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

V Auf dem Weg zur großen Sinfonie
I seem once again to have composed two operas for nothing.
Of songs I have not written many new ones, but I have tried my
hand at several instrumental works, for I wrote two Quartets for
violins, viola and violoncello and an Octet, and I want to write
another quartet, in fact I intend to pave my way towards [a]
grand symphony in that manner. 3
The Octet in F major (D803) and the two quartets that Schubert mentions –
the ones in A minor (D804) and in D minor (D810) – are uncontested masterpieces in
their own right. To these we have to add the Variations for flute and piano in E minor
on Trockne Blumen (Die schöne Müllerin, No. 18, D802) from January, some large
works for piano duet from the summer and, in my opinion, also the three grand-scale
piano sonatas that Schubert would write the following year. To an important extent, all
of these works seem to be ‘studies’ for a symphony – important preparations for
Schubert’s Symphony in C major (Great, D944), which was most likely begun in
Gastein in the summer of 1825.
As mentioned above, 1824 was a very unproductive year in terms of songs; in
fact, the least productive of Schubert’s whole career. But paradoxically, ‘the song’ as a
concept seemed nevertheless to be always present. Schubert frequently quoted poems
from his own songs in letters and, from this point on, we find more obvious connections
between the songs and the instrumental works. In 1824 he began explicitly to use his
own vocal settings as starting points for his larger instrumental works: for instance, the
Variations for flute and piano on Trockne Blumen, the string quartets in A minor
(theme from Rosamunde for the Andante) and in D minor (material from Der Tod und
das Mädchen for the variations of the Andante con moto). Probably as a result of the
publication of a volume of poetry by Johann Mayrhofer in March, Schubert briefly
returned to song composition. The result was four jewels that rank among the best
Mayrhofer settings: Der Sieg (The Victory, D805), Abendstern (Evening Star, D806),
Auflösung (Dissolution, D807) and Goldenfahrer (Barcarolle, D808). Each one of
these songs is remarkable, 4 but probably the most astonishing of them all is Auflösung.
Its Wagnerian conception and its scope, size and expansiveness, give Auflösung a
unique place in the repertoire. There is nothing resembling it in Schubert’s entire
output of over six hundred songs!
At the end of the spring, Schubert went again to Zseliz with the Esterházy
family; and there, as in 1818, his duties included the tutoring and musical instruction of
the two – by now, older – daughters of the count. That is why, as during his previous
stay, Schubert focused on the composition of works for a genre that, like the Lied, he
would make his own: the piano duet. Among the extraordinary four-hand pieces from
the summer of 1824 are the Sonata in C major (Grand Duo, D812, his largest duet to
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