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laziness?) and the second episode in D minor – a
“happy but slightly melancholy walk in celestial
spheres” in the sense of the “Cherubic walker”
of Angelus Silesius, a poet close to the spirit of
Schubert, and who like the composer’s ancestors
came from Silesia – finally there is a return to the
refrain in a higher tessitura, “enriched” by the
preceding walk, a kind of serene epilogue. But for
Schubert the theme was not yet exhausted here,
for he returns to it in the final rondo of his penultimate
Sonata in A major (D 959) where he
develops it “symphonically”.
The third movement, a sonata rondo form in A
minor, destroys at a stroke the idyllic atmosphere
of the Andantino. A fiery ascending figure in unison
in A minor is repeated three times and followed
by plaintive replies of what might be called
resignation, the last being in A major which surprises
us with its serenity, ending with an abrupt
virtuosic phrase expressing something akin to
forced joy. A second, spring-like theme, ends by
gently fading away after its initial blossoming:
the four repetitions of a two-bar motif seem to
contradict all the laws of sonata form, but they
are absolutely necessary. To suppress 8 or 16 bars
would have meant destroying the structure of the
movement as a whole. in the whole classical repertoire
i know of only one similar case: the innumerable
repetitions of motifs in the first movement of
Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. However, in that
work the repetitions serve to express quite different
feelings: the relaxation on arriving in the countryside
when certain impressions (the babbling
of a brook, the sounds of bird-song) are repeated
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without anything happening. With Schubert on
the other hand, a lot happens during these repetitions,
even if it is only a diminuendo fading into the
inaudible. The virtuosity of the final group has no
parallel in Schubert. The construction is actually
more reminiscent of Domenico Scarlatti. After a
striking development the coda poses the decisive
question: should we end in the major or the minor
mode? Schubert decides in favour of the major, appearing
gentle and resigned, until an abrupt and
unexpected chord of A Major, like a cry of protestation,
finally brings the sonata to its close.
∆
Sonata no. 5 in A flat major, D 557
composed in May 1817
First Edition 1888
Old Complete Edition
This charming Sonata was omitted from most
of the editions of Schubert’s Sonatas; this was
probably because it represents an exception: the
finale is not in the main key of A flat, but in E flat
Major. Schubert therefore departed from the sacred
principle of eternal unity, creating a “precedent”
which was not to be emulated until much
later: to give two examples, Mahler’s Symphony in
C minor ends in E flat minor and Frank Martin’s
Second Piano Concerto in D minor ends in E
major. As well as this Sonata there were already
precedent’s before Schubert’s time: thus in the
Fantasias of C.P.E. Bach or in Fantasia, Opus 77
of Beethoven, which begins in G minor and ends
in B Major? The hypothesis that the Sonata in
A Flat major is perhaps unfinished and that it