The Piano Sonatas

Schubert made himself a great composer of piano sonatas by hard work and conscientious application.    Obviously, he couldn’t have done it without his extraordinary natural genius but nor could he have done it without his equally extraordinary intelligence and an indefatigable will to succeed.

    The bulk of Schubert’s work on the piano sonata was concentrated in two short periods - one in 1817, the other in 1828.    The latter period was, of course, the month of September when he wrote the three extended masterpieces in C minor, A major, and B flat major.    The foundations of that mastery were built eleven years earlier when in seven months he worked on no fewer than six sonata projects.    At that time he had just set himself free from schoolmastering and was staying in the lodgings of his friend Franz Schober in Vienna.    He had access to a piano and - inspired and at the same time inhibited by the example of Beethoven - he had clearly made up his mind that he would apply himself to the medium and come to terms with it.

    Of the three piano sonatas written while Schubert was still teaching in his father’s school, none is definitively complete.    Comparison of the first movement of the earliest one, in E major (D.157), with a version sketched only a few days earlier in February 1815, shows how quickly he was developing at this time.    He abandoned the project after adding only an Andante in E minor and a Menuetto in B major and, as he was to do several times later in his career, set himself the task of writing a better work in the same form and in the same key.    In the meantime, in September, 1815, he started a Sonata in C major (D.279), which he also abandoned after completing only three movements (unless the Allegretto in C major (D.346) is the missing finale).

    The irony of the next Sonata in E major (D.459), which was written a year later, is that it has too many movements rather than too few.    It was first published in 1843 as Five Piano Pieces, including two scherzos, from a manuscript which has since disappeared.    But for the discovery of a fragmentary manuscript in 1930 bearing the title Sonata, the five pieces might never have been recognised for what they are.    The composer would presumably have discarded one of the scherzos if he had been able to choose between them before he lost interest in the work.    However, as a demonstration of Schubert’s suddenly radical, even experimental attitude to the piano sonata, two scherzos are better than none.

    Not all the sonatas Schubert wrote in the following year are as progressive as the E major of 1816.    The E minor Sonata (D.566) is certainly less adventurous and the A flat major (D.557) reverts to the Mozart type of the D major (D.279) of 1815.    The F sharp minor (D.571/570) is interesting but, in its fragmentary state, inconclusive as to Schubert’s real intentions.    On the other hand, this 1817 group includes the first (D.537) of the series of dramatic sonatas in A minor, the first fully characteristic and successful Schubert sonata, in E flat major (D.568), and the structurally innovatory B major (D.575).

    By the end of 1817, Schubert had explored so may different approaches to the sonata, and had experienced so much trial and error as well as encouragement, that he must surely have known what would suit him and what would not.    He seems, however, to have been so insecure in this area that in 1818 he tried two more alien approaches - in the virtuoso style usually associated with Hummel in the C major Sonata (D.612/613) and in a quite remarkable emulation of Beethoven’s Appassionata in the F minor Sonata (D.625).    Once he had put these last temptations aside, he scarcely faltered.    In April 1819 he produced an abortive Allegro in C sharp minor (D.655) and then, three months later, the perfect expression of his lyrical genius in the lovely little Sonata in A major (D.664).

    Having achieved that satisfaction, Schubert wrote no more piano sonatas for four years.    It is as though he knew that he had mastered the form and could return to it at any time.    Indeed, between the beginning of 1823 and the end of 1828 he applied himself to it eight times and failed only once.    His first concern was to prove the he could write the kind of sonata his A major was not - for which enterprise, significantly, he chose the key of A minor and not once but twice, first in February 1823 (D.784) and again early in 1825 (D.845).    His object on the second occasion was evidently to extend the structural scope as well.    It was this ambition - together with a real hope at last of having his work published - that secured his interest in the medium during the next three years.

    His first essay in the monumental, in C major (D.840), which was started in April 1825 but never finished, was not encouraging.    As always, Schubert had to find the way that was natural to him.    He could not chisel a construction out of solid granite. The D major Sonata (D.850) of August 1825 survives on its nervous energy and is a miracle no composer could hope to achieve more than once.    The G major Sonata (D.894) of October 1826 has the long-term answer, not so much in the last movement (which is extended by structural ingenuity) as in the first: it is based on material which demands and at the same time sustains expansive treatment.

    Once again, having found the solution to the problem, Schubert devoted his creative energies to other forms before capitalising on it.    It was not until September 1828, two months before he died, that he drew on the experience he had so painstakingly assembled during the last thirteen years: in less than four weeks he completed the three large-scale masterpieces which, though entirely personal to him in material and technique, can be compared in status to the greatest of Beethoven’s piano sonatas.

    The present series of recitals includes all the piano sonatas Schubert completed together with all those he left unfinished but in a state which gives a reliable indication of his intentions. This means that of a total of 23 sonatas and sonata-projects, only five are omitted - the 38-bar E minor Allegro (D.994), the 73-bar C sharp minor Allegro (D.655), the D flat major version (D.567) of the E flat major Sonata (D.568), and those in F sharp minor (D.570/571) and C major (D.612/613) with incomplete outer movements and not necessarily related central movements.

    It is worth remembering, however, that only three - those in A minor (D.845), D major (D.850), and G major (D.894) - were published in the composer’s lifetime.    Although five or perhaps eight more were printed in a form Schubert could have approved of, few of them were actually prepared by him for publication, and he would certainly never have expected the unfinished ones to come before the public.    When Schubert abandoned a sonata project he always had a good reason.    So, while there is much beauty and much interest in the unfinished sonatas, there are also weakness which must be heard with patience and understanding.