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iod when Liszt was dazzling his audiences, when<br />
the quarrel between Wagner and Brahms was<br />
the subject of conversation, when Tchaikovsky,<br />
Mussorgsky, Franck, the young Debussy and the<br />
young Richard Strauss were becoming the targets<br />
for discussion, is it hardly surprising that the discovery<br />
of Schubert’s Sonatas (mostly works of his<br />
youth) should have evoked litt<strong>le</strong> interest and even<br />
<strong>le</strong>ss support?<br />
in this respect Beethoven’s fate was more enviab<strong>le</strong>:<br />
contemporary publishers grabbed his piano<br />
works – the last three Sonatas owe their existence<br />
to a commission from Adolf Sch<strong>le</strong>singer – and already<br />
during his lifetime we find pirated editions.<br />
But Schubert did not have the luck of Beethoven<br />
or later Chopin: the publisher Schott sent back his<br />
impromptus Opus 145, D 935, noting that they<br />
were too difficult for his cliente<strong>le</strong> to understand<br />
and play; and he asked him if he didn’t have something<br />
more digestib<strong>le</strong> to offer (no doubt he meant<br />
waltzes or marches). This attitude of rejection on<br />
the part of publishers might explain the fact that<br />
some of Schubert’s Sonatas remain unfinished.<br />
For he had no source of revenue other than that<br />
which came from the sa<strong>le</strong> of his compositions. it<br />
is interesting to note, in this regard, that for two<br />
of these Sonatas we have two surviving versions,<br />
one partly incomp<strong>le</strong>te and another extremely developed<br />
(D 575, opus post. 147 and D 567, opus<br />
post. 122/D 568). A publisher had probably enlighted<br />
his hopes for publication, which was not<br />
however to be finally realised until after his death.<br />
When eventually a col<strong>le</strong>ction of e<strong>le</strong>ven Sonatas<br />
appeared, which still represents for many music<br />
11 English Français Deutsch Italiano<br />
lovers today the comp<strong>le</strong>te Sonatas of Schubert,<br />
peop<strong>le</strong> began to make comparisons with those of<br />
Beethoven which had long been established in<br />
musical circ<strong>le</strong>s. it is amazing to see to what extent<br />
Schubert’s Sonatas were torn to shreds even by<br />
specialists, biographers and critics. Rarely has so<br />
much stupidity been written about music as in the<br />
commentaries produced around 1900.11 The majority<br />
of this criticism revolved around the idea that<br />
Schubert was no Beethoven. This is just about as<br />
<strong>le</strong>gitimate as calling Leonardo da Vinci a secondrater<br />
because he was not Michelangelo! Today we<br />
see things comp<strong>le</strong>tely differently: the great achievement<br />
of Schubert was his very discovery that in the<br />
realm of the piano sonata he could write without<br />
depending on Beethoven (nor indeed on Mozart,<br />
Hummel or Weber), with absolutely new potential<br />
and a new prophetic vision which is often more<br />
developed than Beethoven’s: we find this already<br />
in the Sonata in a minor D 537 with its successions<br />
of mediant key relationships and “thematic<br />
blocks” in the sty<strong>le</strong> of Bruckner, whi<strong>le</strong> the first and<br />
third movements of the Sonata in a minor D 784<br />
(opus 143) anticipates the piano writing of Liszt<br />
(with amongst other things the demented octaves<br />
at the end) whi<strong>le</strong> the second movement begins<br />
with a harmonic progression typical of Brahms.<br />
We even find sequences of sca<strong>le</strong>s a second apart, as<br />
in Debussy, and sonorities which anticipate those<br />
1 To quote a typical examp<strong>le</strong>, an extract from a criticism by Hubert<br />
Parry, written in London: “Schubert’s movements are in varying<br />
degrees diffuse in form, slip-shod in craftsmanship and unequal<br />
in content. He had the <strong>le</strong>ast possib<strong>le</strong> for abstract design, balance<br />
and order”.