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

IV Of Changes and Operatic Hopes
become known as ‘Schubertiads’), the twenty-two-year-old composer turned his
attention to far more metaphysical and transcendental poetry, and especially to the
work of his own contemporaries – either close friends or famous poets based in Vienna.
In selecting his texts, he no longer seemed interested in extended ballads or narrative
poems, but rather in more challenging texts embodying what we might call an intense
spirituality. This ‘spirituality’ apparently had little to do with religiosity in the
traditional Roman Catholic sense, but more with the universal pantheism of the
writings of Friedrich von Hardenberg (1772-1801, better known as Novalis) and the
early works of Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829); these were two poets that Schubert
would repeatedly set during this period of his life. The change in Schubert’s poetic
world is significant because many of the poems he chose over the next years put him
increasingly in contact with Romantic ideas, thus stimulating his musical imagination
in new directions. Insight into this new phase can be drawn from the last quatrain of the
song Die Gebüsche (The Thicket, D646, on a poem by Friedrich von Schlegel), which
was composed in January, 1819. Here we can find, as John Reed has put it, ‘the
Romantic doctrine of the unity of nature, and of its underlying euphony, as the “voice of
God,” a characteristically “Romantic” poem in both form and substance:’ 7
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Durch alle Töne tönet
Im bunten Erdentraume
Ein leiser Ton gezogen,
Für den, der heimlich lauschet.
Through all the sounds
In the earth’s many-coloured dream,
One faint sound echoes
For him who secretly listens. 8
In fact, the through-composed form and the continuity of texture of Schubert’s
Die Gebüsche setting constitute an important early example of what would become one
of the distinguishing features of his later piano music: on-going motion sustained by
constant modulations – a feature largely derived from his song writing. A clear analogy
can be seen when comparing this song to the third of the Impromptus D899 from 1827. 9
Schubert’s interest in the metaphysical and pantheistic philosophy of the
younger Friedrich Schlegel and other authors was at its peak during the years 1819-22.
We could say that the Schlegel songs herald a new stage in Schubert’s art. They display
an unprecedented ‘fluency and sensuousness,’ 10 and portray in a new and fascinating
way Schubert’s ability to create precise tonal images, visual music as it were – an
inherent feature of the Romantics rather than of the Classicists. As we see in the
writings of E.T.A. Hoffmann and other early Romantic authors, from now on composers
do not only hear, but also see. Important examples of this new phase in Schubert’s song
writing are Der Fluss (The River, D693, March 1820), Der Schiffer (The Boatman,
D694, March 1820) or the extraordinary Im Walde (In the Forest, D708, December
1820). It is true that, by the time Schubert began to admire and involve himself in the