The Unfinished Piano Sonatas of Franz Schubert Javier ... - Ethesis

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Postlude As we have seen, to a great extent the genre of the piano sonata was an experimental arena for Schubert. His sonatas for piano, especially the ones he wrote in his early years, were mainly learning pieces, a part of his compositional self-education. These earlier works are often good examples of the tension between Schubert’s classical models and his own evolving style. Moreover, Schubert’s unfinished sonatas often show his struggle with the elements of form, especially in the outer movements. We should remember that not a single slow movement in all of Schubert’s piano sonatas has been left incomplete, possibly because their musical nature lies closer to the Lied. In addition, in most of those early unfinished works we can already notice musical procedures which would become crucial in Schubert’s later finished sonatas: for example, the expansion of traditional sonata form, the unusual harmonic relationships and the frequent nonpianistic nature of the music. Up until approximately 1819, I clearly perceive Schubert’s piano sonatas as ‘studies’ – attempts at achieving a competent command of an important medium. From 1820 onwards we begin to see a remarkable development in his music – even though he wrote no piano sonatas for a three-year period – that would culminate in the ‘symphonic studies’ of 1824 and ultimately in the monumental sonatas of 1828. In this sense, I find his unfinished sonatas highly enlightening. They show Schubert’s musical development in this genre across his whole career, as well as his changing models over the years, and his struggle with textures and a form that were not genuinely his own. In fact, it is through this kaleidoscope of converging elements that we notice how Schubert’s sonatas for the piano are often not piano pieces as such in terms of their musical material. Despite the thousands of bars and the wonderful music he wrote for this instrument, I do not think Schubert is – or even considered himself to be – a genuinely pianistic composer. His piano music simply ‘happens to be’ written for the piano, and it does not depend on the instrument in the same way as, say, Chopin’s or Rachmaninov’s works, to name two very clear examples. On the contrary, Schubert’s music for piano, especially his sonatas, is just one more musical manifestation of his art. His piano textures are often close to orchestral, chamber or vocal music – genres he intensely cultivated over the years, and I would say, he felt most comfortable with as a composer. Moreover, it is his achievements in those other forms that allowed Schubert to breathe new life into the conventional forms. The ‘freedom of speech,’ the soliloquy- 95
like quality of his musical discourse, the taste for harmonic exploration, the expansion and subsequent loosening of the traditional structures, the sense of space, the liberation from traditional conventions and the poetic symbolism of his harmony are all features borrowed from his vast experience in the Lied. In fact, I believe that poetry always played an important role in Schubert’s instrumental forms: the sonorous transcription of visual images, the multiplicity of musical directions, the loose boundaries of words, the wandering, the harmonic turns according to the verses… They are all elements of Lied and poetry. Ultimately, Schubert managed to integrate all of these features into an instrumental discourse as well as into the instrumental forms, conquering the traditional genre of the piano sonata without neglecting the idiosyncrasies of his own musical idiom. In doing so, Schubert prompted significant changes in the conception of traditional sonata form, and it would be this integration which would open up new paths for the next generations of composers, placing Schubert – together with Beethoven – as one of the key links between the classical style and that of the Romantics. 96 . . . .
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Javier Arrebola The Unfi nished Pia
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ISBN 978-952-5959-34-5 (Paperback)
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Contents Acknowledgements vii Prelu
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viii Caminante, no hay camino, se h
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me a greater awareness of what musi
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xii An immense amount of Schubert
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I The Beginnings own first symphoni
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I The Beginnings The Piano Sonata i
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I The Beginnings 6 The second movem
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I The Beginnings another mass (D167
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I The Beginnings 10 Schubert’s fa
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I The Beginnings 12 As in the first
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I The Beginnings The large number o
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I The Beginnings piano. The fact th
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I The Beginnings derived from the m
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I The Beginnings Ex. 14. Schubert:
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I The Beginnings Another interestin
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I The Beginnings register (left han
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I The Beginnings time. In 1816, his
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II The Sonata Year sonatas for the
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II The Sonata Year symbolic meaning
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II The Sonata Year But now let us r
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II The Sonata Year It is surprising
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II The Sonata Year 36 Ex. 3. Mozart
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II The Sonata Year I think there ar
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II The Sonata Year popularity calle
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II The Sonata Year The opening Alle
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Page 59 and 60: II The Sonata Year Ex. 14. Schubert
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Page 64 and 65: III New Paths 1818 The only way out
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Page 70 and 71: physical and intellectual, of resid
Page 72 and 73: the end of the summer. A surviving
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Page 76 and 77: IV Of Changes and Operatic Hopes 18
Page 78 and 79: 1819-1823 of Schubert’s music in
Page 80 and 81: 1819-1823 spiritual pantheism of Fr
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Page 84 and 85: 1819-1823 Catholic Church concernin
Page 86 and 87: 1819-1823 All of these exceptional
Page 88 and 89: 1819-1823 The year 1823 would conti
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Page 92: 1819-1823 companion throughout. The
Page 95 and 96: V Auf dem Weg zur großen Sinfonie
Page 110: Chronological Tables of Schubert’
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Page 120 and 121: Notes: I The Beginnings: 1815-1816
Page 122 and 123: 26 Newbould, Schubert: The Music an
Page 124 and 125: V Auf dem Weg zur großen Sinfonie:
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The Unfinished Piano Sonatas of Franz Schubert Javier ... - Ethesis

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