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

II The Sonata Year
popularity called by the Viennese the Rossini Rummel (‘Rossini craze’).
Starting without any preparation, off-the-beat, in the tonic major (the sixth
degree of G major modally inflected) and in pianissimo, the beginning of the
development is one of those surprising and wonderful transfigurations typical of
Schubert. He does not build the development on material of the opening theme, but
rather on material from the closing section of the second subject. Used in isolation, as if
carrying on from an already begun discussion, this motive has many ingredients of
restless speech, making it wholly appropriate for developmental purposes – especially
with Schubert’s taste for soliloquies. The transitional process leads to a fortissimo
climax of running octaves and thick chords (bars 51 ff.) similar to that of the first
movement of the ‘little’ A major Sonata; although not very convincingly. Such
difficulties in building a persuasive development are palpable also in the second
movement. The thematic relevance of these developments to the movements in which
they are placed is somewhat limited. At times, they become proportionally too long, as
in the present sonata-form second movement where almost half of the development
consists of preparation for the return. 21 The music seems to be wandering without a
clear direction and without that sense of inevitability so characteristic of, for instance,
Beethoven’s development sections.
Schubert’s struggle with the form is evident, but I feel that taking Beethoven’s
works as models for Schubert’s, even in these early pieces, can lead to a misconception
of the true nature of Schubert’s music. While Beethoven is much more deterministic,
Schubert’s taste for exploration provides his music with a vast array of different
outcomes, of possible twists and turns at any one time. During his early years, these
qualities seem to me to have been more intuitive than at a later stage when
psychological symbolism – derived to a great extent from his experience in the Lied –
would fuse within a more convincing formal structure. Incidentally, Schubert’s
contribution to the expressive expansion of the form and to the loosening of the
harmonic and structural elements of traditional forms would be of crucial importance
for the Romantic generation that was soon to blossom. A comparison with Beethoven,
in the case of these works, is ultimately unjust. By 1790, in the equivalent first twenty
years of his own life, Beethoven had written none of his thirty-two piano sonatas, and
nothing at all in other such important genres as the symphony or the opera.
The following two piano sonatas appear consecutively in Deutsch’s catalogue,
which is misleading for modern readers. The Piano Sonata in D-flat major (D567)
and the Piano Sonata in E-flat major (D568) could be described as twins. They are
basically the same work, although the latter is more than just a transposition of the
former: it is also a revision. Compared to its ‘elder sister,’ the E-flat major Sonata
contains some significant changes in the outer movements (especially in their
development sections) and, in contrast to all of the other sonatas from this time, it is a
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