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the value of this sublime piece. We can only draw
attention to the fact that this trio movement in particular
shows off the sound quality of the Graf piano
built around 1828.
The finale, a rondo in G major, is very developed,
beginning similarly to the first movement,
with a chord based on the fifth G-D in the bass.
But what a difference! No evocation of mystical
nature here, rather a suggestion of folk music with
bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy. But the rondo theme is
not at all one of “primitive popularity”. The periods
should all be four bars long; but here they are
constantly disrupted by irregular phrases of five or
three bars. At the end of the first page this culminates
in a fascinating turn; the pianist’s right hand
proceeding in four-bar groups is disrupted by the
left hand’s phrases of three or five bars (Stravinsky
could hardly have done better).
The first episode is idealized village music in
C major: “The little clarinettist invites people to
the dance”. But here again Schubert avoids too
populist a character by introducing surprising
harmonic turns (here we find again the influence
of Haydn’s symphonies). The first return to the
rondo theme is marked by virtuosic “horn solos”
and by some striking mediant juxtapositions.
The second episode in E flat major, also in dance
rhythm, differs from the first in a subtle way which
seems to elude many young performers: whereas in
the first episode it is necessary to play non legato,
ties are now added. An extremely original harmonic
subtlety also deserves attention here: this involves
a chord with a fifth and augmented sixth on B flat
which is not resolved on C minor but, in two places,
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on a first inversion of E flat major. This represents a
discovery which Schubert exploited with great effect
in just one other work: the Great C Major Symphony
of 1825-26, in the first and in the fourth movements.
Here on the other hand it was only a kind of
“secondary product” and the expected chord of C
minor finally appears to lead us towards a lied-like
melody (first in C minor and then, resolved, in C
major) which forms the “heart of the movement”
as Harry Halbreich appropriately observes in his
commentary. it is not difficult to recognize the relationship
between this and the song Die linken Lüfte
sind erwacht (The light Breezes have arisen), D 686,
of 1820-22 and, with this, the “nostalgia of Spring”
which demands our attention. Harry Halbreich’s
commentary on the end of this melody and of this
movement deserves quotation for it could not be
put more poetically! “From C minor the celestial
melody is illuminated by the tender smile of C
major, opening out in a blare of beauty before being
again drawn towards the shadowy realms of
the minor keys and finishing by disappearing as
mysteriously as it had come: the elusive passing of
Beauty upon this earth! After this it only remains
to conclude, with an abridged repeat of the opening
themes and the Sonata delicately vanishes on the
smile of a limpid pianissimo.
it only remains to add that Schubert’s autograph
manuscript describes this work as Sonata
iV, a sign of his excessive self-criticism. Sonatas i
and ii are known (D 845 and 850), but which one
could have been No. iii? We would tend to give
the honour to the tragic Sonata in A minor of
1823 (D 784) which was a complete success. Only