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six sonatas, the first of which in A minor is an acknowledged
masterpiece. it is quite astonishing
to see how, at the age of twenty, Schubert left far
behind him all his predecessors, as well as his own
quite successful earlier efforts of 1815-16, and how
he embarked on entirely new paths. Quite new
are the highly coloured and sensual “orchestral”
design, the harmony and clearly the thematic invention
that often draws upon his experience in
writing songs. More than in his earlier sonatas, we
find in this work the essence of all his later work;
in fact this sonata goes further than later works by
Schubert, for it contains certain stylistic elements
that already anticipate Bruckner and Mahler. These
include harmony that has recourse to very varied
tonalities, juxtaposition of the mediant within successions
of chords, the frequent use of the second
inversion as a final chord of “deliverance” and the
alignment or repetition of short motifs which, at
first sight, give the impression of primitiveness but
which allow the formation of “blocks of motifs”
which can constitute longer passages. in this sonata
more often than in later works by Schubert,
we also find a feature that is frequently found in
Bruckner, namely the interruption of a development
by a general pause, after which the music
continues in a completely different way.
The choice of the key of A minor had a symbolic
significance for Schubert: it seems to express his
tragic situation in the face of an inescapable destiny
with a theme that is also found in the words
of certain of his songs written in the same key, the
premonition of death but also an obstinate defiance
(Schubert had contracted syphilis, which was
20
then considered incurable, at the age of sixteen or
seventeen). it is surprising that the key of A minor
does not appear in any of the piano sonatas
of Haydn or Beethoven, and was used only once
by Mozart in his tragic sonata K 310 written in
Paris. Schubert turned to it three times, in D 537,
784, and 845. These three sonatas are closely related
in mood, even though the last two were more
expansive, while D 845 presents greater subtlety
and greater richness in its thematic development.
in the first movement the duality principle of
the sonata is realized in an exemplary way: the
main theme in the minor mode, energetic active
and “masculine”, is contrasted with the second
subject and the codetta theme which are elegiac,
passive and “feminine”, and which are imitated in
a superior unity that Furtwängler aptly compared
to an ideal marriage.
Something unexpected happens at the very beginning.
After the first attack of the main theme,
conceived as a group of five bars, we reach a ninth
chord (bars 3-5) which proceeds to the second corresponding
phrase in a way that would never have
occurred to any other composer before Schubert.
instead of following the rules and resolving the
top part of the chord E-D-F by descent on to E,
Schubert moves the bass through F sharp to G
while keeping the F at the top. Thus he reaches
the dominant of the relative key (C major) before
continuing on towards F major and in a new harmonic
progression beginning in E flat major (!).
This new harmonic progression culminates in
one of those Brucknerian mediant juxtapositions
mentioned earlier (from F major to D flat major)