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of Chopin. Schubert’s piano writing has a staggering<br />
variety and richness. it is generally based on<br />
a conception “in parts”, that is to say one which<br />
might emanate from an imaginary string quartet.<br />
This conception, which implies a pianistic “arrangement”,<br />
must of course be adapted through<br />
compromise to the possibilities of the pianist’s<br />
two hands. This was also the case with Beethoven<br />
as well as with Schubert and often involved prob<strong>le</strong>ms<br />
with the midd<strong>le</strong> parts. But whi<strong>le</strong> critics close<br />
their eyes benevo<strong>le</strong>ntly to the litt<strong>le</strong> blunders of<br />
Beethoven, they examine them with a fine toothed<br />
comb in the case of Schubert who was accused of<br />
being not as good a pianist as Beethoven – which<br />
must indeed be acknow<strong>le</strong>dged. But what does this<br />
have to do with the composition? We know that<br />
one of the worst pianists among all the great composers<br />
was Maurice Ravel – and nobody has ever<br />
reproached him for writing badly for the piano.<br />
But Maurice E. Brown, who has done so much for<br />
Schubert, wrote shortly before his death that we<br />
find here and there in Schubert’s piano sonatas<br />
a number of “failures” (Musical Times, London<br />
October 1985). it is true that any pianist will have<br />
some difficulty in finding a sense of the sonority<br />
in certain accompaniment figures like the Alberti<br />
basses or broken chords in close position in the<br />
first and last movements of the final Sonata in B<br />
flat major. But any attempt to improve them, following<br />
the model of Chopin, in order to give them<br />
a more beautiful sound, would be like altering in<br />
an il<strong>le</strong>gitimate way the who<strong>le</strong> conception. No, there<br />
is nothing to arrange nor anything to deplore.<br />
Schubert, who had already experimented for a long<br />
12<br />
time with “wide positions” (for examp<strong>le</strong> in D 571<br />
and D 625) seems to be returning very consciously<br />
here to an extreme simplicity, just as Beethoven did<br />
in his late Bagatel<strong>le</strong>s. This is what we might call the<br />
“Mozart princip<strong>le</strong>” and on the forte pianos of the<br />
period such “failures” were often of great beauty.<br />
The comparison with Beethoven might <strong>le</strong>ad<br />
today to conclusions that are quite different to<br />
those 100 years ago, at a time when nearly half<br />
of Schubert’s Sonatas were still unknown and<br />
when no-body was really up to playing them. A<br />
proof of the inability of pianists to break into this<br />
repertory is to be seen in the fact that Schubert’s<br />
piano Sonatas hardly ever figure in concert programmes<br />
in the years around 1900 and that they<br />
were practically absent as well from the teaching<br />
programmes of the conservatoires (which remains<br />
the case in italy and Spain). Peop<strong>le</strong> simply were<br />
not interested in Schubert.<br />
Schubert died at the age of 31. Any comparison<br />
with Beethoven is valid only if we first ask<br />
the question: where was Beethoven at the age of<br />
31 in his Sonatas for piano? He had already written<br />
a good number of them, it is true, including<br />
a few masterpieces. But if we review the who<strong>le</strong><br />
production of Schubert’s Sonatas we find more<br />
works and more important works than we do<br />
during the first 31 years of Beethoven’s life. The<br />
fina<strong>le</strong> of Beethoven’s Sonata in G major opus 31/i<br />
and that of Schubert’s Sonata in A major D<br />
959 offer a good point of comparison. Beethoven<br />
composed this Sonata for the publisher Nägeli<br />
in 1801/2; it took him a few months more than<br />
Schubert took to write, without commission, his