16 German Dances D 783 (1823-4)

Although Schubert was not a conspicuously successful composer of piano music in his day – all but three of the sonatas were published after his death – there was a consistent demand for his dances. No fewer than nine of the eleven surviving collections were published in his lifetime, which no doubt explains his extraordinarily prolific industry in this area. He actually wrote more than 400 dances, roughtly 300 of them waltzes of one sort or another (valses, ländler, deutsche or Graman dances). The 16 German Dances, published with two Ecossaises as Op.33 in 1825, are characteristic in their unfailing tunefulness and for their tendency to spring harmonic suprises – like No.5 which begins in B minor and ends in D major, No.14 which begins in a melancholy F minor and ends in a radiant F major, or No.16 in F major which passes through the minor. They are all simple binary constructions and, except for No.4 in G major with its upward flourishes on the third beat of the bar, pianistically unremarkable. At the same time there are some startling if modest prophecies, like the anticipations of the Chopin waltz and mazurka in Nos. 5 and 10 respectively and of the Viennese waltz of Johann Strauss in the delightful No.15 in A flat major.