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win the hearts of the musical world.
“The instinct for music” in this Sonata, as in
all the late works, is today finally understood and
recognized. Not so long ago, Schubert was in fact
merely considered as the intuitive composer of
Lieder, and one whose sonatas and symphonies
could not match in conciseness of form similar
works by Beethoven. On the other hand what we
admire today in Schubert’s instrumental works is
precisely his independence from Beethoven. He is
the only of Beethoven’s contemporaries or successors
who, independently of the great model, succeeded
in discovering and developing new means
of expression within sonata form, which led to the
creation of a “symphonic sonata” in a rather epic
style with a quite developed form. The construction,
which uses powerful blocks and harmonizations
of a quite autonomous nature, constituted
according to specific creative principles, represents
qualities that lead directly to the symphonic
works of Bruckner and Mahler.
As far as the emotional content of the Sonata
in C minor is concerned, we might consider it
as the counterpart to the Winterreise (Winter’s
Journey). This song cycle, as we know, represents
a key work in Schubert’s output. in this symbolic
journey, through desolate, wintry countryside,
congealed in ice, the psychic state of a man abandoned
at the same time by his beloved, his fellow
man and – implicitly – by God is depicted through
different pictorial settings. He travels the world as a
solitary passer-by, passionately yearning for rest in
the “peaceful inn” that is the tomb. Schubert, who
certainly had very close friends, but no woman who
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truly loved him, identified himself with the content
of this song cycle to such a degree that – according
to his friends – his very health was affected. This
traumatic fear of absolute solitude also to a large
extent dominates the Sonata in C minor whose
sketches, according to Robert Winter, date from
shortly before the completion of the Winterreise.
This “macabre enterprise” (to use a term borrowed
from psychology) is mainly noticeable in
the powerful block, full of energy, which forms the
last movement. in itself the formal construction
of this finale (which is difficult to classify within a
conventional form) shows a mastery of the highest
standard. While many other works by Schubert
composed in the symphonic style are somewhat
“laborious”, this finale constitutes the unequivocal
climax and culmination of the Sonata in C
minor. By ending with a gesture of defiance,
Schubert overcomes so to speak the depressing
world of total solitude. it is only then that space
is opened up for the description of the sublime,
for the hope of a springlike vision which is provided
in the next Sonata in A major, D 959
and for the almost other worldy serenity of the last
Sonata, in B flat major, D 960. Not that the
tragic element is missing from these later Sonatas:
it is, on the contrary, concentrated in the apocalyptic
explosions of C sharp minor of the Sonata in
A major and in the C sharp minor of the elegiac
middle movement in the last Sonata, although in
these works it appears only episodically. The tragic
element is no longer the basic theme, but rather
offers sombre – very sombre – relief within the
most luminous images.