Sonata in A minor, D.784 (Op. posth. 143)                            Schubert (1797 – 1828)

Allegro giusto

Andante

Allegro vivace

Images of Schubert in portraiture often seemingly emphasise the comfortable amiability of the familiar beloved and bespectacled Viennese songsmith. Furthermore, the famously laconic pose struck in the Wilhelm August Rieder painting belies the existence of tensions under that calm exterior which are only ever fully revealed in Schubert’s music. It is almost incomprehensible that a life as short in duration as it was devoid of drama could have inspired works that speak to us as profoundly as any of the complexities and emotional richness of the human spirit. The composition of Schubert’s piano sonatas spans the whole of his creative life and can be cast in three periods; early, middle and late. A total of twenty three piano sonatas are generally acknowledged, ten of these designated ‘unfinished’. Characteristically the Schubertian gifts for melody, lyricism and adventurous harmonic progression are found here forming a comprehensive commentary on his artistic and personal development. After displaying extraordinary musical prowess and studying with Salieri, Schubert became a schoolteacher like his father before him. By his late teenage years he had composed masterly song settings, symphonies and sacred music. Success followed fuelled by the patronage of Viennese aristocracy and supportive friends. Making a break with school teaching in his early twenties Schubert devoted himself to composing an ever growing number of masterworks.1823 was a year that proved pivotal for Schubert since it was then he contracted the syphilitic infection that would end his life just five years later but not, however, before a final period of unprecedented creativity produced a truly extraordinary body of mature masterpieces. The A minor Sonata dates from this turbulent time.

An hitherto unfamiliar tone of severity characterises the spare unisons of the opening

Allegro giusto. In this bleak and pitiless landscape emerge fleeting appearances

of a sinister trochaic dotted rhythmic figure emphasising the relentless forward

momentum created in the quietly menacing opening phrases. A pulse develops against

which a quasi-modal melody unfolds. The emergence of a low throbbing trill

intensifies to a shattering fortissimo statement of the opening theme in double

octaves immediately answered by an extended chain of dotted rhythmic chords. Thus

the drama unfolds in a juxtaposition of the ‘pulse’ and ‘dotted rhythm’ themes often

employing extreme dynamics in their articulation. A new drum-roll tremolo figure,

again in unison octaves, heralds a stunning new theme in the relative major. It is

here that we experience Schubert’s remarkable ability, like Mozart, to create an

ambience of chillingly tragic resignation in music of starlit brilliance infused with icy

detachment. The development section further plays out the dramatic

tensions inherent in the main themes. The trochaic figure takes melodic flight to the

highest register of the piano before settling back to the unremitting bleakness of the

opening music in recapitulation. This stunningly effective first movement

demonstrates how powerfully Schubert manipulated simple musical materials to

truly staggering emotional impact. Even though the movement ends with chords

of the tonic major there is no sense of relief from irreconcilable tensions.

The Andante which follows is one of Schubert’s most beautiful songs, albeit without

words. A resonant melody in F major is orchestrated in a texture suggestive of a string

quartet. The progress of the melody is punctuated, even interrupted by

pianissimo interjections. A splendidly Brahmsian crescendo leads us to a restatement

of the main theme in the middle register with  violin-like decorative triplets above.

Sinister interjections are always present anchoring the music firmly in the

atmosphere of overwhelming disquiet set by the first movement.

The final Allegro vivace starts with a perpetuum mobile of quietly anxious triplet

quavers. Momentum builds and is shattered by agitated chords and

surging scales. A serene and lilting melody somewhat reminiscent of the Andante’s

main theme is set over a restless accompaniment figure  propelling the music

through episodes of violence and seeming repose until a resolution of the

most emphatic kind is made with four hammered A minor chords. Perhaps it is not

fanciful to hear in this gesture a defiance of the fate that would overshadow

Schubert’s final years.

Frederick Scott