Télécharger le livret - Outhere
Télécharger le livret - Outhere
Télécharger le livret - Outhere
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“call for” an orchestra (or at <strong>le</strong>ast a version for four<br />
hands or two pianos); and yet it is so eminently<br />
pianistic that it is better <strong>le</strong>ft without any such arrangement.<br />
in this quite unconventional way of<br />
writing for the piano, already foreshadowed by the<br />
Sonata in A minor of 1823, Schubert had no<br />
spiritual successor before Mussorgsky. The latter<br />
had of course been preceded by Franz Liszt, but<br />
he was much too good a pianist to demand the<br />
impossib<strong>le</strong> from his instrument. Curiously it is<br />
this kind of work which requires the most of the<br />
imagination of both pianist and listener. Even the<br />
genial orchestration that Ravel provided for the<br />
Pictures at an exhibition, which seems to realize<br />
everything that the piano could only suggest, is<br />
not as effective as the original: perhaps it is this<br />
apparent imperfection of the piano which gives<br />
it the ability to evoke sound and situations in the<br />
imagination of the player or listener: no reality,<br />
however beautiful and accessib<strong>le</strong>, can replace the<br />
paradise of the dream.<br />
Also “orchestral” in its breadth and power,<br />
but more “realistic” in its writing for the piano,<br />
the Sonata in A minor D 845 was no doubt<br />
composed shortly afterwards. it is possib<strong>le</strong> that<br />
Schubert did not finish the Sonata in C major<br />
D 840, although it must have already been well<br />
advanced, because he quite simply preferred<br />
to devote his attention to the one in A minor<br />
which shares some common features with it; this<br />
Sonata in A minor also pushes the possibilities<br />
of the piano to its limits, without ever quite<br />
stepping over them. Moreover, Schubert may have<br />
been confused by the relationship between the<br />
40<br />
main themes of the two Sonatas on a rhythmic<br />
and technical <strong>le</strong>vel, and by the fact that in each sonata<br />
they dominate a development which in both<br />
cases <strong>le</strong>ads imperceptibly into the recapitulation.<br />
Mozart, on the other hand, never had the slightest<br />
scrup<strong>le</strong>s about beginning different works with the<br />
same motif, as we see with the four piano concertos<br />
in succession K 451, 453, 456 and 459.<br />
But in fact, what a difference there is in atmosphere<br />
between the themes of these two Sonatas!<br />
Here (in D 840), it is a sombre one of tragic foreboding.<br />
The few superficial similarities and the<br />
more pianistic sty<strong>le</strong> of the Sonata in A minor<br />
do not suffice to explain why the Sonata in C<br />
major should have been <strong>le</strong>ft unfinished. For not<br />
only the first movement but also the second, with<br />
its infinite sadness, have a profundity and perfection<br />
in the power of realisation that seem to represent<br />
a high point in Schubert’s work.<br />
Another comparison may be made with a work<br />
composed two years earlier: the Unfinished, in fact<br />
“the most finished” Symphony, which deserves the<br />
same reverence as the great Symphony in C Major.<br />
its tit<strong>le</strong> derives from the fact that, instead of the<br />
usual four movements, it has only two. We know<br />
that Schubert attempted to write a third movement,<br />
a Scherzo in B major, but that he very quickly<br />
recognised himself that it “did not really work”. He<br />
<strong>le</strong>ft the Scherzo unfinished, tearing out the second<br />
page (which has only been found again in recent<br />
time; he must have <strong>le</strong>ft the first page because it was<br />
on the back of the last page of the Andante), and<br />
sent the preceding movements, whose score was<br />
comp<strong>le</strong>te, to Graz, as an expression of gratitude