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Sonata no. 11 in F minor, D 625/505
1818
a “futurist” work
in the Scherzo of this Sonata we twice find a
high G4 sharp, a note which did not exist on any
piano of the time. Schubert also used it in the
Trout Quintet, D 667, composed a little later, although
it was changed when the first edition was
published (posthumously). Even Chopin, who
died twenty-one years after Schubert, never once
used this note. We know that Schubert composed
at a work table. Perhaps he was not even conscious
of this “exceeding the limit” (or did he really hope
to see piano makers extend the range of their
instruments in the near future). However in his
later keyboard works he did not go beyond F as
the highest note available on the Viennese pianos.
This exceeding of the possible range is symptomatic
of a resolutely revolutionary stylistic ambition.
This ambition is characterized by the work’s
virtuosity, the extent of the hand’s position and a
“limiteless modulation” to the most distant keys,
reinforced by chromatic and enharmonic effects.
At the same time the form becomes more rigorous
and more concise, with the development operating
through the use of a recurring leitmotif between
the movements’ sections. Thus the first movement’s
secondary subject is developed from a trill motif in
the main theme, while in the Scherzo it is the concluding
motif which serves as a melodic embryo for
the Trio. But above all the emotional content has
a romanticism which sometimes has a tendency
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to make us feel transported into the musical universe
of Chopin. The “spirited” Scherzo and, even
more the disquieting unison opening of the finale
are like a premonition of Chopin’s Sonata in B flat
minor, opus 35, whose last movement also begins
with the same note F. For a while it was thought
that Chopin was acquainted with this Sonata by
Schubert, but this is hardly possible since it did not
appear on print until 1897, 48 years after Chopin’s
death. More probably Schubert anticipated certain
developments whose realization was to occur sooner
or later. But his time was not yet ready for this.
That is why Schubert did not at first follow further
along this track, finding shortly after the personal
epicdramatic sonata style which we know. it was
only in 1828, the year of his death, with the recently
discovered sombre fragment of the Symphony in D
major, that a new path was to be opened up which
no doubt harvested the fruit of the year 1818…
Returning to the Sonata in F minor, we
find that from yet another viewpoint it anticipates
particular stylistic characteristics of Chopin: in the
finale the hymnic second subject appears first in the
“wrong” key of F major and is only quoted again in
the recapitulation in the relative key of B flat major
which does not seem to “fit” at this point. We find
the same deviation from the classical modulatory
scheme in Chopin’s Concerto in E minor.
Only the charming and gentle Adagio, with its
diatonic opening and melodic lines in Lied form,
possesses the familiar Schubertian character.
Curiously this Adagio was not published for the
first time until 1897 and then as an individual
piece. it was only in the present century that the