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

standard repertory and they represent an essential component of musical studies
around the world. Hence my surprise when, at the beginning of this project, I noticed
that the existing literature on these pieces is quite meagre, often limited to short
chapters in larger studies. After all, they represent nothing less than half of all of
Schubert’s sonatas for solo piano. I hope the present text will help, at least partially, to
fill that gap.
Having myself performed every one of Schubert’s complete piano sonatas, and
having been a devoted interpreter of his songs and chamber music, I hope to throw
some light on and share my views about these fascinating pieces. This study is intended
to explore Schubert’s incomplete sonatas as they were written, at the same time
considering the context that Schubert’s life and his work in other genres provided. The
present text will not especially focus on the unfinished nature of these works, but rather
on the music which they contain. The sonatas will be analyzed individually and in
chronological order, mainly from a stylistic and formal point of view, but also with an
attempt to show, through these incomplete pieces, the development of Schubert’s music
as a whole. At the same time, we should remember that these works mostly cover his
youthful – although very prolific – years. In other words, they are a part of Schubert’s
road to maturity, his years of experimentation, hard work and the changing influences
upon him.
If the essence of a performer’s task is to recreate a musical artwork, I believe
that one of the main goals an interpreter should ultimately strive for is to think in the
same way as the composer and thus, literally, to attempt the music’s re-creation. In
order to achieve that degree of understanding, the key question a performer should
always ask himself or herself is why, not how. The how can only be a consequence of
the why. In musical performance, as in any other intellectual discipline, the how,
although important, is always secondary to the why. Therefore, I believe that the more
you question the music in front of you and the more you enrich your understanding
with music from other genres, the closer you will come to the truth and to a real
understanding of what you should be doing. In this respect, unfinished works often help
one to understand the process of creation, and therefore the why, even better than the
complete and perfected works. After all, great masterpieces are often the consequence
of work on and experimental experience with lesser-known or less-appreciated works.
In the case of Schubert’s output, his approximately twenty piano sonatas coexist with
over six hundred songs, about twenty stage works, more than ten symphonies, a great
number of chamber pieces and thousands of bars of liturgical music. Therefore, it is no
surprise that the key to his music for piano often lies in his experience as a Lied
composer, his efforts in opera or his work as a symphonic composer. This study aims at
enhancing the awareness of the creative process within Schubert’s piano sonatas in the
light of such co-relationships.
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