Piano Sonata in F minor, Op.14

Although Schumann issued the Sonata in F minor in two different versions - as a “Concerto without Orchestra” in 1836 and a “Grand Sonata” in 1853 - it was far too problematic to achieve any kind of currency during his lifetime. Only the most enlightened of his contemporaries appreciated its qualities. Franz Liszt admired it and Johannes Brahms championed it, giving what, incredibly, is thought to have been its first public performance as long as six years after Schumann’s death. Ignaz Moscheles, the virtuoso pianist-composer to whom it was misguidedly dedicated in 1836, understood no more of it than anyone else at the time. And, although Rachmaninov was clearly impressed by the first movement, later generations of pianists have not fallen over themselves in efforts to rescue it from undeserved neglect.

One problem is that it is uncommonly difficult to play: the tempo directions in the last movement, which begins presto possibile (“as fast as possible”) and ends più presto (“faster”), are symptomatic of the unrealistic demands Schumann makes here. Another, perhaps more serious problem is that it is overshadowed by the Fantasie in C major, Op.17, which covers some of the same emotional ground and makes use of the same basic theme. Both works were profoundly affected by events of the “unhappy summer” of 1836, when Robert and Clara were driven apart by her autocratic father, and both echo with the melodic phrase which carries Clara’s musical image in so many compositions of this period. But, whereas in the slightly later Fantasie Schumann was able to anticipate an ecstatic reconciliation, in the Sonata in F minor he protests persistently at the injustice of the situation and, after a hard struggle in the finale, claims a later than last-minute conversion to the positive.

The key to the work is the Quasi Variazioni on an Andante by Clara Wieck. Here in the F minor theme presented in the opening bars - beginning with five adjacent notes in descending order - is the origin of the ubiquitous Clara motif. The Quasi Variazioni was at the heart of the Sonata in F minor Schumann originally planned, as the third of five movements with a scherzo on each side of it. It remained at the heart of the work later in 1836 when, apparently at the request of a publisher alarmed by the length and the extraordinary difficulty of the score the composer sent to him, Schumann dropped the scherzos and allowed the sonata to be put on sale as a Concert sans orchestre in three movements. The Quasi Variazioni retained a central position in 1853 when Schumann revised the opening Allegro brillante, restored one of the two scherzos and had the work re-issued as a Grande Sonate in four movements. The version to be performed today is basically that of the 1853 publication but with the Allegro brillante as it was first published in 1836.

The first movement is the protest. Beginning with Clara’s F minor melody flung down in anger by the left hand, it has no time for structural distinctions associated with sonata form. What is the first subject, the opening theme or the variant stretched out in longer notes after a dramatic pause? What is the second subject, the inverted variant of the Clara theme rising quietly and at a slower tempo in the right hand or the obsessive dotted rhythms that follow? Where does the exposition end and the development begin? The beginning of the recapitulation is clear enough, since it is marked by the angry gesture in the left hand, but again no distinctions are made and, with the necessary changes in harmony, virtually the whole of the first half is recalled. A short coda, also marked by an emphatic re-statement of the left-hand gesture, closes the movement.

The D flat major Scherzo - which was probably written in 1835 and which was excluded from the work in the changed circumstances of 1836 - takes its place in the 1853 version as a comparatively easy-going intermezzo. It is related to the movements on either side of it, however, by the pervasive presence of the Clara motif in the thematic material. With its ingenious canonic counterpoint and the inspired change of harmony that leads to the lyrical trio section in D major, it must have seemed to Schumann in his maturity too good to leave out.

There are four “quasi” variations on Clara’s solemn little theme in F minor, all of them in the same key. If the first two are more decorative than expressive, the third is a characteristically passionate conflict in rhythm between the two hands. The fourth variation, developing the funeral-march potential in the original theme, renews the protest of the first movement on a more thoughtful but still inconsolable level.As for the nine reiterated F minor chords in the closing bars, they are so excessive in their context that they are clearly meant to signal the end of something more than just a movement in a sonata.

Life without Clara is to be got through as quickly as possible. Although the Prestissimo possibile is not as bleak as the Presto finale Chopin was to write for his “Funeral March” Sonata in B flat minor three years later, it is scarcely less bizarre. A conciliatory element enters at an early stage in Schumann’s finale, in the form of a melody in G flat major articulated by the left hand crossing the unceasing triplet figuration in the right. But the emotional confusion is such that, at the climax of the movement, progress is brought to a halt by an extraordinary whirring of impotently dissonant tremolos. After that, the change to F major only nine bars before the end seems unlikely but, bearing in mind the major-key material which has emerged on the surface of the torrent from time to time, it is not entirely unmotivated.