Piano Sonata in D major D.850 (1825)

Allegro vivace

Con moto

Scherzo: Allegro vivace

Rondo: allegro moderato

Among the mutual friends of Beethoven and Schubert was the young Czech pianist Carl Maria von Bocklet. Closely associated with Beethoven’s favourite violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh and the cellist Josef Linke, Bocklet was an enthusiastic advocate of Schubert’s chamber music as well as of his songs and piano pieces. He was also the fortunate dedicatee of the Piano Sonata in D major which, being the only one in the series written specifically for a virtuoso pianist, is the most exuberant of them all in terms of keyboard technique.

Another factor that influenced the distinctive character of the Sonata in D major is that it was written during the happy summer of 1825 amid the mountain scenery at Badgastein in the Salzkammergut. The opening bars of the Allegro vivace are bursting with excitement and the whole of the rest of the movement seems to be projected from that initial surge of energy. The construction is so powerfully motivated, in fact, that Schubert is inspired to test it by resisting it: just after the introduction of the second subject, the impetus is temporarily halted to accommodate a slower passage of yodelling fanfares - which, far from disrupting the movement, both advances its progress and enhances its outdoor atmosphere.

It is clear from the Con moto second movement that Schubert admired Bocklet not only for his virtuoso technique but also for his musical understanding. The harmonic development of the initially simple song-like main theme in A major is so free, particularly on its delightfully decorated reprise in the middle of the movement, that it could be improvised. The rhythmic syncopations and the almost impressionistic colouring applied to the more impulsive second theme in D major required from a pianist of the day nothing less than prophetic insights in interpretation. The way in which the syncopated rhythms so characteristic of the second theme are applied to a last recall of the first theme is masterful both in its wit and in its structural wisdom.

Syncopated rhythms are no less prominent in the Scherzo where, except in the even crotchets of the trio section, they consistently give an impression of duple time within a triple-time metre. Strangely, on the end of the reprise of the opening section, it is not the muscular first theme that prevails in the end but the charmingly domestic waltz tune that first appeared in B flat major and now closes the movement in a gentlly lilting D major.

That unexpected ending to the Scherzo might well have been set up as a preparation for a Rondo finale so regular in its rhythms and, at least as far as its main theme is concerned, so light in texture that even Robert Schumann couldn’t take it seriously - in spite of a second episode as confidingly intimate as anything in his own piano music. Carl Maria von Bocklet presumably understood its aerial character rather better.

Gerald Larner©