some interesting isolated performances. This
will be the subject of a future study.

12
In Bruno Monsaingeon’s film Richter – The Enigma.