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to the absurdities that have been written more recently<br />
about Schubert’s so-cal<strong>le</strong>d incapacity in the<br />
field of instrumental music!<br />
From the outset the main theme of the first<br />
movement has a particular expressivity and profundity.<br />
it is presented as a dialogue and in this<br />
respect resemb<strong>le</strong>s the two preceding Sonatas: a<br />
lyrical motif announced in unison, with a welldefined<br />
rhythm is “answered” by a chordal figure,<br />
first with a “gent<strong>le</strong>” repetition of the notes, then,<br />
after a second call, with a do<strong>le</strong>ful cry. How else can<br />
we interpret this crescendo which spirals up only<br />
to end with a dissonance? The who<strong>le</strong> theme has<br />
the character of dark foreboding. in her excel<strong>le</strong>nt<br />
biography of Schubert, Brigitte Massin speaks of<br />
a “theme of burial”. What follows is a rather long<br />
harmonic progression based on the dominant E<br />
which gives way to a march theme in an inexorab<strong>le</strong><br />
manner. From the viewpoint of form this<br />
new motif might be described as a “transitional<br />
group”. But in reality it is already a second subject<br />
whose staccato provides an extreme contrast to<br />
the “sweetness” of the initial subject. And then,<br />
after a modulation, where we might expect the real<br />
second subject there is another appearance of the<br />
opening theme in C minor, a minor key variant of<br />
the relative major! The epilogue theme, in C Major,<br />
directly contrasts fragments of the two themes by<br />
presenting the first in the march rhythm of the<br />
second. it is impossib<strong>le</strong> to describe the “vicissitudes”<br />
of the main theme and its final outburst<br />
(exceptionally in the manner of Beethoven) in the<br />
development section which never <strong>le</strong>aves the minor<br />
mode. After a long evolution, it is interrupted in<br />
46<br />
the dominant of F sharp minor. What then follows<br />
resemb<strong>le</strong>s a continuation of the development (the<br />
conflicting part): after a rest the main theme reappears,<br />
in canonic imitation, in the softest ppp, followed<br />
by fragments in F sharp minor, A minor and<br />
in the dominant of C minor (with G in the bass).<br />
From there a modulation in the sty<strong>le</strong> of Winterreise<br />
takes us steadily step by step by way of B flat and C<br />
sharp to E where we again hear the second subject<br />
like “march motif”. The development and recapitulation<br />
are entirely fused. (Retrospectively we<br />
might however consider the brief appearance of<br />
the main theme in A minor, quoted after a whi<strong>le</strong>,<br />
as the beginning of the recapitulation). But what<br />
seems like a formal game is extremely serious with<br />
each note giving the impression of being “lived”.<br />
The recapitulation also follows its own course: the<br />
epilogue theme here appears not in A, as we might<br />
expect, but in F Major and finally passes by way of<br />
a modulation to A minor at the beginning of the<br />
coda which begins like a funeral march and ends<br />
like an apocalyptic storm (turning upside down,<br />
the last “despairing” cry of the theme before it is<br />
almost crushed in the final page).<br />
The second movement consists of a series of<br />
variations on a tender theme of consolation in C<br />
Major which in mood and harmony resemb<strong>le</strong>s the<br />
variations in Beethoven’s final Sonata, opus 111.<br />
The theme has the structure of an idealized string<br />
quartet movement: played first by the “second violin”,<br />
it moves to the “top part” only in the ninth<br />
bar. in the first edition, as well as in all subsequent<br />
editions issued before 1960, four bars are missing,<br />
no doubt because of an oversight: contrary