(With emphasis on piano sonatas D958-959-960)

"No one understands another's grief, no

one understands another's joy... My
music is the product of my talent and my
misery. And that which I have written in
my greatest distress is what the world
seems to like best."

By
MARILINA TZELEPI
"When I wished to sing of love, it turned to sorrow. And when I wished to sing of sorrow,
it was transformed for me into love. "

Franz Schubert was born in Vienna on January 31st, 1797. He was

the twelfth child of the schoolmaster (teacher at a elementary
school) Franz Theodor Schubert (1763-1839) and his wife Maria
Elisabeth Vietz (1756-1812). The father moved in 1783 from
Moravian Silesia (today Czech Republic) to Vienna and the mother
came from Bohemia. He showed an extraordinary childhood skill in
music, studying the piano (first with his brother Ignaz), violin (with his father), organ,
singing and harmony. The Schubert family made music regularly and the father was soon
able to form a string quartet, where the elder sons Ignaz and Ferdinand played the violin,
himself the violoncello and Franz the viola.

At the age of ten, Schubert took part in High Masses at the parish church of
Lichtenthal as choirboy and violinist. His father presented him to the highly esteemed
Viennese court conductor Antonio Salieri (1750-1827), who directed also the choirboys
of the Viennese court music orchestra. He was impressed by the extraordinary talents of
Schubert and admitted him as choirboy. Salieri also gave the young boy lessons in
composition (1808-1813).

While Schubert's reports as court choirboy were brilliant without exception, he

made just slight progress in Latin, Greek and mathematics. He took part as violinist in the
orchestra of the school, which was founded by the art-loving principal of the institute,
father Innozenz Lang. They made music every evening and played a complete symphony
among other pieces. Joseph von Spaun wrote about this time:

“Schubert played standing behind me from the same sheet of music. I noticed very
soon that the little musician surpassed myself in reliability of the time. My attention
having been drawn to him by it, I noticed how the otherwise quiet and indifferent looking
boy abandoned himself lively to the impressions of the beautiful symphonies we
performed.”

Schubert's entry in a music notebook of the court music orchestra reads:

“Schubert Franz crowed the last time. July 26th 1812.” His voice was beginning to
break, so he could no longer sing with the choirboys. He left the boarding school in
autumn 1813. Approximately at the same time, as Schubert left the choirboys, he became
Antonio Salieri's student. The lessons with the famous opera composer were concentrated
on the field of the Italian arias and Schubert composed for practice several arrangements
of arias from the librettos of Pietro Metastasio. Also numerous canons and fugues from
that time are supposed to have been composed for the lessons.
 By 1814 he had produced piano pieces for works by Schiller and
Metastasio (as mentioned above), string quartets, his first symphony
and a three-act opera. Although he was pressured by his family to
teach in his father's school, he continued to compose prolifically; his
huge output of 1814-15 includes Gretchen am Spinnrade and
Erlkönig (both famous for their text-painting) among numerous
songs, two more symphonies, three masses and four stage works.
From this time he enjoyed the companionship of several friends,
especially Joseph von Spaun, the poet Johann Mayrhofer and the law
student Franz von Schober. Frequently gathering for domestic evenings of Schubert's
music (later called 'Schubertiads'), this group more than represented the new phenomenon
of an educated, musically aware middle class: it gave him an appreciative audience and
influential contacts (notably the Sonnleithners and the baritone J.M. Vogl), as well as the
confidence, in 1818, to break with school teaching (In 1813, to be able to earn his living,
Schubert had begun a ten-month training to be a “school assistant”, a subordinate teacher
at an elementary school. He graduated from the “teacher's preparatory" at the
Normalhauptschule St. Anna with mediocre results. Then he reported for the hated duty
at the school of his father. This duty lasted two years and these two years were at the
same time compositionally the most fruitful in his life. In his strict daily schedule, there
was a good amount of time that was reserved exclusively for composition).

In April 1816, Schubert had a bitter professional disappointment. He had applied

for a post of music teacher in Ljubljana and his application was rejected in spite of
Salieri's recommendation. After this failure, he resigned at school and moved with Joseph
von Spaun to the Innere Stadt, to the house of the professor Heinrich Joseph Watteroth
(1756-1819). For the first time Schubert got money for a composition, as students of the
professor commissioned him to make one and he composed the (missing) Cantata
“Prometheus". It was performed on the name day of the professor on July 24th 1816, with
Schubert at the podium.

Schubert remained to the professor’s house as a guest until August 1817. By that
time, he had composed already more than five-hundred works - a wealth of lieder, several
string quartets and five symphonies - but his compositions were just known by a
relatively small circle of friend and music-lovers. This was about to change, when
Schubert moved to the Schober family house, where Schubert met the well-known court
opera singer Johann Michael Vogl (1768-1840), who pleaded for him as interpreter in the
following years and helped the composer gain recognition from the public as a composer
of lieder.

After 1818, he continued his massive song production, which included Der
Wanderer and Die Forelle, and also composed instrumental pieces - inventive piano
sonatas, some tuneful, Rossinian overtures (it was the era of the “Rossini craze”), and the
Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, in which increased harmonic subtlety began to be apparent.
He worked briefly as music master to the Esterházy family, finding greater satisfaction
writing songs, chamber music (the 'Trout' Quintet being one of his best works in the
field) and dramatic music: Die Zwillingsbrüder (for Vogl) was only a small success, but
brought some recognition and led to the greater challenge of Die Zauberharfe.

Schubert had won the high esteem of the private circles of musicians and for this
he was proposed as music teacher to the Esterházy family (from July to October 1818, he
was invited as teacher at the country residence of the Esterházy family in Zseliz in
Hungary (today Slovakia), where he gave lessons to the two daughters of the family).

In the summer of 1819, Schubert came to Steyr in Upper Austria, the native town
of Vogl. One of the numerous lieder evenings, that he performed with Vogl there,
Schubert met Sylvester Paumgartner, an art patron and amateur cellist, who
commissioned Schubert to compose a piano quintet, later to become well-known as
“Trout quintet".
In this year, Schubert's also acquired a new friend, the painter Moritz von Schwind, who
depicted Schubert’s life in his landscape pictures and portraits.

In autumn, a period of personal and artistic insecurity began for Schubert, who
moved in circles of students kept under surveillance by the police. Schubert's friend
Johann Senn was arrested in his presence and Schubert himself was cautioned for
“maliciously reviling the authorities". This creative crisis can be seen clearly in his
fragmentary composition and relatively long creative processes.

Schubert had hoped for to find a publishing house for his compositions but the
mediocre success of his two plays (the singspiel “Die Zwillingsbrüder” and the
melodrama “Die Zauberharfe”) surely did not help. Finally his friends took charge of the
much-anticipated finance for the printing of the first songbooks published by Cappi &
Diabelli.

In 1820-21 Schubert made new friendships within the aristocratic circles, whose
patronage was valuable. Schubert's admirers issued 20 of his songs by private
subscription, and he and Schober collaborated on Alfonso und Estrella (later said to be
his favorite opera). Although it was an outstanding piece of music, it was rejected. Strong
friendships, financial need and serious illness - Schubert almost certainly contracted
syphilis in late 1822 - made this a negative period, during which, however, quite a few
extraordinary works were composed, such as the epic Wanderer Fantasy for piano, the
two movement Eighth Symphony (better known as “Unfinished”), the exquisite Schöne
Müllerin song cycle, Die Verschworenen and
the opera Fierabras.

1821 was also the beginning of the musical

evenings known as “Schubertiads”. The first
verifiable Schubertiad was held at Franz von
Schober's place in Vienna on January 21st
1821, stemming from the thirst of the
upcoming bourgeoisie for education; at the
living rooms of the middle class, the only opportunity for important political discussions
and uncensored artistic expression in the police state of the time were these “evening
entertainment” events. An important part of these events, besides eating, dancing, playing
and talking, were the literary and musical interludes performed by “professional” artists
or dilettantes. The pianoforte was an imperative piece of furniture of the salon and
became more and more favored in the course of the 19th century. The “Schubertiads",
formed out of these private events, were cheerful get-togethers of Schubert's friends and
acquaintances, where the composer played a central role. For him they were the occasion
to present his new compositions - especially his lieder - to a public that favored his
works. On the top of that, he contributed to the musical entertainment of the soiree by
improvising dance music. Such meetings were not limited to the capital Vienna. We
know about Schubertiads in St. Pölten, Steyr, Linz and Graz.

In 1824 Schubert turned to instrumental forms, composing the a Minor and d

Minor ('Death and the Maiden') string quartets and the lyrically expansive Octet for wind
and strings; around this time he was drawing sketches for his Great C Major Symphony.
With his reputation in Vienna steadily growing (his concerts with Vogl were renowned,
and by 1825 he was negotiating with four publishers), Schubert now entered a more
assured phase. He wrote mature piano sonatas, such as the one in a Minor, some
magnificent songs and his last, highly characteristic String Quartet, in G Major.

1827-8 saw not only the production of Winterreise and two piano trios but also a
marked increase in press coverage of his music, which led to his election to the Vienna
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. However, although he gave an important public concert
in March 1828 and worked very hard to satisfy publishers - composing some of his
greatest music in his last year, despite failing health – his works of the time received
limited appreciation. At his death, on November 19th, 1828 (at the age of 31), he was
mourned not only for his achievement but also for 'still fairer hopes'.

Schubert was for a long time known mostly because of his songs, since most of
his large output was not even published, and some not even performed, until the late 19th
century. However, beginning with the Fifth Symphony and the 'Trout' Quintet, he
produced major instrumental masterpieces, marked by an intense lyricism, spontaneous
chromatic modulations that are surprising to the ear but very clear and expressive, and by
an imagination that creates its own formal structures. His way with sonata form, whether
in an unorthodox choice of key for secondary material (Symphony in b Minor, 'Trout'
Quintet) or of subsidiary ideas for the development, shows his maturity and individuality
very clearly. The virtuoso 'Wanderer' Fantasy is equally impressive in its structure and
use of cyclic form, while the String Quartet in G Major explores new surprising new
sonorities. The greatest of his chamber works however is acknowledged to be the String
Quintet in C Major, with its rich sonorities, its intensity and its lyricism. Among the
piano sonatas, the last three, particularly the noble and spacious one in B-flat, represent
another great achievement. His greatest orchestral masterpiece is the 'Great' C Major
Symphony, with its remarkable formal composition, rhythmic vitality, wonderful
orchestration and lyric beauty.
Schubert effectively established the German lied as a new art form in the 19th century.
He was helped by the late 18th-century outburst of lyric poetry and the new possibilities
for picturesque accompaniment offered by the piano, but the most important factor is his
ingenious handling of the lied form. He uses harmony to represent emotional change and
various accompaniment combinations to illustrate poetic images (moving water,
shimmering stars, a church bell). Schubert's discovery of Wilhelm Müller's narrative
lyrics was the incentive to his further developing the lied through what became known as
“the song cycle”. His two masterpieces, Die schöne Müllerin, and Winterreise are
unsurpassed to this day.

Schubert composed over 950 works (approximately 600 of them are songs). In
1950, Otto Erich Deutsch published his Schubert - Thematic Catalogue of all his Works
in Chronological Order, which resulted from an over 50 years long interest in Schubert.
(Deutsch wrote the first of his over 150 articles and books about Schubert in 1905). His
work is important because it helped put the massive volume of Schubertian compositions
in order. Today, the Deutsch (D) numbers have become a standard method for identifying
Schubert's works.

SCHUBERT’S PIANO SONATAS – a discussion

The pianoforte for Schubert was a means to an end: he used it mainly for
composition, and for accompaniment of his songs. His technique was not extraordinary,
and he relied on expression rather than virtuosity. When it comes to his sonatas, Sir
Hubert Parry’s quote adequately depicts them: “Schubert’s treatment of form is often
daring, even to rashness, and yet from the point of view of principle offers but little to
remark, though in detail some perfectly magical feats of harmonic progression and
strokes of modulation have had a good deal of influence upon great composers of later
time”.

Schubert produced some twenty-three compositions to which the term “sonata” is

applied. Some of these works are fragmentary. They were written between 1815-1828,
with the majority being from 1817 and on. His sonatas can be divided, in a sense, in
“early” (from 1815-1817), more mature (1823-1826) and finally the three masterpieces,
written the final year of his life (D958, 959 and 960).

The three sonatas completed in September 1828 make the listener think of Beethoven,
who had died in March 1827. There is a clear influence of Beethoven’s 32 Variations in
C minor on the opening theme of Schubert’s C minor sonata D958. However, Schubert
elaborates the form, with the extension of the progression and the mysterious, chromatic
passages included in the development. The second movement is based on a very sweet
theme in A flat major, which is presented in different dramatic variations, in a manner
similar to Beethoven’s Sonate Pathetique op.13 (it is also in the same key). The third
movement is a scherzo in C minor, followed by a finale based on a persistent tarantella
rhythm, again resembling the finales of Beethoven’s E flat Major Sonata op.31 No3. The
central episode in B major has a very thrilling character, similar to that of works such as
Erlking.

In the A Major sonata (D959), the influence of Beethoven is mostly clear in the last
movement, which was modeled on the finale of Beethoven’s sonata in G Major, op.31
No1, as Charles Rosen and Edward T. Cone have shown. Schubert of course surpasses
the model and elaborates again, using an extraordinary coda, which contains phrases from
the principal theme harmonized in unexpected keys. A presto follows, in the final
measures of which the principal theme of the first movement is heard, to form the basis
for the coda. The slow movement is an Andantino in the tonality of F sharp minor,
composed with extraordinary skill. The main theme of the movement has an almost
hypnotic effect, which reminisces several songs from the Winterreise. Melancholy is
widespread in this movement, with contrasting sections that are heard in relationship to
one another. Through a very intense passage, the climax in C sharp minor is achieved.
After the climax, a shy recitative appears, which is interrupted several times by strong
accented chords. Alfred Brendel believes that this movement of Schubert’s sonata bears
comparison to Goya’s painting “The Third of May 1808”, which is based on the contrast
between the hard, inhuman brutality of the soldiers making up the firing squad, and the
soft and defenseless human targets. In the last two movements of this sonata, Schubert’s
attitude is more positive than in the Andantino. The scherzo begins with brilliant
arpeggiated chords, and the trio brings back the theme of the first movement. The finale
contains some ideas from the Andantino, and the central episode is on C sharp instead of
the dominant of A Major, and the recapitulation begins with F sharp major (with some
pitches similar to those of the Andantino, but not as tragic).

The final Sonata in B flat Major, D960 is representative of Schubert’s most advanced
style and combines lyricism, structural grandeur and daring yet controlled treatment of
key relations. The first movement starts with a theme that is almost out-of-this-world.
The exposition contains three main keys and thematic areas, the second of which is in the
tonality of F sharp minor, and may be linked to the Andantino of the previous sonata. The
development section bears similarities to Schubert’s song Der Wanderer (D489), and
reaches a climax in D minor after numerous modulations. After the opening theme
reappears, the recapitulation begins, and Schubert enhances the return of the main theme
through tonal elaboration, just as he did in the finale of the A Major sonata. The slow
movement, an Andante Sostenuto in C sharp minor has a static character, due to a
continuous rhythmic figure, which revolves around the melody (over and under it). The
middle section of this movement is song-like, combining a lyrical melody with a rapid-
note accompaniment. The scherzo movement is playful, alternating from major to minor
tonalities. The finale opens with an unusual G octave in the left hand, and the theme of
this movement is in C minor instead of B flat major, which is very interesting. Again here
there is a reminiscence of Beethoven’s music, particularly his string quartet in C minor,
op.130. At the end of this rondo-sonata movement this unusual tonal “situation” is finally
resolved, as the octave originally in G descends by semitones through Gb to F, to lead to
a brilliant coda that concludes Schubert’s last piano composition.
Liszt and Schumann were among the first to discover that in the pianoforte compositions
of Schubert there was a rich variety and scope. Today, after centuries of music evolution
in composition and after a massive compositional volume from numerous composers, the
fact still remains that Schubert’s piano sonatas are and will remain an important part of
the pianistic repertoire.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Oxford, 1997.

Deutsch, Otto Erich. Schubert: A documentary biography. Da Capo Press: NY, 1977.

Duncan, Edmondstoune. Schubert. J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd: London, 1926.

Flower, Newman. Franz Schubert: The man & his circle. Tudor Publishing Co: NY,
1935.

Gal, Haus. Franz Schubert & the essence of melody. Victor Gollancz Ltd: London, 1974.

Gammond, Peter. Schubert. Methuen London Ltd: London, 1982.

Gibbs, Christopher H. The life of Schubert. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge,

2000.

Gibbs, Christopher H. The Cambridge Companion to Schubert. Cambridge University

Press: Cambridge, 1997.

Hilmar, Ernst. Franz Schubert in his time. Amadeus Press: Portland, 1985.

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