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