Franz Schubert: The Fragmentary Piano Sonatas 3515131698, 9783515131698

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Arabella Pare

Franz Schubert The Fragmentary Piano Sonatas

Schubert : Perspektiven – Studien | 7 Franz Steiner Verlag

Schubert : Perspektiven – Studien Herausgegeben von Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen und Till Gerrit Waidelich In Verbindung mit Marie-Agnes Dittrich, Anselm Gerhard und Andreas Krause Band 7

Franz Schubert The Fragmentary Piano Sonatas Arabella Pare

Franz Steiner Verlag

Gedruckt mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Geschwister Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung für Geisteswissenschaften in Ingelheim am Rhein

Umschlagabbildung: Bild links Franz Schubert, An die Musik (op. 88,4; D 547) Notenhandschrift von 1817 © akg-images Bild rechts Franz Schubert (1797–1828), nach dem Aquarell von Wilhelm August Rieder von 1825 © akg-images Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über abrufbar. Dieses Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist unzulässig und strafbar. © Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2022 Diesem Buch liegt die 2019 von der Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe angenommene Dissertation „Franz Schubert. The Fragmentary Piano Sonatas“ zugrunde Layout und Herstellung durch den Verlag Druck: Druckerei Steinmeier GmbH & Co. KG, Deiningen Gedruckt auf säurefreiem, alterungsbeständigem Papier. Printed in Germany. ISBN 978-3-515-13169-8 (Print) ISBN 978-3-515-13180-3 (E-Book)

Acknowledgements To my advisors, Professor Dr. Matthias Wiegandt and Professor Dr. Thomas Seedorf, I owe my profound gratitude for their encouragement and advice which inspired and supported my research. For the stimulating musical and intellectual environment and the opportunities to contribute to a wide variety of projects, I thank the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe and the Rektor, Professor Hartmut Höll. My gratitude to Professor Dr. Hinrichsen for his acceptance of this monograph in the series Schubert Perspektiven. Many thanks for the notable kindness of the staff of the Musikaliensammlung in the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, in particular Dr. Karl Ulz, for permitting me to examine the Schubert manuscripts, and to the Bärenreiter Verlag, from whom the musical examples in this book are drawn, for the use of the Neue Schubert Ausgabe. I am indebted to the Freundeskreis of the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe and the GeschwisterBoehringer-Stiftung für Geisteswissenschaften for their support of this publication. For their tireless efforts in correcting and proofreading the many drafts of the manuscript, I am deeply grateful to Professor Dr. Paul Mustacchio and Professor Dr. Hyun Höchsmann. Many thanks to Professor Dr. Raymond Holden and Ulrike Meyer, for their inspiration and encouragement in pursuing musicological studies, and to Jonathan Del Mar, for his help and kindness in advising on the piano repertoire of the Nineteenth Century. For his performance of D 625 and pianistic introduction to D 459, without which this work would not exist, I am grateful to Professor Dr. Péter Nagy. Many thanks to Anni, Stephi, Caro, and Rose, for their friendship and providing patience, commiseration, and a calming presence in difficult moments. I acknowledge the help of so many others whose assistance has been invaluable. Finally, I thank my parents, for their unfailing encouragement and support for all of my endeavours.

Table of Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 The Aesthetic Fragment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I. Historically Conditioned Prominence of the Fragment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II. Typologies of the Fragment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III. Schubert Fragments: Desideratum of a Musical Typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IV. Completion and the Fragment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13 13 19 23 33

Schubert’s Piano Sonata Fragments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 I. Schubert Fragment Typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 II. Absence-Centred Fragmentology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 The Early Piano Sonatas: 1815–1817 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 I. Emergent Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 II. The Fragmentary Sonatas: February 1815 to June 1817 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 D 154 and D 157 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I. Compositional History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II. D 154 and D 157 in Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III. A Change in the Elucidation of Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IV. A Continuous Compositional Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V. A Novel Unconventionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VI. Form in D 157/2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII. Cyclical Projections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VIII. Integration of the Menuetto and Trio in a Large-Scale Cyclical Form . . . . . . . IX. The First Sonatas: A Paradigm of the Sonata Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

59 59 61 67 72 73 77 80 83 84

D 279 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I. Compositional History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II. Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III. Early Recapitulatory Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IV. D 279/2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

86 86 91 94 96

8 V. VI. VII. VIII. IX.

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Processes of Unification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Menuetto and Trio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Lost Movement or an Unfinished Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Harmonic Experimentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fragmentation at a Harmonically Significant Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

99 101 108 113 121

D 459 and D 459A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I. Compositional History and Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II. Cyclical Fragmentation and Formal Projections in D 459 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III. D 459/2: Allegro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IV. The Recapitulation of D 459/2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V. Musical Justifications for the Scherzo as a Title for D 459/2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VI. D 459A: An Unknown Sonata? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII. D 459A: Intrinsic Cyclical Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VIII. Resonances Between E major and C major as Tonal Centres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX. Cyclical Interconnections and the Fünf Clavierstücke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X. Conclusion: Musical Plausibility as a United Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

123 124 127 131 139 147 151 158 165 172 176

D 566 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I. Schubert’s View of Beethoven as a Composer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II. Compositional Background and Publication History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III. Cyclical Incompletion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IV. Alternate Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V. Interpretative Approaches to the Fragmentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VI. Coexistence of Structural Projections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

178 178 183 185 191 196 201

D 567 and D 568 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 I. Compositional History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 II. A Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 III. Compositional Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 IV. Fragmentation and Incompletion in D 567 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 A Fruitful Crisis: 1817–1818 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 I. Compositional Evolution in a Chronological Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 II. ‘Jahre der Krise’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 III. A New Type of Sonata Fragment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 D 571 and D 570 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 I. Manuscripts and Fragmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 II. Cyclical Unity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 III. Motivic Unity Across Structural Areas in D 571 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

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IV. V. VI.

9

A Modality of Cyclical Fragmentation: Middle Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 Subdominant Recapitulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Unfinished Movements and Fragment Reception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

D 613 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 I. Compositional History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 II. Cyclical Implications of Harmonic Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 III. Enervation of Form in D 613/1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 IV. Formal Functions of Mediant Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 V. Sources of Fragmentation in D 613 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 D 625 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 I. Fragmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292 II. Beethovenian Influences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 III. Consequences of Internal Fragmentation for D 625/1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 IV. Structure and Motivic Distinction in D 625/1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 V. Tripartite Exposition Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 VI. A Fragmentary Aesthetic in D 625 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314 VII. Scherzo and Trio D 625/2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 VIII. Finale D 625/3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 D 655 and D 769A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 I. Compositional Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332 II. D 655 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 III. D 769A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343 D 840 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350 I. A New Fragment Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 II. D 840/4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 III. Fragmentation and Completion in D 840/3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362 IV. Cyclical Cohesion: D 840/2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 V. D 840/1: An Aesthetic of the Fragmentary and Formal Completion . . . . . . . 367 VI. D 840/1: Generation of Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370 VII. Harmonic Duality and Mediant Relations in D 840/1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379 VIII. Dissociation of the Recapitulation in D 840/1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383 IX. The Coda of D 840/1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399 I. A New Sonata Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399 II. Fragments Approach the Boundaries of Form and Compositional Possibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

10

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Appendix: Unattached Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407 I. Primary Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407 II. Secondary Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415 Persons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415 List of Works (Other Composers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416 List of Works (Franz Schubert) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

Introduction The piano sonata was one of many representative genres in the composition of largescale cyclical works from the second half of the eighteenth century and remained prominent throughout the nineteenth century. It was widely-known and characterised by technical considerations and developments in the instrument for which it was conceived, and for Franz Schubert it offered the ability to engage with large questions of form and structure without the more time consuming work of composing in full score for a symphony orchestra, or the lesser notational demands of writing for chamber ensembles. However, among the compositions of Schubert, the piano sonatas remain overshadowed by his output of lieder. In their reception, the piano sonatas of Schubert are not seen as a closed work group; approximately half of the sonatas for solo piano are relatively unknown, due to their unfinished status. The aura of completion, not only as a single work but as a representative oeuvre, is absent in Schubert’s sonatas. Unlike the ‘Old Testament’ of Bach’s Wohltemperiertes Klavier and the ‘New Testament’ of Beethoven’s thirty-two piano sonatas (Hans von Bülow), Schubert’s sonatas for solo piano are not received as being a similarly monumental achievement. Alone the question of the number of piano sonatas, in the case of Schubert’s compositions uncertain to this day, represents the differences between these work groups, not only in reception but in their physical existence and unambiguous fulfilment of a Werkbegriff. In contrast to those of Beethoven, Schubert’s piano sonatas remained largely unknown and unpublished during his lifetime, which added to the obscurity which still surrounds the genre in the context of his larger compositional achievements. For Schubert, the challenges and momentum towards innovation involved in the composition of the piano sonata were prevalent from the beginning of his engagement with the genre in 1815 until the composition of the last fragmentary sonata, D 840, in 1825. This is reflective of a larger transition in the historical position of the piano sonata as a large-scale compositional form, as Schubert was the first composer who ‘[…] approached the form at a time at which its crisis was already clearly recognisable and a

12

Introduction

number of important composers for the piano had distanced themselves from it.’1 The fragmentary sonatas are associated with this transition and conditioned by a desire for formal and musical renewal. The intensity of the connection between Schubert’s piano sonatas and their status as incomplete or fragmentary works results not only from the number of affected compositions, but also in the essential and hitherto overlooked function of these fragmentary works in his compositional development. Additionally, biographical associations and the reception of two ‘archetypal’ works, the Symphony in B minor D 759 and the Sonata in C major D 840 (‘Reliquie’) assisted in establishing Schubert’s position as a composer uniquely associated with an unintended aesthetic of fragmentation. The fragmentary sonatas for solo piano are united by the presence of an experimental compositional impulse, which manifests in an intersection of a formal paradigm with innovative and individual musical content. In many of the fragmentary sonatas, the incompletion of the cyclical structure or of individual movements may be associated with the function of the piano sonata as an exploratory genre. The purpose of the following study is to present a tripartite examination of these sonatas, conditioned by philological, analytical, and fragment-aesthetic conditioned convergences. A contextualisation of the current understanding of aesthetic fragments provides a foundation for the basis of a fragment concept specifically dedicated to the study of the fragmentary sonatas, which unites the aesthetic and generalised approach to the study of fragments with musicologically informed terminologies. The incomplete piano sonatas present unique aspects of structure and fragmentation, which are particularly associated with Schubert’s individual reception of the form. In order to comprehend the progression in compositional practice and the approach to questions of musical form and content, it is necessary to make comparisons to works which are chronologically removed from the main subject of each chapter, looking forwards and backwards to evoke a sense of context. For the study of the fragmentary sonatas, the engagement with what is not present is as decisive as an analysis, musical and philological, of the extant material and historical and biographical context. The centrality of the fragment concept to this work is based upon the ineluctable necessity of approaching the absence inherent in fragmentary forms in its potential for projection of unrealised but immanent content.

1

Arnfried Edler, Gattungen der Musik für Tasteninstrumente., ed. by Siegfried Mauser, Handbuch der musikalischen Gattungen, 7,2 (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 2003), p. 218. ‘[…] sich der Gattung zu einem Zeitpunkt näherte, als deren Krise bereits deutlich erkennbar war und eine Reihe von wichtigen Klavierkomponisten sich von ihr abgewandt hatten.’

The Aesthetic Fragment I. Historically Conditioned Prominence of the Fragment The twentieth century is marked by revolutionary developments in the conceptualisation and reception of the phenomenon of the fragment, which continues to be widely debated across the boundaries of disciplines and aesthetic genres. The dynamic and historically conditioned trajectory of gradual shifts in the aesthetic evaluation and approach to fragments can be traced in ongoing philosophical discussions.1 2 3 The process of ‘idealisation’ of the fragment in the twentieth century rests largely upon the ideas of three authors. Walter Benjamin: This, in fact, destroys what remains in all beautiful illusion as the heritage of chaos: the false, erring totality  – the absolute. Only this completes the work, which shatters it to piecework, to fragments of the true world, to the torso of a symbol.4

Ernst Bloch: But equally, and that is still the decisive other, the decisive truth  – all great art shows the complacent and homogenous in its preconceived coherence fractured, broken open, opened by its own iconoclasm, where the immanence is not driven to formal and contentual closure, where it still presents itself as fragmentary. There it opens – entirely incomparable with the simply accidental aspects of the fragmentary in an avoidable sense – an1 2 3 4

Eberhard Ostermann, Das Fragment. Geschichte einer ästhetischen Idee (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1991), pp. 193–94. Konrad Ehrlich, ‘Fragmente zur Pragmatik des Fragments’, in Formen ins Offene. Zur Produktivität des Unvollendeten, ed. by Hanna Delf von Wolzogen and Christine Hehle (Berlin, Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2018), pp. 21–34. Wolfgang Schorn, Fragmentologie der Musik. Eine ontologisch-begriffsanalytische Studie (Phil. Diss. Saarbrücken, 2011). Walter Benjamin, ‘Goethes Wahlverwandschaften’, in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser, 7th edn (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2015), i, 123–202 (p. 181). ‘Dieses nämlich zerschlägt was in allem schönen Schein als die Erbschaft des Chaos noch überdauert: die falsche, irrende Totalität – die absolute. Dieses erst vollendet das Werk, welches es zum Stückwerk zerschlägt, zum Fragmente der wahren Welt, zum Torso eines Symbols.’

14

The Aesthetic Fragment

other cavity which is objective, highly objective, with unrounded immanence. And precisely there the aesthetic-utopic meanings of the beautiful, even the sublime, show their activities. Only the shattered within all too satisfied art work, imbued with a gallery-resonance, turned to a plain objet d’art or, far better: the already self-created openness in the greater artistic entities, transforms the material and the form to a chiffre of reality.5

Theodor W. Adorno6 found that the fragmentary form of a work of art is a negative expression of its historical contingency, which in different philosophical constructions receives a positive value.7 The completely successful work is therefore not only an artefact, but a reflection of a meaningful world-totality. But when Adorno set Hegel upon his head (‘the whole is the untrue’), then this was not only ideological criticism of the intact-world-posturing, but also an objection against the all too obligatory cult surrounding the ‘masterpiece’, doubt of the invoked illusion of the ‘true, beautiful, good’. Such distrust of the integrally autonomous aesthetic product is already found in the early Romantic (F. Schlegel, Novalis) […].8

Adorno’s approach to the aesthetic of the fragmentary has a particular relevance for the study of Schubert’s music, although it has hitherto remained unexamined in the context of the fragmentary and unfinished compositions: It is struck […] as the reality from its reflection; as a photograph is ‘well struck’ when it resembles a person, so ‘well struck’ are the Schubertian inspirations after their everlasting

5

6 7 8

Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip Hoffnung, 7th edn (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980), p. 253. ‘Doch ebenso, und das eben ist das entscheidend Andere, entscheidend Wahre – zeigt alle große Kunst das Wohlgefällige und Homogene ihres werkhaften Zusammenhangs überall dort gebrochen, aufgebrochen, vom eigenen Bildersturm aufgeblättert, wo die Immanenz nicht bis zur formalinhaltlichen Geschlossenheit getrieben ist, wo sie sich selber als noch fragmenthaft gibt. Dort öffnet sich – ganz unvergleichbar mit bloßer Zufälligkeit des Fragmentarischen im vermeidbaren Sinn – noch ein Hohlraum sachlicher, höchst sachlicher Art, mit ungerundeter Immanenz. Und gerade darin zeigen die ästhetisch-utopischen Bedeutungen des Schönen, gar Erhabenen ihren Umgang. Nur das Zerbrochene im allzu gestillten, mit Galerieton versetzten Kunstwerk als einem zum bloßen Objet d’art gewordenen oder aber, weit besser: das selber bereits gestaltet Offene im großen Kunstwesen gibt das Material und die Form zu einer Chiffre des Eigentlichen.’ Theodor W. Adorno, Ästhetische Theorie, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, Gesammelte Schriften, 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970), p. 283. Ostermann, p. 133. Gerhard R. Koch, ‘Aller Anfang ist schwer, erst recht das Ende. Die Geschichte der Kunst ist auch die der großen Torsi – Der Fragment-Virus schleicht sich ins Werk ein’, Österreichische Musikzeitschrift, 70 (2015), 6–12 (p. 6). ‘Das vollkommen gelungene Werk ist demnach nicht nur Artefakt, sondern Abbild eines sinnvollen Weltganzen. Aber wenn Adorno Hegel vom Kopf auf die Füße stellte (“Das Ganze ist das Unwahre”), dann war dies nicht nur Ideologiekritik am Heile-WeltGetue, sondern auch Einspruch wider den allzu obligaten Kult ums “Meisterwerk”, Zweifel am beschworenen Schein des “Wahren, Schönen, Guten”. Solches Misstrauen gegenüber dem integral autonomen ästhetischen Produkt findet sich schon in der frühen Romantik (F. Schlegel, Novalis) […]’.

Historically Conditioned Prominence of the Fragment

15

model, from whose eternality they retain the traces often enough, as if they were always there and only discovered […] to act as a sign of the accuracy; a hole in the foreground of the form, which is aimed at, and simultaneously shining through to the unattainable true form, Schubert’s themes are asymmetrical, in early mockery of the architecture of tonality. In their irregularity, the autonomy of the ‘struck’ image asserts itself over the abstract will of pure form-immanence; in the structure of subjective intentions and their historically imposed style correlates, though, it creates legitimate breaks: so the work must remain a fragment.9

Here it appears that the fractured nature of an aesthetic modernity and the primacy of the fragment as an expression of the impossibility of totality is drawn into correlation with the Schubertian method of juxtaposing an established, immanent form with individual musical content. The twentieth century ideal of the fragment expressed by Adorno and the philosophers of the Frankfurt School is not directed by an interest in musical incompletion, but is nevertheless relevant to the study of Schubert’s compositions and indicates the possibility of an intersection between the fragmentary aesthetic, observed in the musical content and formal approach of the completed works, and the state of incompletion which defines the fragmentary piano sonatas. A concentration upon the philosophical thought of the ‘Frankfurt School’ is deliberate: the dialectic present between fragmentation and totality in these aesthetic considerations of the potentiality of the fragment is particularly suited to the formal tensions arising from an incomplete or unfinished composition which aspires to a tenuously projected formal model of completion. The piano sonata fragments of Schubert demand an aesthetic approach which reflects the delicate balance of formal projection and totality against their fragmented material, and this is best reflected in the aesthetic approach to fragments found in the writings cited above. In parallel to the aesthetic value attached to aspects of fragmentation, a series of new developments in the approach to the fragmentary is evident in both musicological research and composition. Its importance as an aesthetic concept and a categorydefining descriptor has become increasingly prominent. The music of the latter half of 9

Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Franz Schubert’, in Musikalische Schriften IV. Moments Musicaux, Impromptus, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, Gesammelte Schriften, 17, 2nd edn (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1990), pp. 18–33 (p. 28). ‘Es ist getroffen zugleich […] wie das Wirkliche vom Abbild; wie eine Photographie “gut getroffen” ist, wenn sie einer Person ähnelt, so gut getroffen sind die Schubertschen Einfälle nach ihrem unvergänglichen Vorbild, von dessen Ewigkeit sie oft genug die Spuren noch bewahren, als seien sie selbst stets schon dagewesen und nur aufgedeckt […]. Zum Zeichen des Getroffenseins; Loch im Vordergrund der Form, auf die gezielt ward, und zugleich durchscheinend zur unerreichbaren wahren Form sind Schuberts Themen asymmetrisch, in frühem Hohn auf die Architektur der Tonalität. In ihrer Unregelmäßigkeit setzt die Autonomie des getroffenen Bildes über dem abstrakten Willen zur puren Formimmanenz sich durch; ins Gefüge der subjektiven Intentionen und ihrer geschichtlich gesetzten Stilkorrelate jedoch legt sie rechtmäßig Brüche: so muß das Werk Fragment bleiben.’

16

The Aesthetic Fragment

the twentieth century engaged increasingly with literary fragments, as in works such as the Kafka Fragments10 11 (György Kurtág, 1985–1987) and Fragmente – Stille. An Diotima (Luigi Nono, 1980).12 In more recent times, Aribert Reimann’s Fragments de Rilke (2019) is a notable example. These compositions have engaged the attention of musicological research13 and have further intensified the exploration of the phenomenon of fragmentation. Musical fragments have also been of interest to contemporary composers:14 Schubert’s fragmentary Symphony in D major D 936A is incorporated into a new development in the late-twentieth-century engagement with fragments. Luciano Berio not only treats the fragment as the basis for a new work, but contributes to the blurring of boundaries between individual works15 and compositional genres by incorporating elements and musical reflections originating in roughly contemporaneous compositions: Berio expands the effects of fragmentation in his composition, in that fleeting references to other works (the Klaviertrio D 898 and Winterreise D 911) resonate in the voids where Schubert left the work incomplete. Herein the differentiation in perceptions of the fragment, between a search for a reproductively-defined ‘authenticity’ and a reception of the fragment as an aestheticised entity, is apparent: On the contrary, Berio’s compositional occupation with the sketches to a planned symphony were directed at the ‘restored truth of the bygone’, but not in the sense of a reconciliation and glorification, also not under the aspect of a supposed authenticity of the restored, but more in the sense of a clarification of our current relation to Schubert’s music – the fully formulated as well as the roughly sketched, the real as well as the virtual. In this respect, the attempt at fabrication of the musicologist, who reconstructs a performable score from the extant sketched material, inevitably diverges from the re-composition of the same material by a composer.16 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Márta Grabócz and Jean-Paul Olive, Gestes, fragments, timbres: La musique de György Kurtág en l’honneur de son 80e anniversaire Actes du colloque des 29, 30 et 31 mai 2006 à l’Institut hongrois de Paris (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006). Peter Szendy, ‘“Es klingt hübsch”: Sept fragments sur György Kurtág’, in György Kurtág: Entretiens, textes, écrits sur son œuvre, ed. by Philippe Albèra (Genève: Contrechamps, 1995), pp. 185–91. Nicola Gess, ‘Dichtung und Musik. Luigi Nonos Fragmente – Stille, An Diotima’, MusikTexte: Zeitschrift für Neue Musik, 65, 1996, 18–30. Stefan Drees, ‘Architektur und Fragment. Studien zu späten Kompositionen Luigi Nonos’, ed. by Dietrich Kämper, Die Musikforschung, 53 (2000), 490–91 (pp. 490–91). Stefan Drees, ‘Erinnerungen mit Beethoven. Kagels Fragment-Hommage in der “MusikzimmerSzene” von Ludwig van (1969–70)’, Collected Work: Mauricio Kagel. II. (AN: 2009–11126)., 120, 2009, 53–56. Wilfried Gruhn, ‘Schubert spielen. Berios sinfonische Ergänzungen zu Schuberts Sinfonie-Fragment D 936a’, Musica, 44 (1990), 290–96 (p. 293). Gruhn, p. 290. ‘Berios kompositorische Beschäftigung mit den Skizzen zu einer geplanten Sinfonie hingegen zielte auf die “wiederhergestellte Wahrheit am Vergangenen”, nicht aber im Sinne von Versöhnung und Verklärung, auch nicht unter dem Aspekt vermeintlicher Authentizität des Wiederhergestellten, sondern eher im Sinne der Aufklärung über unser heutiges Verhältnis zu Schu-

Historically Conditioned Prominence of the Fragment

17

In addition to an interest in compositions which engage deliberately with an aesthetic defined by fragmentary aspects and analogous to developments in historical and sociological research,17 musicology had begun to expand its focus from the examination of isolated and extraordinary figures, whether composers or single works, as the most significant and representative actors from whom a historically-conditioned approach to an ‘objective’ statement of the past could be created. For some considerable time, the subject has increasingly engaged with the ‘context’ surrounding the composers and compositions which were the first recipients of attention from the ‘comparatively young science’18 of musicology. […] it is now the time to study the works which remained incomplete more closely. It is not sufficient to concentrate on single preeminent works; the type ‘fragment’ must be established as its own, fully equal category.19

1. Historical Development of Fragments An exploration of the nature of the fragment in Schubert’s work can begin with an examination of the terminology and models of fragment studies which have emerged in the last century. The rising interest in the fragment is conditioned by the fact that it is considered in a dynamic opposition to completion: The ideological, affirmative, which is associated with the concept of the successful art work has its corrective therein, that there are no perfect works. If they existed, reconciliation within the unreconciled would be possible, a state which belongs to art. Therein, art would nullify its own concept: the turn to fragility and fragmentation is in truth an attempt to save art through removal of the demand that it should be what it cannot be and what it must nevertheless strive towards; both of these moments are present in the fragment.20

17 18 19

20

berts Musik – der ausgearbeiteten wie der in Skizzen entworfenen, der realen wie der virtuellen. Insofern unterscheidet sich zwangsläufig der Herstellungsversuch des Musikwissenschaftlers, der aus dem vorliegenden Skizzenmaterial eine spielbare Partitur rekonstruiert, von der Re-Komposition desselben Materials durch einen Komponisten.’ Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History, ed. by David R. Sorensen and Brent E. Kinser (New Haven ; London: Yale University Press, 2013), pp. 2, 15. Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert. Das fragmentarische Werk (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2003), p. 13. ‘[…] vergleichsweise junge Wissenschaft […]’. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 13. ‘[…] ist es nun an der Zeit, auch die unvollendet gebliebenen Werke eingehender zu studieren. Es genügt dafür nicht, sich auf einzelne herausragende fragmentarische Werke zu beschränken; der Typus “Fragment” muss als eigene, vollwertige Kategorie eingeführt werden.’ Adorno, Ästhetische Theorie, p. 283. ‘Das Ideologische, Affirmative am Begriff des gelungenen Kunstwerks hat sein Korrektiv daran, daß es keine vollkommenen Werke gibt. Existierten sie, so wäre tatsächlich die Versöhnung inmitten des Unversöhnten möglich, dessen Stand die Kunst angehört.

18

The Aesthetic Fragment

This perspective is maintained throughout the twentieth century, and the oppositional roles assigned to the aesthetic models of fragmentation and totality may be a reason for the preoccupation with the fragmentary: We have the greatest enjoyment of fragments, as we feel the greatest enjoyment of life when we view it as a fragment, and how terrible is the complete for us, fundamentally how terrible is finished perfection. Only when we are fortunate enough to make something complete, something finished, yes, something perfect, into a fragment, when we approach it in order to read it, we have great, yes, under certain circumstances, the greatest enjoyment of it. Our era in totality has been unbearable for quite some time, he said. Only there, where we see the fragment, is it bearable for us.21

The role of the fragment is considered as being implicitly related to the impossibility of a convincing experience of totality: however, an unattainable and aesthetically envisaged totality had been considered problematic before the beginning of the modern era. ‘Since Rousseau, but at the latest since the Romantic Period, the thought of totality is linked to the melancholy of that which is irretrievable.’22 The value placed upon fragments and the aesthetic of the fragmentary arises directly from this progression away from an unquestioning acceptance of totality and completion as the highest aims and a more nuanced engagement with an artistic or creative teleology, expanded beyond the purpose of creating utopic and idealised forms to include experientially conditioned response to aspects of scientific, socio-cultural and historical changes. The place of the fragment in art is increasingly that of a reflection of a ‘splintered world’,23 but the fracture occurred before the rise of the romantic fragment and provided an impulse towards it: ‘the state of the splintered world is far from a negative fantasy of romanticism but a substantive effect of the analytical spirits of the modern era and particularly the Enlightenment.’24

21

22

23 24

In ihnen höbe Kunst ihren eigenen Begriff auf; die Wendung zum Brüchigen und Fragmentarischen ist in Wahrheit Versuch zur Rettung der Kunst durch Demontage des Anspruchs, sie wären, was sie nicht sein können und was sie doch wollen müssen; beide Momente hat das Fragment.’ Thomas Bernhard, Alte Meister (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003), p. 41. ‘Die höchste Lust haben wir ja an den Fragmenten, wie wir am Leben ja auch dann die höchste Lust empfinden, wenn wir es als Fragment betrachten, und wie grauenhaft ist uns das Ganze und ist uns im Grunde das fertige Vollkommene. Erst wenn wir das Glück haben, ein Ganzes, ein Fertiges, ja ein Vollendetes, zum Fragment zu machen, wenn wir daran gehen, es zu lesen, haben wir den Hoch- ja unter Umständen den Höchstgenuß daran. Unser Zeitalter ist als Ganzes ja schon lange Zeit nicht mehr auszuhalten, sagte er, nur da, wo wir das Fragment sehen, ist es uns erträglich.’ Manfred Frank, ‘Das “fragmentarische Universum” der Romantik’, in Fragment und Totalität, ed. by Lucien Dällenbach and Christian L. Hart Nibbrig (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984), pp. 212–24 (p. 212). ‘Seit Rousseau, spätestens aber seit der Romantik ist der Gedanke der Totalität verbunden mit der Wehmut des Unwiderbringlichen.’ Frank, p. 220. ‘Der Zustand der zersplitterten Welt […]’. Frank, p. 220. ‘Der Zustand der zersplitterten Welt ist keineswegs einen Negativ-Phantasie der Romantik, sondern ein realer Effekt des analytischen Geistes der Neuzeit und besonders der Aufklärung.’

Typologies of the Fragment

19

The semantic broadness of the term ‘fragment’ has arisen over centuries and rests on concomitant developments in aesthetic and philosophical thought. The changes in the aesthetic worth of the fragment are primarily related to an increase in its perceived value and a resulting inclusion in contemporary ideals of beauty:25 the way in which a society reflects its own existence through creative expressions became increasingly open to the idea of a perfection which was not primarily predicated on completion, or wholeness, and harmony. This development is largely due to an augmented interest in the art of the past and, from the Renaissance, the ‘[…] rise of aesthetic subjectivity […] as part of a general and positive revaluation of sensual experience […]’26 which was altered in an attempt at the ‘legitimisation’ of the fragment during the early Romantic Period: ‘this development begins with the attempt of the early Romantic Period to transfer the utopian promise of the classical art ideal […] into the historical aspiration of a “classicism which grows without boundaries” (Friedrich Schlegel, KA II, 183).’27 In the earlier studies of the fragment in antiquity, primarily determined by archaeological circumstance,28 unconformable, irreconcilable fractures and resulting structural openness, interpreted through the lens of an aesthetic devoted to wholeness, harmony, and completeness, could only be perceived as defects; perhaps in conjunction with new possibilities, but always in a context circumscribed by the primacy of wholeness and completion. During the course of the twentieth century, it is these characteristics which have become not only desirable but are upheld as aesthetic aspirations. The fragment is no longer seen in the context of an idealised completion, but has become itself an ideal. II. Typologies of the Fragment The transitional nature of the historically-conditioned concept of the fragment elicits two approaches to studying it as an aesthetic phenomenon: an internal, future-directed and creation-led perspective, which prioritises the intentionality of the fragment and its relation to its creator and the process of origin; and an external, past-directed and object-centred perspective which considers the fragment as a static entity and examines instead its identity-generating dialectical relations with objective and equally external forces. 25 26 27

28

Ostermann, p. 12. Ostermann, pp. 20–21. ‘[…] zur Idee eine eigenständigen ästhetischen Subjektivität läutern konnte […] im Zuge einer allgemeine Aufwertung der sinnlichen Erfahrung […]’. Ostermann, p. 101. ‘[…] ihre Legitimität umzudeuten. Diese Entwicklung beginnt mit dem Versuch der Frühromantik, die utopische Verheißung des klassischen Kunstideals […] in den historischen Anspruch einer “grenzenlos wachsenden Klassizität” (Friedrich Schlegel, KA II, 13) zu überführen.’ Ostermann, p. 12.

20

The Aesthetic Fragment

Both methods elucidate the relations between fragmentation and totality. They are essentially a-historically proposed,29 but produce individual models of fragmentation which are to some degree identifiable with the historical evolution of the fragment concept. They are directly relevant to the study of Schubert’s fragmentary piano sonatas, as they reflect the broader importance of an aesthetic consideration of the formal and musical effects of fragmentation and its intrinsic causes upon and within the sonatas. In addition, the aspects of compositional and historical fragmentation are inseparable from the historicised reception and transmission of the works and are deeply associated with the necessities of distinguishing a fragment-type based upon incompletion from a type based upon subsequent loss or damage to the manuscript artefacts upon which a once-complete composition was recorded. In the following table, the typologies of fragments are arranged in order of the degree to which the fragment is removed from a historicised context; detachment from a historically-directed fragment-type leads to a more direct and often intentional relationship to totality as a defining characteristic. All of the typologies presented emerge from twentieth century studies of the fragment as an aesthetic category unbounded by considerations of genre, and are distinguished by the position in which the fragments are viewed in the context of their relations to totality or a process of creation. Eberhard Ostermann treats the fragment as an aesthetic construct which is the subject of a historical-philosophical study centred upon its reception and integration into artistic and philosophical practice and discourse.30 In the ‘fragmentarisches Vorwort’31 to Fragment und Totalität, Lucien Dällenbach and Christian L. Hart Nibbrig consider the fragment as it is affected by the multiplicity of potential relationships to a more or less idealised totality. Michael Braun’s study of literary fragments leads to a typological distinction based upon the process by which the fragments attained their fractured status,32 and George Steiner’s ‘Das totale Fragment’33 places fragments in the context of production or creation and is focussed upon a progression defined by intentionality and the totality of fragmentation.

29

30 31 32 33

In that the varied typologies do not assert that a single fragment type is historically bound to a certain era; it is evident that the interest in the study of fragments is itself a historicised perspective, and the aspiration to a value-neutral examination of fragments, either individually or as categories, is a result of the modern and post-modern sublation of the fragment from negative associations regarding its divergence from an ideal of totality, also historically conditioned. Ostermann, pp. 12–13, 47, 48–49. Lucien Dällenbach and Christian L. Hart Nibbrig, ‘Fragmentarisches Vorwort’, in Fragment und Totalität, ed. by Lucien Dällenbach and Christian L. Hart Nibbrig (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984), pp. 7–17 (pp. 14–15). Michael Braun, Hörreste, Sehreste. Das literarische Fragment bei Büchner, Kafka, Benn und Celan (Köln: Böhlau, 2002), p. 17. George Steiner, ‘Das totale Fragment’, in Fragment und Totalität, ed. by Lucien Dällenbach and Christian L. Hart Nibbrig (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984), pp. 18–29 (pp. 18–19).

21

Typologies of the Fragment

Although the fragment cannot be entirely independent of a conceptual totality, regardless of whether the connection between the two is an adversarial or integrative relation,34 the modes by which authors have used the dialectic of fragmentation and totality in order to describe and categorise individual fragments are illuminating in their similarities and divergences. In the typologies of fragmentation, an element of deliberation and conscious desire to create a fragmentary work is visible (in the universal fragment, the total fragment, the fragment of conception, and the intentional fragment, all of which record a type of fragmentation which did not exist before the romantic conception of the fragment)35 which may be read as a historicised aesthetic progression, as in Ostermann’s typology, or completely ahistorical, as defined by the relation between a work and its creator (as in Steiner’s typology). Significantly, a realisation of the universality of the fragment concept and its potentiality to expand into divergent areas of aesthetic study is brought about by the comparative discussion of fragment typologies. Each of the four models contains certain parallels with all of the others, while remaining entirely distinct in its mode of prioritising the aspect of the fragment-object which is read as definitive for its existence as an aesthetic entity. Table 1 Fragment Table Historic-aesthetic Fragment Typology (Ostermann)

Totality-oriented Fragment Typology (Dällenbach and Nibbrig)

Fragmentationprocess Typology (Braun)

Creation-centred Typology (Steiner)

Archaeological Fragment The remnants of formerly complete whole after a process of decay or destruction. The earliest meaning and definition of the fragment concept.

Dissociated Fragment A part of a whole from which it is temporally dissociated, in that the whole no longer or does not yet exist.

Fragment of Tradition Part of a whole, which through an accident of transmission is no longer present.

Fragment of Destruction A work which, through a deliberate act of the creator, a censor, or persons believing their acts are in the interests of the author is deliberately destroyed. (This creates a circular link to the archaeological fragment.)

34 35

Dällenbach and Nibbrig, p. 14. Ostermann, pp. 47–49.

22 Historic-aesthetic Fragment Typology (Ostermann)

The Aesthetic Fragment

Totality-oriented Fragment Typology (Dällenbach and Nibbrig)

Incomplete Fragment An extant part of a work which was never completed, captured in the process of creation and ultimately intended as a complete and unified whole. Arose in the eighteenth century. Universal Fragment Concept of the fragment as an aesthetic form of equal worth, no longer defined by aspirations to completion, definitive for the Romantic fragment and the aesthetic approaches in the twentieth century.

Total Fragment the dissociation between fragment and totality is complete, the latter is no longer attainable or retrievable.

Fragmentationprocess Typology (Braun)

Creation-centred Typology (Steiner)

Fragment of Production Part of a forestalled whole, apprehended in its formation and never fully realised.

Biographical Fragment A work which was interrupted by its creator’s death.

Fragment of conception Part of a neverexistent, deliberately avoided whole.

Intentional Fragment A work demonstrating fragmentary characteristics or reference to fragmented forms, which is nonetheless complete in its extant form; an ironical undermining of the ideal of totality.

Temporary Fragment A part of a whole which is unquestionably complete and exists only as a dislocation; the fragment may lose its fragmentary characteristics and existence depending upon the ease with which one term moves into another (and may include archaeological fragments that are completed by as-yet undiscovered elements).

Through the use of four partly compatible models of fragmentation, it is possible to illuminate the directions in which an examination of fragmentary works may lead and extract the most fruitful possibilities. Emergent from this examination is the fact that the broader aesthetic discussion of fragmentation involves the definition and categorisation of fragment types through their relations to an external principle or process. Ad-

Schubert Fragments: Desideratum of a Musical Typology

23

ditionally, these externally-defined typologies share a common assertion, predicated upon the use of a dialectic of comparison: the state of fragmentation is, either with or without intention, conditioned by a deficit or absence. The function of the fragmentary piano sonatas in Schubert’s compositional development is not completely or accurately encompassed by a solely deficit-based fragment typology, and it is therefore necessary to develop and implement a fragment concept which is individually suited to the examination of Schubert’s fragmentary sonatas for solo piano and the possibilities which emerge from their formal and material condition. III. Schubert Fragments: Desideratum of a Musical Typology Musical fragments present a special case in the study of aesthetic fragments. The fragmentary typologies above offer distinct categories for fragmentation, without accommodating the possibility that a single work may manifest divergent and incompatible levels of fragmentation, or the multiplicity of totalities to which the fragment might relate. In comparison with the fragment concepts in other areas such as literature, visual art, or architecture, the main problem in musical works appears in the variable associations to divergent totalities towards which the fragment refers. What a fragment is in general is dependent upon what is detached or incomplete: the manuscript, the extant Niederschrift, or the work as a whole.36

These considerations present substantive reasons for developing a fragment typology which is based upon the musical artefacts to be studied. In addition, a focus on the fragmentary compositions of Schubert substantially reduces the range of categories which are relevant. Schubert was acquainted with some of the literary productions in which the Romantic fragment gained prominence37 38 and his certain interest in Friedrich Schlegel’s writing is demonstrated by his setting of several texts, most famously from the Abendröte between 1819 and 1823. However, it is unlikely that Schubert intended

36

37

38

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 22. ‘Im Vergleich mit den Fragmentbegriffen in anderen Bereichen wie Literatur, Bildende Kunst oder Architektur, besteht das Hauptproblem bei musikalischen Kunstwerken in den wechselnden Bezügen zu verschiedenartigen Totalitäten, auf die hin das Fragment bezogen ist. Was überhaupt Fragment ist, hängt davon ab, was abgebrochen ist: das Manuskript, die vorliegende Niederschrift, oder das Werk als Ganzes.’ Although they had several common acquaintances, Schubert first met Schlegel in 1825, at a spiritualist séance which occurred after the composition of the last fragmentary piano sonata, after Schlegel had distanced himself from the Romantic ideal. (See Rüdiger Safranski, Romantik: Eine deutsche Affäre (München: C. Hanser, 2007), p. 234.) Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 18.

24

The Aesthetic Fragment

to experiment with the deliberate composition of unconventional formal fragments. Viewed in the context of the aspirations expressed by the titles and content-conditioned genre-identification of the fragmentary piano sonatas, they conform to the fragment categories which are essentially identical to functional incompletion, whether as fragments of production, or biographically or archaeologically generated fragments. Therefore all of the fragmentary sonatas are contained in the earliest two categories of all four typologies, with the exception of the temporary fragment: they are primarily incomplete or dissociated fragments (which are temporarily or permanently separated from a once extant totality), or fragments of production, with the possibility that some are currently recognised, or may be subsequently revealed, as archaeological or dissociated fragments. In comparison to the overarching typologies which encompass fragmentary creations, regardless of their genre and medium, the examination of musical fragments of the early nineteenth century requires a more specific set of categories, which includes the nuances of relations between the multiplicity of totalities and fragment types which emerge from the compositional and receptional history of the works in question. 1. Schubert’s Fragmentary Compositions The compositional fragments of Franz Schubert have been at the centre of the broad spectrum of works which are being recognised as worthy of intensive study. Exemplary fragments and compositions which evince a degree of experiential formal closure while engaging with aspects of fragmentation have been examined from a perspective of historical developments of aesthetic principles. Focusing on individual works,39 new editions,40 and facsimiles,41 systematic investigations of the significance of the fragment within the oeuvre of the composer42 have clarified the function of the fragment in a compositional process and also as its existence a historically or aesthetically conditioned formal state, applicable to a composition as a whole. The newer research into fragmentary aspects in Schubert’s compositions does not appear in isolation. Schubert is a composer for whom the mythologising of incompleteness and the fragmentary, particularly in the biographical sense in that the fragments are records of a process which did not reach fulfilment but are equally capable of functioning ‘[…] from an eschatological perspective, as a springboard for the fantasy, 39 40 41 42

Richard Kramer, Unfinished Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). Paul Badura-Skoda, ‘Vorwort’, in Franz Schubert. Klaviersonaten Band 3, ed. by Paul Badura-Skoda (München: Henle, 1997), p. V–X. Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen, ‘Zur Bedeutung des Werks in Schuberts Sonatenschaffen’, in Franz Schubert. Reliquie Sonate in C für Klavier D 840, ed. by Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen (Tutzing: H. Schneider, 1992), pp. 7–42. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, pp. 63–75.

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25

as a seed of the future’,43 is central to the reception of his compositional legacy. Such attitudes, expanded from individual works to be applied in a biographical context to Schubert’s entire compositional oeuvre, were present immediately after his death, as Franz Grillparzer’s epitaph shows: He was close to the best as he died, and still he was hardly halfway along his path. Here, music buried a rich estate, but still more beautiful hopes.44

Unfinished compositions, most notably the Quartettsatz D  703, the Symphony in B minor D 759, and the Sonata in C major D 840, were prominent in the canonical repertoire and musicological discourse of the twentieth century. Although isolated and brief studies of Schubert’s unfinished piano sonatas began to appear in the earlier decades of the last century45 46 and have been sporadically present,47 often in context of discussions of completed works,48 throughout the subsequent period,49 research into the fragmentary sonatas for solo piano has hitherto considered them either through overarching and completist reviews of the Schubertian piano sonata,50 51 or in broader studies of the fragments. The last twenty years have been marked by two new approaches to the fragmentary in Schubert’s compositions, most notably the first systematic academic overview of the role of the manifold fragment-types in Schubert’s oeuvre.52 However, there is as yet no study of the unusual characteristics and unique function of the fragmentary piano sonatas in Schubert’s compositional development. Although they have been incorpo43 44

45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

Dällenbach and Nibbrig, p. 15. ‘[…] unter eschatologischer Perspektive, als Sprungbrett für die Phantasie, als Keim der Zukunft.’ Otto Erich Deutsch, Franz Schubert: Die Dokumente seines Lebens, 2nd edn (Leipzig and Kassel: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik and Bärenreiter-Verlag, 1954), p. 580. ‘Den besten stand er nahe als er starb, und doch war er kaum noch auf der Hälfte seiner Bahn. Die Tonkunst begrub hier einen reichen Besitz, aber noch viel schönere Hoffnungen.’ Adolf Bauer, ‘Scherzo aus der Klaviersonate e-moll ( Juny 1817) von Franz Schubert’, ed. by Bernhard Schuster, Die Musik, 21 (1928), 13–16. Ludwig Scheibler, ‘Schubert, Franz, Allegretto [E] für Klavier’, ed. by Alfred Heuß, Zeitschrift der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft, 8 (1906), 447–48. Fabio Bisogni, ‘Rilievi filologici sulle Sonate della maturità di Franz Schubert (1817–1828)’, Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, 11 (1976), 71–105. James Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form and Brahms’s First Maturity (II)’, 19th-Century Music, 3.1 (1979), 52–63 (p. 57). John Reed, ‘Schubert’s E Flat Piano Sonata: A New Date’, The Musical Times, 128 (1987), 483–87. Hans Költzsch, Franz Schubert in seinen Klaviersonaten, Reprint (Hildesheim, New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1976). Andreas Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts. Form, Gattung, Ästhetik (Kassel etc.: Bärenreiter, 1992). Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, pp. 77–111.

26

The Aesthetic Fragment

rated into studies of Schubert’s compositions for solo piano, they are distinct from the complete sonatas through the presence of compositional characteristics which set them apart. This is not only a result of the proportions in which they are represented, but the pivotal53 role that these fragments play in Schubert’s continued engagement with the sonata or multi-movement cyclical work as a formal construct. Irrespective of questions of genre and form, which serve only to emphasise the crucial nature of fragmentary compositions in studying Schubert’s music, it is apparent that ‘the priority of the question regarding fragments is particularly evident for Schubert’.54 2. Process-Oriented Typologies of Fragments and Manuscripts Fragment typologies which are based upon the practical necessities of musicological research are commonly the result of processes developed to describe and categorise the compositional artefacts of the fragments with which they are concerned, including autographs, contemporary or later copies, first editions, and other printed primary sources. These typologies are drawn from practical engagement with the physical records of aesthetic incompletion or historical fragmentation, and therefore evince resemblances to the process-driven aspects of more general aesthetic fragment typologies. The fragmentation process typology and the totality oriented processes are highly relevant, and are prominent in approaches which involve ‘reconstructing’ a musical fragment.55 The categories of the creation-centred fragment typology may seem less applicable, but in the musicological study of fragment typologies, the process of composition and the intentions of the composer (deemed implicit in the manuscripts and open to philological examination), are central. […] the rough draft of a poem, the notebook of a composer, the palimpsest of the attempted and once more discarded, that is visible beneath the finished work and appears

53

54 55

The term ‘pivotal’ is used to express the centrality of the fragmentary sonatas for solo piano to important compositional developments in Schubert’s integration of formal models and individual musical content. It is intended to signify that the evolutionary weight of the genre of the piano sonata, particularly expressed through the experimental fragments, contains the essence of Schubert’s highly individual formal and stylistic traits. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 13. ‘Bei Franz Schubert ist die Dringlichkeit der Frage nach den Fragmenten besonders evident […]’. For example, completions of D 840 are common among modern performing editions but increasingly prominent since the beginning of the twentieth century, including ‘compositional completions’ such as those by Ernst Krenek in 1921 (Otto Erich Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge (Kassel etc.: Bärenreiter, 1978), p. 530.) Such practices are also evident in approaches to the B minor Symphony D 759, and completions of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony and Mahler’s Tenth Symphony.

Schubert Fragments: Desideratum of a Musical Typology

27

far more imbued with the ‘authentic’ and the living pulse of creation and imagination than the smoothly polished opus, intended for the public.56

The fascination of the study of manuscripts brings a first encounter with musical fragments, regardless of the final state of the work, and a musicological terminology in which fragments are included arises from practical necessity. For a phenomenological study of the process of composition, clear terminological distinctions are necessary for the analysis of individual manuscripts and the stages of the working process to which they belong, and these produce a direct link between process- or creator-oriented fragment typologies and the evaluation of manuscripts. It remains therewith as a conclusion that the terminology to be used to describe the genesis of a composition should be meaningfully drawn from the working methods of the individual composers. Things are different for Schumann and Wagner, for Schubert they are not as they are for Hindemith, and for Beethoven certainly not as for Mozart.57

3. Schubert’s Fragmentary Manuscripts For Schubert, the study of fragments is important because of the considerable amount of his oeuvre which is in a certain sense fragmentary: based on an assessment of Schubert’s body of work at 1000 compositions,58 Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl estimates that 8.1 % of Schubert’s compositions are works which he left unfinished and a further 4.7 % are fragments of transmission.59 Among Schubert’s early years of composition, 1810 and 1811 are marked by a large portion of incomplete works (22.2 % and 29.4 % respectively), followed by two of the ‘years of crisis’ (1818–1823), 1820 and 1821 (20.0 % and 24.0 %). In 1828, the year of Schubert’s death, ‘the percentage of fragments is only slightly higher than the average.’60 The fragments are distributed through Schubert’s

56

57

58 59 60

Steiner, p. 24. ‘[…] die Rohfassung einer Dichtung, die Notizhefte eines Komponisten, das Palimpsest von Versuchtem und wieder Verworfenem, das unter dem fertigen Werk sichtbar wird und das “authentischer”, weit mehr vom Lebenspuls des Schöpferischen durchgedrungen zu sein scheint als das glattpolierte, für das Publikum bestimmte Opus.’ Wolfgang Plath, ‘Bemerkungen zum Thema “Skizze – Entwurf – Fragment”’, Die Musikforschung, 45 (1992), 275–78 (p. 278). ‘Es bleibt somit als ein Fazit, daß sich bei der Beschreibung des Werdens einer Komposition die zu verwendenden Termini sinnvollerweise jeweils aus der Arbeitsmethode des jeweiligen Komponisten ergeben sollten. Bei Schumann dürften die Dinge anders liegen als bei Wagner, bei Schubert anders als bei Hindemith, bei Beethoven sicherlich wieder anders als bei Mozart.’ Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 65. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 65. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 69. ‘[…] und im letzten Lebensjahr Schuberts liegt der Fragmentanteil nur leicht über dem Durchschnitt.’

28

The Aesthetic Fragment

active years of composition, with slight fluctuations (such as 1824, in which no works were left unfinished).61 Given that unfinished works are a substantial part of Schubert’s compositional practice, a constructive study of the fragments can enhance understanding of his music. Examples of a deliberate categorisation of Schubert’s fragmentary compositions as a matter of descriptive necessity, arising from the organisation of individual manuscripts and works, are found in the NGA Catalogue of Schubert’s works: We refer to a fragment as a composition which is transmitted incompletely or when it was notated in a large part, but not completely, by Schubert. If Schubert only drafted single lines or only sketched the beginning of a composition, we refer to it as a draft.62

In this description, the fragment is distinguished from the Entwurf, or draft, by means of its relatively advanced position in the compositional process. A certain length and degree of completion is present in the fragments, and the term also contains those works which may have been completed and became fragmentary through subsequent loss or damage of some elements.63 The Skizze, or sketch, is not distinguished from the Entwurf; this is in part due to the individuality of terminology arising from a single compositional model, as ‘[…] Schubert’s sketches do not portray the composer experimenting with various ideas from which a composition was to arise […]’.64 Furthermore, ‘in contrast to Beethoven, Schubert left very few sketches and very legible autograph scores.’65 As a result, the placement of the Skizze or Entwurf as less significant in Schubert’s compositional process remains the subject of discussion. The previous reference to Beethoven’s working methods is suggestive, as it demonstrates the persistence of comparisons to Beethoven in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In such comparisons, the fact that Schubert ‘[…] left very few sketches and very legible autograph scores’ and ‘[…] composed with greater speed and ease than Beethoven’ is taken as evidence of an ‘intuitive approach’ in which the preliminary work contained in the sketches or drafts from which Schubert always worked66 is neglected in order to propagate the image of an inspired young genius lacking formal training, methodical 61 62

63 64 65 66

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 69. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. XVIII. ‘Als Fragment bezeichnen wir eine Komposition, wenn sie unvollständig überliefert oder wenn sie von Schubert zwar zu einem großen Teil, jedoch nicht vollständig ausgeführt ist. Hat Schubert hingegen nur einzelne Stimmen entworfen oder nur den Beginn der Komposition skizziert, dann bezeichnen wir sie als Entwurf.’ The fragment terminology in the NGA catalogue is broad in its evaluation of structural completion, as the 38-bar first movement of D 769A is described as ‘Fragment des ersten Satzes’ (S. 463). Stephen Carlton, Schubert’s Working Methods: An Autograph Study With Particular Reference to the Piano Sonatas (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1981), p. 91. L. Michael Griffel, ‘A Reappraisal of Schubert’s Methods of Composition’, The Musical Quarterly, 63, 2 (1977), 186–210 (p. 186). Griffel, pp. 186, 192.

Schubert Fragments: Desideratum of a Musical Typology

29

working-methods, and what is most troubling, structural competence in composition. The confusion arises in part due to Schubert’s dynamic working methods, in which sketches and drafts are not carefully preserved, as in the case of Beethoven67 and perhaps due to a misreading of the manuscripts, as the existing autographs and final copies are not invariably ‘absolutely clean’.68 Other descriptors relevant to the categorisation of fragments and their position in the compositional process which occur in the NGA catalogue are ‘erste Niederschrift’, and ‘Reinschrift’, both of which are also applied to completed works. The majority of the fragmentary sonatas for solo piano are listed as erste Niederschrift69 or simply as ‘autograph’ without a categorical description of the status of the manuscript;70 due to the substantial length of most of these fragments, in combination with the deliberate use of ‘fragment’ in the context of much shorter torsi, or works of such brevity that the Werkbegriff is cast into doubt.71 This implies that the latter terms refer to advances on the continuum of completion.72 Earlier studies of the fragmentary compositions and manuscripts left by other composers have influenced the terminology developed to categorise Schubert’s works: the Skizze – Entwurf – fragment73 progression originating in the descriptions of Mozart’s compositional process conceives of each of its concomitant terms as stages in a process towards completion and that the equivalent for Schubert’s working method would be Entwurf – fragment – erste Niederschrift – Reinschrift.74 Roughly emerging from the terminology of the NGA is a linear progression: a ‘manuscript oriented’ process which is directed towards a ‘finished’ work, in which the fragment is placed a step above the Entwurf and exists in the compositional process after it is recognisably advanced but before it reaches a completion: The term ‘fragment’ refers to a musical text, which even though it is not finished, stands closer to the fictive completed work than the sketch [Skizze] and the draft [Entwurf]. Concretely, one can imagine that the composer, beginning with the sketch and the draft,

67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

Griffel, p. 186. Griffel, p. 210. D 154, D 157, D 566, D 567, D571/570, D 840. D 279, D 459, D 613, D 655, D 769A. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 49. This conclusion is supported by the absence of a Reinschrift sonata fragment manuscript in the NGA catalogue. From here, the German terminology is used without further elaboration, based upon the predominance of the German language Schubert research. English words which are identical to the German terminology (e. g. autograph, fragment) are left unitalicised for ease of reading. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 29.

30

The Aesthetic Fragment

worked on the notation of the complete score and breaks off precisely this process before the completion of the work.75

In the NGA catalogue however, the erste Niederschrift and Entwurf refer to manuscriptbased typologies and specific musical artefacts, whereas the Entwurf and fragment designate not only manuscripts, but are applied to the generalised relation of the extant musical material to a work-immanent totality. 4. Intentionality and Conception in the Skizze – Entwurf – Fragment Progression The wider frame of reference assigned to the term ‘fragment’ and its implications of a direct reference to totality acquires a new dimension when incorporated into musicological research. The fragment-category is defined both by a reference to an intended totality and by its relation to the process of creation, uniting two of the genre-independent typologies. In his discussion of the unfinished works of Mozart and Schubert, Christoph Wolff states that only works which, according to the evidence of the source material and ‘musical facture’, were intended to be finished and are recognisable as possessing the potential for completion should be referred to as fragments.76 This perspective is not completely accepted in the study of Schubert’s fragmentary compositions, and represents one extreme of which the opposition is a universalist acceptance of all works which contain a subjectively recognisable element of fragmentation regardless of their actual state of completion.77 The categorisation of fragmentary compositions is not well served by adherence to rigid typological divisions or a single and immutable criterion by which the fragment is distinguished from other manuscript types. In studying the fragmentary piano sonatas, it is the fact of incompletion in the context of a composition recognisably identifiable as aspiring to the genre and form of a sonata

75

76

77

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 28. ‘Der Terminus “Fragment” bezeichnet dabei einen musikalischen Text, der zwar noch unfertig ist, gegenüber Skizze und Entwurf dem fiktiven vollständigen Werk jedoch am nächsten steht. Konkret kann man sich vorstellen, dass der Komponist, von Skizze bzw. Entwurf ausgehend, an der Ausfertigung der kompletten Partitur arbeitet und genau diesen Prozess vor Fertigstellung des Werkes abbricht.’ Christoph Wolff, ‘Mozart und Schubert: Fragmentarisches Werk – vollendete Kunst’, in Mozart, Schubert – Fragment des Werkes, Fragment des Lebens?, ed. by Norbert Bolin (Stuttgart: Internationale Bach Akademie Stuttgart, 1991), pp. 14–27 (p. 19). ‘Als Fragment sollte nur eine solche Aufzeichnung gelten, die nach Ausweis der Quellenlage sowie der musikalischen Faktur zur Fertigstellung gedacht war […]’. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 104.

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31

for solo piano78 which is determinative, rather than an intention to compose a formally complete work or the attainment of a certain degree of notational substance. In order to avoid the question of compositional intention, which is frequently not verifiable from the extant material and is problematic for the manuscripts and other musical artefacts associated with the unfinished piano sonatas (some of which are only recorded in early editions), Stephen Carlton’s study of Schubert’s working methods with particular reference to the sonatas for solo piano proposes a linear progression oriented towards completion which is entirely based upon philological observations of the extant manuscripts. Carlton mostly conforms to the terminology established in the NGA, of which the sketch (for Carlton, an Entwurf) is the first level. In contrast to the terminological distinctions present in the NGA catalogue, which refer to many of the fragmentary sonatas for solo piano as ‘erste Niederschriften’, Carlton’s conception of the fragment is included in the sketch, as […] a draft of a composition lacking some element or elements required of a complete composition. Some sketches are complete in all components as far as the composition has been sketched, thus lacking only a continuation. This last type of sketch is difficult to distinguish from a fragment – that is, an incomplete autograph which preserves only a portion of some type of autograph document other than a sketch.79

The aspect of compositional intentionality remains present in this sketch-fragment category in the distinction between ‘closed’ and ‘open framework’ sketches: the former is notated so as to exclude the possibility of a later return to the manuscript in order to produce a completed draft, whereas the latter leaves space for a potential completion.80 The terminology continues to encompass the erste Niederschrift, which ‘differs from a sketch because it presents the complete musical text for a given work.’81 The philological aspects of a study of the manuscript are increasingly superseded by a completion-oriented progression, particularly as ‘[…] while handwriting is frequently an important factor in segregating autographs, it does not play much of a role in the identification of sketches.’82 In essence, the definitive element which separates the sketch from the first draft is that the latter is a representation of a complete work. In the distinction between the final stage of composition, the ‘fair copy’ (Reinschrift) and the ‘draft’, philological observations are once more determinative, as this type of manuscript is marked by aspirations to clarity and precision in the notation, although there is no universally

78 79 80 81 82

This is indicated by the presence of a title and an instrumentation which is either notated or obvious from the mode of composition: all of the fragmentary piano sonatas are clearly identifiable as such from the extant manuscripts and Abschriften. Carlton, p. 20. Carlton, pp. 21–22. Carlton, p. 68. Carlton, p. 21.

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The Aesthetic Fragment

applicable set of characteristics by which a ‘fair copy’ is recognisable.83 These terms are recognisably associated with a conception of function rather than one of substance. A generalised view of terminology applied to manuscript categorisation beyond the works of an individual composer results in a dichotomy between the completion and finality of versions which are intended for a wider audience, and the ‘private character’ of the sketch, draft, and fragment: […] all remaining terms, meaning ‘sketch’, ‘draft’, ‘fragment’, refer to something more or less unfinished and incomplete. However, it appears that definitions of the function and appearance, insofar as they aspire to a more general validity, are hardly possible. Take the sketch: when for example, it is and was said that the nature of a sketch is defined as it were by its private character and a (resulting) entirely specific sketch-like, viz. cursory and barely legible quick handwriting, and a sketch in ‘Reinschrift’ is a contradiction in itself: this is valid for Mozart and surely also in a large part for Beethoven.84

The division of ‘public’ and ‘private’ associated with a linear progression towards completion can facilitate an elucidation of the relations of completion and fragmentation from different perspectives, although the duality of the stages which proceed towards a point of completion and those in which it is recorded cannot be directly applied to Schubert’s manuscripts. Observations of divergent compositional practices, resulting in the addition of ‘revision’ (theoretically associated with an earlier compositional stage) following the completion of a fair copy,85 do not entirely undermine the linear aspects of the progression by which the manuscripts are categorised. The linear nature of the Entwurf – Niederschrift – Reinschrift progression is further cast into question by the fact that not all of the individual manuscript categories are necessarily present in the genesis of a single work, and the nuances of the process are based upon an individual work and should not be understood as a general determinative principle: The fact that Schubert’s initial procedure in the notation of a work resulted at times in a sketch [= Entwurf] and at times in a first draft [= 1. Niederschrift] suggest that it is inappropriate to define Schubert’s general working method in terms of the succession of a definite number and specific types of autographs.86

83 84

85 86

Carlton, p. 90. Plath, p.  277. ‘[…] beziehen sich alle übrigen Stichworte, also “Skizze”, “Entwurf ”, “Fragment”, auf etwas mehr oder weniger Unfertiges und Unvollständiges. Nur scheinen hier Definitionen der Funktion und Erscheinungsform, sofern sie auf allgemeinere Gültigkeit abzielen, kaum möglich. Nehmen wir die Skizze. Wenn beispielsweise gesagt wird und wurde, zum Wesen der Skizze gehöre ihr gleichsam privater Charakter und eine (infolgedessen) ganz spezifisch Skizzenartige, d. h. flüchtige und schwer lesbare Geschwindschrift, und eine Skizze in “Reinschrift” sei ein Widerspruch in sich selbst, so wird das jedenfalls für Mozart und sicherlich zum großen Teil auch für Beethoven gelten.’ Griffel, p. 190. Carlton, p. 95.

Completion and the Fragment

33

This view has consequences for the study of the manuscripts of the fragmentary piano sonatas; as is evident from the uncertainty surrounding their position in the linearlyoriented working process as sketches (Skizzen – but in Carlton’s terminology Entwurf) or first drafts (erste Niederschriften), they do not readily conform to a manuscript typology which is primarily oriented towards and defined by a progression in which completion is held as the teleological culmination. IV. Completion and the Fragment In a closer examination of the terminology and aesthetic associations which surround the fragment, it has become evident that the idea of the fragmentary is a complex constellation of various modalities of discourse pertaining to the relation of the fragment to completion and totality. However, although this perspective is central to a discussion of fragmentary compositions, it is constrictive to assume that totality is a unified and monolithic construct, particularly in the light of the emergent Schubert manuscript typology. The production of a fair copy is not necessarily synonymous with the conclusion of the working process, as the composition may be later subjected to revisions.87 This circumstance is by no means limited to the sonatas for solo piano and is prominent in the appearance of concurrent but divergent versions of the same Schubert lied.88 Beyond the works of Schubert, a similar openness in compositional processes is also apparent in the practice of including an ossia in the published, ‘final’ version of a work, used by composers such as Franz Liszt89 and Sergei Prokofiev, among many others. A more extensive example is found in the revision and re-composition of substantial elements of the Piano Trio in B major Op. 8 of Johannes Brahms, originating in 1854, in 1889. However, more flexibility in modes of composition and the determinant point of completion is not synonymous with the enervation of the Werkbegriff, which resulted from the Post-structuralists and remains current. The essential question of completion is centred upon precisely how much material must be absent in order to render a work ‘incomplete’ or ‘fragmentary’. Particularly in the case of Schubert, whose sonatas for solo piano were published posthumously, with the exceptions of D 845, D 850, and D 894 (published in 1826 and 1827 as Op. 42, Op. 53, and Op. 78), and therefore do not often provide indications regarding the point at which final revisions and preparation for a public presentation produced a sense of finality and closure in the working process, ‘completion’ in the sense of the presence of a universally valid and final version remains nebulous. The notational practice in 87 88 89

Griffel, p. 190. Timothy L. Jackson, ‘Schubert’s Revisions of “Der Jüngling Und Der Tod,” D 545a–b, and “Meeresstille,” D 216a–b’, The Musical Quarterly, 75 (1991), 336–61. Gerhard R. Koch, p. 8.

34

The Aesthetic Fragment

Niederschriften and the uncertainty regarding precise boundaries between individual manuscript types often involves the absence of all clefs and the key signature excepting the first stave and those necessary to indicate changes in the register. However, a manuscript which is musically complete cannot be considered a fragmentary or incomplete work upon these grounds. Completion is centred therefore not upon conventions of notational presence, but upon the perceived musical content of the work, which, in contrast to the fragment, should evince a single, valid, and final form, in which the possibility of further revisions is at least temporarily excluded. The ‘public character’90 of the Reinschrift offers an approximate determinant of a status of completion; therein a final form, if not the only final form,91 of the work is concretised. In the absence of a fixed text form, it is clear that a state of completion is not a stable and unambiguous contrast to the fluidity of the fragment construct; the possibility, often recorded in Schubert’s manuscripts, of returning to a composition to continue revising and refining its content, combined with the often-seen absence of a single definitive version of an individual work reveals that, like the continuum of potential realisations of fragmentary status, the completion of a work is also a continuum, which in certain cases allows an individual work to be considered as both complete and fragmentary. A notationally incomplete work may nevertheless be considered as factually or conceptually complete depending on the criteria upon which the work is evaluated. Ambiguity regarding the point at which the composer may have considered a work or single movement to be completed, regardless of the absence of substantial elements of its musical material, are of particular relevance to Schubert’s fragmentary piano sonatas due to the prominence of a notational and formal model in which the recapitulation of sonata-allegro movements is often absent. It is possible that a functional completion from the perspective of the composer, through the notation of the material necessary for a potential complete manuscript of the work, is not physically identical with the factual completion, which would be present in the notation of all of the material necessary to perform the work.92 As a result, the division between totality and fragment, although remaining an absolute, counterintuitively does not result in the terminology being mutually exclusive. In the examination of a dialectic relation between fragmentation and totality, it is necessary to assert that the context, particularly that arising from a philological and analytical approach to the individual works and their inherently expressed aspirations to a particular intended form, and the perspective in which the two oppositionally juxtaposed concepts are placed are of fundamental importance.

90 91 92

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 128. Plath, p. 276. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 63.

Schubert’s Piano Sonata Fragments I. Schubert Fragment Typology In addition to the newly revealed complexities of the intersection of fragments and completion, there are further difficulties in defining the concept ‘fragment’ in musical and musicological terms. The possibility of arriving at universally applicable and objective criteria to distinguish a fragment from a Skizze or Niederschrift, or from functionally and factually completed works seems remote. An unsustainable challenge to the linear consideration of fragments as an intervening state between genesis and completion arises from the fact that the vital distinctions between fragments of creation and fragments through destruction or decay are not considered in a linear, completion-oriented description. The variety of fragment types in Schubert’s work led Lindmayr-Brandl to develop the ‘intuitive fragment concept’1 to encompass the many aspects of fragmentation in Schubert’s oeuvre and reflect divergent statuses in relation to completion and totality. This fragment typology is derived from a neutral observation of the dichotomy between fragmentation and totality, and reinforces the significance of research on fragments: The intuitive understanding of fragments is closely associated with the original meaning of the word: a fragment is everything which appears incomplete or broken off in some aspect. The opposition ‘fragmentary – complete’ is treated neutrally in light of this observation, viz. the fragment is equivalent and equally requires the intensive attention of research. If one searches for understanding of the creative spirit, one will in many cases find extensive insights, especially with fragments.2

1 2

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 40. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, pp.  13, 40. ‘Das intuitive Fragmentverständnis lehnt sich eng an die ursprüngliche Wortbedeutung an: Fragment ist alles, was in irgendeinem Aspekt als unvollständig oder abgebrochen erscheint. […] Der Gegensatz “fragmentarisch – vollendet” wird im Lichte dieser Betrachtung wertfrei behandelt, d. h. das Fragment wird gleichwertig und bedarf gleichermaßen der intensiven Zuwendung der Forschung. Sucht man Verständnis für den kreativen Geist, so wird man besonders bei Fragmenten in vielen Fällen zu weitreichenden Erkenntnissen kommen.’

36

Schubert’s Piano Sonata Fragments

In this sense, the study of Schubertian fragments encompasses all works which display aspects or elements of fragmentation, regardless of their final status. For a study of the piano sonatas, which are not only fragmentary but also notationally and factually incomplete, the typological categories which are relevant are the ‘Überlieferungsfragment’ (fragment of transmission) in which parts of the manuscript records of the once-completed work were subsequently lost or damaged, resulting in an incomplete composition, and the ‘Kompositionsfragment’ (compositional fragment) in which the ‘[…] autograph documents not only the abandonment of a stage in the compositional process, but simultaneously the abandonment of the composition itself.’3 1. Fragmentary Piano Sonatas in New Research and Aesthetic Developments The fragmentary sonatas for solo piano are almost entirely concentrated among the compositional fragments and offer a possibility of studying works which have not been the subject of a concentrated and detailed examination outside of generalised studies of the piano sonatas. A closer examination of their commonalities is capable of offering insights into Schubert’s development as a composer and the manner in which he arrived at the individual integration of form and subjective musical content for which he is renowned. Musicological and compositional interest in the fragment, associated with rising status as a subject for philosophical and aesthetic examination in the twentieth century, is revealed in newer studies which are centred upon Schubert4 or prominently include individual compositions.5 This body of work has demonstrated the importance of establishing the fragment as an autonomous category in musicology and musical research, creating a new field for discussion and examination and a context in which to explore the compositional process or historical understanding of form. Simultaneously, Schubert as a composer of piano sonatas has been the subject of musicological attention since the beginning of the twentieth century,6 7 8 9 in increasingly specialised and focused approaches to the manuscripts and varied analyses of the music itself. Studies of Schubert and his approach to form and harmonic structures as

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p.  45. ‘[…] Autograph dokumentiert nicht nur den Abbruch eines Arbeitsstadiums, sondern zugleich den Abbruch der Komposition an sich.’ Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 13. Kramer, Unfinished Music. Költzsch. Charles Fisk, Returning Cycles. Contexts for the Interpretation of Schubert’s Impromptus and Last Sonatas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Carlton. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts.

Schubert Fragment Typology

37

a composer of large-scale works independent of genre10 add depth and context to the compositional function of the sonatas for solo piano in his oeuvre. A detailed study of the fragmentary piano sonatas is the logical progression of the current state of musicological and philosophical research into the compositions of Schubert. Through an interdisciplinary synthesis based upon three primary approaches to the sonatas, a philological, an analytical, and a fragment-aesthetic approach, and through the juxtaposition of perspectives from musicological and philosophical standpoints, this study of the piano sonatas offers the possibility for continuing dialogues and expanding the contexts in which these works are studied and received. Analytical methods centred upon harmonic and motivic relations and their use in elucidating a novel interpretation of an established form, combined with a philologically exact study of the manuscripts, historical and biographical context, and an aesthetic-philosophical approach which is open to the possibilities of the fragment as a unique formal and musical concept are brought together to provide a new perspective upon the fragmentary sonatas and Schubert’s development as a composer of larger cyclical forms, filling a void in the current research. This study is directed towards establishing the nature of the fragmentary and discussing its manifold possibilities for physical manifestation: the fragments of sonatas for solo piano are united by characteristics of form, content, and compositional focus, which create an individual and Schubertian category of ‘piano sonata fragments’. Examining the works with their existence as fragments and as incomplete compositions as a frame of reference, and placing them into the context of the completed sonatas as a divergent but highly revealing subsection, is productive of insights which enhance and expand upon earlier research, associated with the evocation of form, the approach to conventionally established models, and the evolution of the inimitable, individual, and widely-studied late sonatas.11 An understanding of the compositional and aesthetic processes and developments which lead to the composition of the later sonatas is vital to a fuller understanding of Schubert. 2. Fragmentary Piano Sonatas: An Intersection of Substance and Projection Schubert’s fragmentary piano sonatas are not only encompassed by the typological categories of the compositional and transmission fragments12 specifically based upon the

10 11 12

Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts (Tutzing: Schneider, 1994). Arthur Godel, Schuberts letzte drei Klaviersonaten (D 958–960). Entstehungsgeschichte, Entwurf und Reinschrift, Werkanalyse (Baden-Baden: V. Koerner, 1985). Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 45.

38

Schubert’s Piano Sonata Fragments

practical necessities presented by his compositions and manuscripts: due to the specificity of the formal models toward which the sonatas are oriented, they are fundamentally connected to the totality-oriented fragment typology. In the fragmentary piano sonatas, which are invariably identifiable by a title as well as through the formal and structural arrangement of their musical material, a new dimension of specificity emerges: ‘[…] the fragment, whether it distances itself from totality or refers to it integratively, cannot be thought independently of totality.’13 The abstract ideal of totality attains a substantially more concrete dimension when it refers to a composition in which the genre-identity is determined by the adherence to a range of formal and structural principles, in which elements of variety and unconventionality were not yet subject to the flexibility and expansion visible in the romantic piano sonatas and sonata-like constructs of the middle of the nineteenth century – for example in the works of Franz Liszt. The establishment of the guiding formal principle and, in conjunction with it, a nebulous structural plan for the nascent sonata in its ultimate aspiration towards completion, places the fragmentary sonatas in a new relation to totality. Emergent from their adherence to the conventions and principles of a specific and highly-codified genre is a formal projection of totality which is independent of the factual material completion of the work. This is unusual for fragmentary works in general, and in the case of the sonatas it is based upon the temporality and dual existence of the musical artefact, either dynamically extrapolated in a performance or recorded statically in a manuscript. This is the reason behind the possibility of a juxtaposition of fragmentation and totality in a single work, based upon the perspective from which it is observed, and the divergences between a functional and a factual completion. The projection of a potential continuation, inherent in the extant material but not fully realised, is definitive for the fragmentary sonatas for solo piano (and indeed for other works which are strongly oriented towards a formalised model of completion), is the fact which allows a composer to attain a functional completion of a work which is materially unfinished. II. Absence-Centred Fragmentology The four typologies of the fragment described in the previous chapter, divergent as they are, have a single common element: the fragment is always defined through a recognition or experience of absence, which is also common to a fifth typology presented in the context of Schubert’s fragmentary compositions, the ‘intuitive fragment’.14 Whether absence is considered as a deficit, neutrally, or as a positive characteristic invoked by the creator, the fragment is an aesthetic entity in which absence is predomi13 14

Dällenbach and Nibbrig, p. 14. ‘[…] das Fragment, ob es sich von der Totalität abstößt oder auf sie integrativ bezieht, ist von ihr unabhängig nicht zu denken.’ Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 40.

Absence-Centred Fragmentology

39

nant and definitive. Distilled from the earlier fragment-typologies, the confrontation between totality and absence remains an essential element of a study of any fragment, including the piano sonatas of Schubert. However, the individuality of formal projections generated more or less vividly and with differing levels of detail by fragmentary sonata movements and fragmentary cycles is not fully encompassed by a fragment concept dominated by absence. The allure of the fragment lies in its ambiguous status; instead of being described only as incomplete and therefore something which is defined primarily if not solely by absence, as is the case for incomplete and unfinished works, the fragment in the context of a formal projection of completion has a positive and affirmative element. 1. Dialectic Fragment Concept An absence-centred perspective is embraced by what may be termed a dialectic fragment concept. However, the dialectic fragment concept is not limited by an oppositional view of fragmentation and totality, instead expanding to contain the implications of totality inherent in the fragment itself which provide a context for the immediate and intuitive experience of absence. The synthesis of an absence-based fragment concept with the aspect of ‘completion’ which is immanent in the formal projections of the fragmentary piano sonatas, allowing a recognition of their fractured status, produces a dialectic of fragmentation and completion in which both of these incompatible states are inherent in the same work. The formal projections of fragmentary works evince a shadow of totality, which does not attain a physical manifestation.15 The dialectical tension in which this implication of completion and totality exists is found between the poles of existence and nonexistence, and its realised synthesis is the fragment construct itself, when viewed from an analytical perspective which does not exclude the non-material formal projection from consideration. The fragmentary construct draws from both, in order to present a manifold of formal possibilities without concretising a single complete form. The result is a dynamic concept: based upon the formal projections and extant material of single works or movements, the analytical and experiential weight given to material and projection may be individually calibrated to result in a study which is founded upon the identity of the work in question. This concept is therefore as flexible and agile as the fragment itself and draws the central identity of the fragment, the dialectic tension between absence and completion, from its own intrinsic characteristics and structural impulses, uniting material and projection. It arises from the fragmentary piano sonatas, the subject of this study,

15

For an example of the function of immanent formal projections, see the chapter D 613 V: Sources of Fragmentation in D 613, pages 286–290.

40

Schubert’s Piano Sonata Fragments

as these fragments are prominent in their engagement with questions of structure and form. The dialectical fragment concept, although applicable to other work-categories or genres, has no pretensions to inclusivity, being a singular response to the particular demands of the sonata fragments and their non-oppositional relation to form, fragmentation, and totality. 2. Form and the Sonata Having expanded upon the necessity of a form-based fragment concept to approach the specific demands of a study of fragmentary sonatas, it is relevant to investigate the precise nature of the form upon which the fragments and their projections of totality are based. ‘Sonata form’, ‘[…] the most important large-scale formal type in instrumental music of the classical period’16 is considered ‘[…] to be the period’s most highly developed and complex compositional design, the one in which composers reveal their greatest technical skill and expressive potential.’17 However, due to its variance and cultural as well as compositional significance, the ‘sonata form’ remains the subject of divergent approaches and discourses: There is no consensus regarding the manner in which sonata form in the decades around 1800 is to be grasped. On the contrary, analysts are confronted with a clutch of diverse approaches with differing emphases, interests, and terminologies.18

These divergences are not only limited to the music-theoretical or analytical approaches to the text of a composition itself, but expand to include the degree of contextual reflection which should be integrated into a study of the musical form: The Sonata-Theory method proposes that the form of any individual composition is neither wholly contained nor self-defined by the acoustic happenings within that piece alone.19

This observation is of particular importance for the study of the fragmentary piano sonatas, as a conscious experimentation with form as an established construct is central to their composition and, in many cases, to their unfinished state. Nevertheless, the ‘sonata form’ as a construct was not established as a monolithic and predetermined identity until after Schubert’s time; it was developed by ‘theorists in the second quarter 16 17 18 19

William Earl Caplin, Classical Form. A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001), p. 195. Caplin, p. 195. James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory. Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 3. Musical Form, Forms, Formenlehre. Three Methodological Reflections, ed. by William Earl Caplin and others, 2nd edn (Leuven: Leuven Univ. Press, 2010), p. 72.

Absence-Centred Fragmentology

41

of the nineteenth century on the basis of late-eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century practice[…]’20 and was intended, in its earliest form, to serve as a ‘model for the production of new works’.21 These ‘new works’ necessarily exclude Schubert’s compositions, as they were composed in the first decades of the nineteenth century (Antonin Reicha’s elaboration of the theory behind the sonata form in the nineteenth century was translated and published in German in 1832).22 In addition, the view of the sonata form as a static construct is impossible to maintain while discussing Schubert’s attempts to alter and expand the boundaries and strictures of the form. These concerns are valuable and lead to a necessary precision in terminology; the sonata, and particularly the sonata-allegro movement, had a distinct and individual form defined by Schubert through his compositions across multiple genres, and it is in this sense that the terms ‘sonata’ and ‘sonata-allegro form’ are used within this study. Schubert’s formal experiments, which extend beyond the fragments and unfinished works, reveal the complex interactions between an intrinsic and extrinsic formal principle as exemplified by the sonata-allegro form. It is for this reason that the unfinished piano works which are not explicitly sonatas have been excluded from the scope of this study; all fragmentary compositions recognised as sonatas for solo piano or works having clear and objective aspirations to a sonata form have been included. For the purposes of this work, the term sonata-allegro form is applied in its most common and widely-accepted usage, referring to a movement which contains an exposition, development, and recapitulation.23 The sonatas are therefore defined as cyclical works, comprising multiple movements from which at least one movement adheres to the aforementioned sonata-allegro structure of the twentieth century terminology of exposition–development–recapitulation24 or, if the movement in question is incomplete, demonstrates clear intentions or aspirations towards the sonata-allegro form. The final determinant for adherence to the aspirations to the composition of a sonata is the presence of a title, an invariable practice of Schubert’s when beginning to compose a sonata for solo piano. Although the precise terminology and formal vocabulary that Schubert himself would have incorporated into descriptions of his sonata-movement compositions remains uncertain, it appears that he was well-acquainted with commonly accepted formal principles, and displayed an interest in establishing an individual interpretation of what he may have received as an ‘established model’ of a piano sonata, through the study and performance of contemporaneous cyclical compositions. The ‘model’ of the 20 21 22 23 24

Charles Rosen, Sonata Forms, 2nd edn (New York: Norton, 1988), p. 1. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 3. Antonin Reicha, Reicha’s Compositionslehre Theil 1–3. Abhandlung von der praktischen Harmonie, trans. by Carl Czerny (Wien: Diabelli, 1832), i. Caplin, p. 195. Alfred Richter, Die Lehre von der Form in der Musik (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1904), pp. 106, 118, 145.

42

Schubert’s Piano Sonata Fragments

sonata and the sonata-allegro movement is not intended to refer an absolute and fixed formal construct, but to a collection of norms and types which allowed a wide range of compositionally and formally flexible approaches without aspiring to the status of a heuristically definitive model. 3. Fragmentary Piano Sonatas in the Context of Schubert’s Compositions The sonatas for solo piano which are united by displaying fragmentary characteristics share many formal and musical characteristics which set them apart from the more generalised fragments encompassed by the ‘intuitive fragment category’. The concentration of the fragmentary sonatas in categories related to compositional and artistic incompletion is a compelling hint at the underlying reasons for a concentrated study of these works in the context of the genre of the piano sonata as being essential for understanding Schubert’s endeavours concerning fundamental aspects of musical form. Precision in describing the proportions of the fragmentary sonatas in Schubert’s entire compositional output is complex, based upon their cyclical nature and the unreliability of post-hoc deductions regarding a status of compositional or transmissional fragmentation.25 At times it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between independent works and two different versions of the same sonata.26 However, if the related works which evince substantial divergences are counted as independent, Schubert composed at least twenty-four sonatas;27 numbers between twenty28 and twenty-six, of which some have been lost29 have been suggested. According to Lindmayr-Brandl, who counts twenty-two extant sonatas, there are sixty-nine works for piano, either sonatas or independent pieces, of which sixteen are compositional fragments, producing a result of 23.2 %.30 This is significantly higher than the proportion of fragmentary works across all genres: 8.1 % Of the twenty-two works defined by Lindmayr-Brandl as sonatas for piano, ten of them are compositional fragments – 45.6 % of the total.31 In the following table, which lists 25 26

27 28 29 30 31

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, pp. 120–21. This distinction applies to D 154 and D 157, and D 567 and D 568: both pairs share substantial musical material. As the latter composition in both pairs results not only from substantial revisions, but a musical re-conception of the content, essentially basing the recomposition on a new formal or structural idea, they have been identified as related but distinct compositions in this table. This table contains all of the completed sonatas and those fragmentary sonatas which are identifiable by a heading or title in which the genre is stated, an invariable practice of Schubert’s with a single potential exception, associated with D 459 (see note). Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 189. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 191. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 71. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 71.

43

Absence-Centred Fragmentology

twenty-four sonatas, based upon maintaining the distinctions between fragmentary works which share a substantial amount of material and the combination of manuscripts which are evidently disparate movements of the same work but without including the sonatas which lack an individual title page,32 the proportion of fragmentary works is still higher, at 50 % of the total. Table 2 Table of Piano Sonatas33 Deutsch Catalogue

Fragment

Date of Composition

Date of Publication

First Publisher

D 154 E major

yes

11. February 1815

1888

AGA

D 157 E major

yes

18. February 1815

1888

AGA

D 279 C major

yes

September 1815

1888

AGA

D 459 E major*

yes

August 1816

October 1843 (Fünf Clavierstücke)

C. A. Klemm

D 537 / Op. posth. 164 A minor

March 1817

ca. 1852 (Siebente Sonate für Piano)

C. A. Spina

D 557 A flat major

May 1817

1888

AGA

D 566 E minor

yes

June 1817

1888/1907/1928–29

AGA/Prieger/ Bauer

D 567 D flat major

yes

June 1817

1897

AGA

?

Advertised 27.5.1829

Pennauer

July 1817 (?)

1897

AGA

August 1817

May 1846

Diabelli & Co

D 568 Op. posth. 122 E flat major D 571/570 F sharp minor34 D 575 Op. posth. 147 B major

32

33 34

yes

D 154 and D 157, and D 567 and D 568 are counted as two separate sonatas. D 571 and D 570 are counted as a single sonata in F sharp minor, and the potential E major sonata without a catalogue number arising from the conglomerate surrounding D 459, which has no extant manuscript and therefore no title page establishing it is a piano sonata fragment, is not included. Dates of composition and publication taken from the NGA Catalogue. The F sharp minor sonata is distributed across two manuscripts, of which only the first is dated.

44

Schubert’s Piano Sonata Fragments

Deutsch Catalogue

Fragment

Date of Composition

Date of Publication

First Publisher

D 613 C major

yes

April 1818

1897

AGA (without the last bars of the fragmentary second movement)

D 625 F minor

yes

September 1818

1897

AGA

D 655 C sharp minor

yes

April 1819

1897

AGA

1819 or 1823?

Advertised 30.9.1829

Czerny

1823?

1958

Brown, A Critical Biography

February 1823

Advertised 26.4.1839

Diabelli und Co

April 1825

1861 ‘Reliquie’, 2nd mvt. 10.12.1839

F. Whistling 2nd mvt. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik

D 845 Op. 42 A minor

Before the end of May 1825

Reviewed 1.3.1826

Pennauer

D 850 Op. 53 D major

August 1825

Advertised 8.4.1826

Artaria

D 894 Op. 78 G major

October 1826

Advertised 11.4.1827 Tobias Haslinger

D 958 C minor

September 1828

Advertised 26.4.1839, engraved 1831

Diabelli

D 959 A major

September 1828

Advertised 26.4.1839, engraved 1831

Diabelli

D 960 B flat major

September 1828

Advertised 26.4.1839, engraved 1831

Diabelli

D 664 Op. posth. 120 A major D 769A E minor

yes

D 784 Op. posth. 143 A minor D 840 C major

yes

* Here, a further sonata in E major, without a catalogue number, is suggested as a reading for two of the pieces currently listed as D 459A, upon the basis of the complex publication history.35

35

Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 57 (2000), 130–50.

Absence-Centred Fragmentology

45

The compositional fragments, or unfinished works, present in this calculation, are at least eleven of the twelve sonata fragments. In order to emphasise the fact that some intrinsic characteristic of the solo piano sonata leads to an unusually high predominance of fragmentary and unfinished works, it is notable that only 2.6 % of the works for four hands are incomplete,36 although suggestions of a type of cyclical incompletion through the absence of an intended last movement have been suggested as the formal basis for some of the shorter duet compositions, including the Allegro in A minor D 947.37 4. Fragmentary Piano Sonatas: Form and Incompletion Simply from a comparison with other works composed for the piano, it is reasonable to suggest that the fragmentation present in the sonatas for solo piano has an individual source which is to be found in the inherent nature of the works: the unusual predominance of compositional incompletion and the fluid nature of the boundaries between individual works and versions of the same composition indicate a compositional approach not common to other genres or instrumentations. The unfinished sonatas have been rightly considered neither as a sign of compositional inability, nor biographical or historical accident, but of a crisis in the development of an innovative composer: On the contrary, the discontinuations can be diagnosed as a crisis: he saw himself as unable to continue his individual approach authentically – and he did not want to follow the convention.38

In the piano sonatas, the convention that Schubert did not wish to follow is embodied in the formal parameters of a sonata-allegro movement, and further expressed through the necessity of closure and cohesion in a multiple-movement cycle. The question of form, both of the individual movement and the cyclical model, is primary in the composition of the sonatas. It is the conviction of this study that the incomplete sonatas may be largely attributed to Schubert’s experimental approaches to an individual iteration and formal-contentual modality of the piano sonata, defined by the tensions between the external boundaries of the established convention and the novel modes of generating harmonic structures and arranging expressive musical content, which are at times incompatible.

36 37 38

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 71. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 224. Gerhard R. Koch, p. 7. ‘Die Abbrüche lassen sich vielmehr als Krise diagnostizieren: Den eigenen Ansatz authentisch fortzuführen, sah er sich außerstande – und der Konvention wollte er nicht folgen.’

46

Schubert’s Piano Sonata Fragments

5. The Piano Sonata as a Plane for Formal Experimentation In essence, it is logical to assert that the shared and often symmetrical fragmentation present in the piano sonatas must have its source in another correspondingly fundamental commonality. The only unifying characteristic present across the otherwise diverse fragments is that of Schubert’s intention to compose a piano sonata: to engage with a strict set of formal expectations. The piano sonata was a genre which lent itself to formal experimentation and more notably to his attempts to extend the boundaries of an extant and established form, providing not only opportunities for the expansive composition of structural novelties, but also a field for the exploration of the expressive possibilities of melody, harmony, timbre, and texture. Although subject to interpretation and impossible to determine with finality, it is plausible that Schubert’s intention in composing these works was not directed at the production of a closed and stable cyclical structure, but towards free and unrestricted compositional experimentation. Support for this assumption comes from the apparently private nature of much of Schubert’s compositional engagement with the piano sonata. Only three sonatas for piano solo were published during his lifetime: the Sonata in A minor D 845 in 1826 had the title Première Grande Sonate pour le Piano-Forte39 and was followed in the same year by D 850 in D major as the Seconde Grande Sonate40 and in 1827 by the Sonata in G major D 894. A variety of musico-social, historical, and aesthetic considerations render the piano sonatas ideal for compositional experimentation: the existence of an accepted structural and compositional tradition which was simultaneously an area of musical innovation for Beethoven, whom Schubert greatly respected and admired; Schubert’s familiarity with the piano; and the relative ease of composing for a single instrument capable of expressing complex harmonies and multiple melodic and accompanying lines. These factors rendered the genre of the piano sonata a productive field to explore an impulse toward formal experiments, as it offered the freedom to compose without a definite intention or directed aspiration toward a musical and structural totality, which would be more difficult to attain when composing for a particular occasion or with a pre-defined narrative structure, whether secular or sacred. 6. Internal Fragment-Categories among the Sonatas for Solo Piano Arising from the theory that the fragmentary piano sonata served as a field for compositional experimentation, a series of progressively-defined categories appears within

39 40

Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 533. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 537.

Absence-Centred Fragmentology

47

the fragmentary sonatas. There are four distinct groups of sonatas, which are roughly chronological: the first period of sonata composition, containing D 154, D 157, D 279, D 459, D 566, and D 56741 began in 1815 and continued until 1817. It was followed by a condensed period of engagement with the piano sonata in 1817 and 1818, including D 571/570, D 613, and D 625. A subsequent pause of at least two years divides the two sonata fragments, D 655 and D 769A, which are very brief exposition fragments, and the final unfinished sonata D 840 in 1825. From the following table, it becomes clear that the sonatas composed in close proximity share formal aspects which are specifically related to the model of incompletion which is present. Table 3 Types of Incompletion in the Fragmentary Piano Sonatas Catalogue Number

Incomplete Movements

Cyclical Incompletion

D 154

I. Allegro

Single-movement manuscript

D 157

No closing movement

D 279

No closing movement

D 459

No closing movement

D 566

No closing movement

D 567

III. Allegretto

D 571/570

I. Allegro moderato III. Allegro

Possibly a detached slow movement (D 604)

D 613

I. Moderato II. [no tempo]

Possibly a detached slow movement (D 612)

D 625

I. Allegro III. Allegro

Possibly a detached slow movement (D 505)

D 655

I. [no tempo]

Single-movement manuscript

D 769A

I. Allegro

Single-movement manuscript

D 840

III. Menuetto and Trio IV. Rondo: Allegro

Two underlying types of formal fragmentation are possible within the genre of the sonata for solo piano. The first type is a cyclical fragment, in which the incompletion of the work lies solely in the absence of at least one movement. Based upon Schubert’s compositional practice, in which the movements of cyclical works are notated in chronological order and the reliance upon observation to determine cyclical incompletion, it is probable that the absent movement or movements appear at the conclu41

It is possible that this fragmentary sonata was finished and the manuscript was later damaged, leading to its current state of incompletion, as discussed in the chapter D 567 and D 568 IV, 2: Physical Fragmentation in D 567, pages 193–194.

48

Schubert’s Piano Sonata Fragments

sion of the cyclical structure. The term ‘cyclical fragment’, established by LindmayrBrandl as a general term describing all fragments in which some cyclical elements are absent, is purely descriptive.42 It recognises neither the divergence in possible causes for fragmentation, nor the differentiation between fragmentary cyclical works and those which are incomplete due to the internal fragmentation of single movements. The second type is represented by an internally-fragmented movement, in which the musical material does not produce a closed structure. This may lead to an overarching incompletion in the cyclical structures, even if all of the movements necessary to produce a closed form are present. The two types of fragment are not mutually exclusive, and the nature of a cyclical fragment is rendered more complex by the possibility of a detached middle movement, which does not affect the tonal closure necessary for a formally complete cycle. In the aesthetic fragment typologies,43 the factual description of the physical status of the fragmentary piano sonatas restricts them to the first or second types, the archaeological or dissociated fragment type, and the fragment of production or incomplete fragment. The uncertainty regarding the appearance of a hitherto unknown manuscript or other musical materials presents challenges in associating the further categories with the Schubert sonata fragments, as they are predicated upon the dislocation and potential for reunification, or upon an intentionality of conception which is not definitively present in Schubert’s unfinished works. The fragmentary sonatas written at a similar period in Schubert’s development are also recognisably related by the compositional language and musical development of the composer. As these characteristics are not distinct to the fragments but would apply to many of the works written in a particular year, it is important to emphasise that the sonatas contained within individual fragment groups are additionally linked by discernible similarities. These appear not only in the model of fragmentation but also in the experimental impulse mentioned earlier as a main compositional aspiration for the pieces and show commonalities in the musical and structural execution of the exploratory intention. A detailed examination of these compositions, which display an increasingly focused and nuanced engagement with questions of form and the genesis of musical structure, is revealing of insights which lead to a fundamental understanding of Schubert’s integrated approach to the sonata-allegro movement and to larger cyclical compositions. ‘Fragmentary autographs are often extraordinary works of art. They bear witness to the personal engagement of […] the artist. The grounds for fracture are often present especially in this strongly individual frame of reference, as the process of

42 43

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 46. See the Fragment Table, pages 21–22.

Absence-Centred Fragmentology

49

origination could not be continued by others without a break.’44 Felix Mendelssohn’s statement regarding the manuscript of the Symphony in B minor D 759 is a strikingly early recognition of the importance of studying fragmentary works in detail and in their own context: It is as though, directly because of the incompletion of the work, through the unfinished remarks, strewn here and there, I am more exactly and closely acquainted with your brother than would be possible through an entirely finished work. It is as though I saw him there working in his room, and I have your unexpectedly generous kindness […] to thank for this joy.45

Schubert’s piano sonata fragments form an individual and distinct sub-genre, which has hitherto remained unrecognised. This project seeks to emphasise their place at the centre of Schubert’s engagement with the instrumental possibilities of the piano and the sonata as a formal paradigm in order to gain an understanding of the fragmentary piano sonatas which is inclusive of but not limited to their status as fragments. It is of primary importance to consider them from three linked but independent perspectives, essentially centred on a detailed analytical approach which engages in harmonic-structural and philological study, the possible causes of formal fragmentation, and the function of the fragmentary sonatas in Schubert’s compositional evolution and approach to a reinvention of the sonata-allegro and the sonata as a cyclical construct. Serious academic interest in the distinctive and revealing aspects of the fragmentary compositions with relation to Schubert’s complete oeuvre and as a ‘genre’ with distinctive commonalities and characteristic links within itself has arisen but the fragmentary piano sonatas, although included in the seminal works of Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl and Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen on the fragmentary compositions and the development of the sonata form respectively, have not yet been the subject of detailed individual examination. In particular, Hinrichsen’s study of Schubert’s reinvention of the sonataallegro model as a series of tonal planes, which is constitutive for the harmonic struc-

44

45

Martin Roland, ‘Fragmente ohne Zerstörung  – Der Reiz des Unvollendeten’, in Fragmente. Der Umgang mit lückenhafter Quellenüberlieferung in der Mittelalterforschung., ed. by Christian Gastgeber and others (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010), pp. 45– 69 (p. 55). ‘Fragment gebliebene Handschriften sind oft herausragende Kunstwerke. Sie zeugen von dem persönlichen Engagement […] der Künstler. Und gerade in diesem stark individuellen Bezugsrahmen liegt oft der Grund des Scheiterns, weil der Entstehungsprozess nicht ohne Brüche von anderen weitergeführt werden konnte.’ Otto Erich Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, 4th edn (Leipzig: VEB Breitkopf & Härtel, 1957), p. 478. ‘Ist mir’s doch, als ob ich gerade durch das Unvollendete des Werks, durch die unfertigen, hin und her gestreuten Bemerkungen persönlich und genauer und vertrauter mit Ihrem Bruder bekannt würde, als es durch ein ganz fertiges Stück hätte geschehen können. Mir ist es, als sähe ich ihn da in seinem Zimmer arbeiten, und diese Freude konnte ich nur Ihrer unerwarteten großen Güte […] verdanken.’

50

Schubert’s Piano Sonata Fragments

tures of the exposition and recapitulation and their relation to one another is of primary importance in approaching the fragmentary piano sonatas: Therewith, the tonal resolutionary function of the recapitulation as the answer to the exposition experiences another quantifier and significance as in the classical sonata principle. From a goal-oriented process regulated through tension and resolution, an arrangement of tonal regions which is organised through complementary equivalences emerges, of which the relations to one another may in fact run perpendicular to the arc of tension demanded by the classical sonata […]. In Schubert’s early years, in addition to the efforts to assimilate the classical sonata principle, a conception of the sonata form […] which is not only in search of possibilities for harmonic expansion, but approaches the form itself as a series of relations which can be realised through the relocation of harmonic planes are also visible in a significant quantity. […] The principle of complementarity which is directed at equalisation, balance, and correlations therewith reveals itself as the characteristically Schubertian manifestation of the sonata principle. […] In the classical ‘sonata principle’ the relations of the tonalities and the meaning of these relations are identical: as ‘opposition’ and ‘polarity’. Whereas in the case of Schubert, this relationship is more accurately and neutrally described as a ‘constellation’ or ‘configuration’, which is often only recognisable in retrospect […].46

Based upon the recognition of an avoidance of harmonic polarity, viewed as a formal difficulty in the harmonic structures of the recapitulation based upon an innovative

46

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, pp. 96, 98, 109, 123. ‘Damit erfährt die Reprisenfunktion der tonalen Lösung als der Beantwortung der Exposition eine durchaus andere Gewichtung als im klassischen Sonatenprinzip. Aus einem durch Spannung und Lösung regulierten zielstrebigen Verlauf wird eine durch komplementäre Entsprechungen gegliederte Anordnung von Tonartregionen, deren Beziehungen zueinander gegebenenfalls sogar quer zum in der klassischen Sonate erforderlichen Spannungsbogen stehen können […]. So zeigt sich in Schuberts Frühzeit neben den Bemühungen um die Aneignung des klassischen Sonatenprinzips […] bereits in beträchtlicher Quantität eine Auffassung der Sonatenform, die nicht einfach auf der Suche nach harmonischen Erweiterungsmöglichkeiten ist, sondern überhaupt die Form als ein durch die Versetzung harmonischer Flächen realisierbares Beziehungsgefüge begreift. […] Das auf die Herstellung von Ausgleich, Balance und Entsprechungen gerichtete Komplementaritätsprinzip erweist sich damit als die charakteristisch Schubertsche Erscheinungsform des Sonatenprinzips. […] Im klassischen “Sonatenprinzip” sind die Relation der Tonarten und die Bedeutung dieser Relation identisch: als “Opposition” und “Polarität”. Bei Schubert dagegen ist dieses Verhältnis angemessener neutral als “Konstellation” oder “Konfiguration” zu beschreiben, die ihre Bedeutung oft erst retrospektiv […]’.

Absence-Centred Fragmentology

51

tonal plan in the exposition, current at the beginning of the twentieth century,47 Hinrichsen’s recognition of the profound reinterpretation of the sonata-allegro model in Schubert’s oeuvre is of great import. However, the principles of symmetry and complementarity are not restricted to the arrangement of tonal areas and the evocation of large-scale structures between the exposition and the development. Incorporating a recognition of the fundamental significance of large-scale harmonic structures into a study of the fragments places certain demands upon the analytical model and associated vocabulary used in a thematic, motivic, and aesthetic-philosophical context. Most suited to the examination of the fragmentary piano sonatas is an approach based upon the Roman numeral convention of description,, as this avoids any implicit polarisation of harmonic relations and is responsive to the flexibility and formal import of the Schubertian modulatory processes found within the fragmentary sonatas for solo piano. A close study of the modalities of evoking structural coherence and bringing the innovative musical material of the fragmentary sonatas and sonata movements into the parameters of the sonata-allegro model reveals that complementarity and symmetry in the harmonic plans of the movements are both directed and led by an underlying interpretation of form which is based upon continuity, stability, and unity. These three elements are definitive for the sonatas for solo piano and act far beyond the arrangement of the tonal planes. Symmetry and self-referential repetition are present in the smallest and largest elements of form and content, from the generation of individual motivic units consisting of only a few notes or a metric inflection, to the arrangement and structurally-definitive function of modulatory passages, and the creation of points of overarching symmetry and contact between individual movements of a cyclical work. To grasp a single element of these underlying and unified processes in isolation, although they are constitutive of a paradigm which encompasses the smallest and largest formal and structural elements, does not allow a complete understanding of the interaction of multiple levels and distinct modes of evoking continuity and symmetry which is definitive for the sonata for solo piano in Schubert’s oeuvre. These elements of Schubert’s individual interpretation emerge and are developed in the experimental fragmentary sonatas. The reasons for a narrower focus on these works and their unique and momentous position among the piano sonatas and for Schubert’s compositional development and evolution are above all their central position as a genre suited to experimentation and the characteristics of structural or formal tension and integration.

47

Felix Salzer, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, 15 (1928), 86–125 (p. 121).

The Early Piano Sonatas: 1815–1817 I. Emergent Form 1. Early Indications of Sonata-like Formal Principles A set of principles or formal constructs referred to as the ‘sonata principle’,1 ‘sonata form’2 or forms,3 4 ‘sonata-allegro form’,5 or ‘sonata theory’6 is present in the earliest compositions, before the emergence of a recognisable sonata movement. Elements of the sonata principle are discernable among Schubert’s works as early as 1810, five years before the composition of the first titled ‘piano sonata’, D 154 in E major, in February 1815. Not only do the early string quartets provide examples of an early readiness to explore and experiment7 with the formal possibilities offered by the sonata principle regardless of their ‘[…] divergences, freedoms and awkwardnesses’8 but many of the earliest compositions for piano, such as the Fantasies D  2E and D  9, both of which were composed in 1811, contain indications of a ‘formally directed structural arc with recapitulatory elements’.9 Still more significant are the sum of contemporary indications which imply that the formal aspects of purely instrumental composition were from their beginnings primarily an autodidactic evolution. Schubert’s first organised compositional studies, under Ruzicka, Holzer, and later Salieri did not appear to en-

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Edward T. Cone, Musical Form and Musical Performance (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), pp. 76– 77. Caplin, p. 195. Donald Francis Tovey, Musical Articles from the Encyclopaedia Britannica (London: Oxford University Press Humphrey Milford, 1944), pp. 207–8. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 3. William W. Abbott, Certain Aspects of the Sonata-Allegro Form in Piano Sonatas of the 18th and 19th Centuries (Phil. Diss. Bloomington (Indiana University): Indiana University., 1956). Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 9. Salome Reiser, Franz Schuberts frühe Streichquartette. Eine klassische Gattung am Beginn einer nachklassischen Zeit (Kassel etc.: Bärenreiter, 1999), pp. 121–122. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 34. ‘Abweichungen, Freiheiten und Ungeschicklichkeiten’. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 17. ‘[…] einer formal gestrafften Bogenarchitektur mit Reprisenelementen.’

Emergent Form

53

compass instruction in the already established conventions of the sonata movement:10 Ruzicka stated after the beginning of Schubert’s harmonic studies that it was hardly necessary to teach him at all.11 It was an individual interest and a strong will inclined towards discovery and reinvention which led Schubert into the first tentative and experimental contacts with the sonata principles. 2. Schubert’s Approach to the Sonata Schubert became acquainted with the formal constructs associated with the genre of the sonata for solo piano through practical musical experiences with the works of established composers.12 The formal aspects were not deliberately and rigorously taught, but the ‘sonata form’ was present as a ‘structural model’ developed by several generations of composers: The classical sonata style is in fact the first which creates form in its entirety from a single process of tension and resolution […] [based upon a] polarised harmonic structure; therefore, the accentuation of this structure as the centre of a structural tension is paramount […].13

The context of these early formative experiences is revealing when examining Schubert’s later engagement with the form: he did not learn it deductively, ‘in parts’, as a series of interlinked and flexible rules and principles in their practical application in his own compositions, but instead receptively, as a static, almost monolithic unified structure. Essentially, his first and most defining experiences of the sonata movement were not internal, associated with the formal tensions involved in the act of construction, as a principle or set of related impulses to be shaped and moulded, but fundamentally external and in a particular sense passive, experienced in its realisation and completion as a closed work. Based upon certain formal characteristics which are retained throughout the composition of piano sonatas – for example the presence of the tonic and dominant at the conclusion of major-key expositions and a substantial proportion of the minor key expositions, regardless of the highly divergent tonal areas occurring between these harmonic points of reference – it appears that Schubert received the form as a set of 10 11 12 13

Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 131. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, pp. 417–18. Walther Dürr, ‘Schubert in seiner Welt’, in Schubert Handbuch, ed. by Walther Dürr and Andreas Krause (Kassel etc.: Bärenreiter, 1997), pp. 2–76 (pp. 10–12). Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 26. ‘Der klassische Sonatenstil ist in der Tat der erste, der die Form als ganze aus einem einzigen Vorgang der Spannung und Lösung erzeugt […] polarisierte harmonische Struktur; entscheidend ist daher die Betonung dieser Struktur als Zentrum eines Spannungsgefüges […]’.

54

The Early Piano Sonatas: 1815–1817

externalised conventions. His increasingly original approach to the composition of sonata-allegro movements remained largely congruent with these externalities, but they had little to no effect upon its internally-directed processes and structures, which create a formal model based upon principles of unity and complementarity in the harmonic and motivic content, rather than as a harmonically- and motivically-led formal dynamic of contrast. It is possible that the first association of formal stability with stasis influenced the experimental nature of Schubert’s engagement with the sonata form in his attempts to reinvent it as a vessel for creating a new model of form based upon parity rather than tension in harmonic and motivic structures, in which the external contours of the sonata-allegro movement remain largely untouched, and that this may explain the antithetic impulses between formal stability and expressive content as well as the apparently immutable stability of the extant form. After the early integration of sonata-like structures in the Fantasies for solo piano from 1810 and in chamber music works in the following years, the first experiments in the composition of sonata-allegro form movements for solo piano originate in February 1815, when Schubert was still under the tutelage of Antonio Salieri as a student of the Stadtkonvikt in Vienna. It is at least partly under his pedagogical influence that the two E major sonatas, D 154 and D 157, were composed. II. The Fragmentary Sonatas: February 1815 to June 1817 From an examination of their musical content and the type of formally-conditioned fragmentation they display, it is clear that the first seven fragmentary sonatas are related. This group of piano sonatas,14 composed between February 1815 and June 1817, is characterised by cyclical incompletion, and concludes in 1817, with the composition of the first completed sonatas (D 537 in A minor and D 557 in A flat major). 1. Commonalities in Fragment Type and Working Method With the exceptions of the two completed sonatas, D 154 (a single unfinished movement), and D 567, which was most probably completed before the loss of the last page of the manuscript, all of the remaining fragments, D 157, D 279, D 459 and the associated E major sonata, and D 566, evince internally complete movements but are cyclically incomplete: the fragmentary status of the overwhelming majority of the incomplete sonatas composed during these two years arises from the lack of a finale movement.

14

D 154, D 157, D 279, D 459 and the second E major sonata present in the conglomerate surrounding its complex history of publication, D 566, and D 567.

The Fragmentary Sonatas: February 1815 to June 1817

55

The cohesion of this group of sonatas is reinforced by the observation that they are largely associated with highly similar working methods: […] the notational characteristics of these autographs evince an extremely consistent notational procedure hitherto unnoticed: from 1815 through May 1817 and from 1822 through 1826 Schubert notated a single first draft for each sonata while from June 1817 through 1819 and from 1827 through 1828 he prepared both a sketch and a subsequent fair copy of each work.15

The subsequent change to a new mode of composition, involving two distinct notational stages from May 1817, is highly congruent with changes and innovations in the stylistic, formal, harmonic, and motivic characteristics of the fragmentary piano sonatas. Although generalised statements regarding the common factors uniting the seven fragmentary sonatas are always accompanied by an exception, the incomplete piano sonatas composed during this period are characterised by the presence of a vertical texture which is strongly reminiscent of the more polyphonically inflected writing for string quartet.16 This may be the result of continuity in the formal plan of the sonataallegro movement across the boundaries of the genre in which the first experiments appeared. D 279, although the string-quartet-like texture appears in specific structural contexts, is an exception: however, D 154, D 157, D 459, and D 566 are characterised by a prominent use of this textural trope. 2. Two Cyclical Models The sonatas for solo piano belonging to the earliest period of Schubert’s engagement with the form, defined as approximately the years 1815 and 1816, fall into two distinct groups. The first three works, D 154 in E major, D 157 in E major and D 279 in C major, were written within seven months of each other in 1815, followed by a pause of nearly one year before the beginning of the compositions of the works now referred to under the catalogue numbers D 459 and D 459A in E major in August 1816. These sonatas are not only chronologically separated from one another, but display divergent approaches to the generation of cyclical forms. The number of movements in the completed sonatas composed before the summer of 1817 and in the projected cyclical structures of the fragments varies between three and four, which which makes it difficult to generalise about the corresponding cyclical model for a particular fragment.

15 16

Carlton, p. i. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, pp. 66–69.

56

The Early Piano Sonatas: 1815–1817

Table 4 Table of Piano Sonatas composed between February 1815 and June 1817 Fragmentary works are italicised Three Movements

Four Movements

Undetermined

D 157 (February 1815)

D 154 (February 1815)

D 279 (September 1815) D 459 (August 1816) E major Sonata (1816) D 537 (March 1817) D 557 (May 1817) D 566 (June 1817)

D 566* (June 1817)

D 567 (June 1817)

* The unique structural potentialities of D 566 are discussed in D 566 IV: Alternate Structures, pages 170–175.

The 1815 piano sonatas incline towards a four-movement cyclical structure, whereas the sonatas composed in 1817 are three-movement structures with the exception of D 566.17 1816 is marked by a higher degree of cyclical instability, a circumstance which is reinforced by the increase in the number of unattached movements and single pieces for solo piano surrounding the composition of the 1816 sonatas.18 3. Subdominant Recapitulations The close of this compositional period, 1817, is distinguished by a common formal element; the year marks both the highest point and the conclusion of the most substantial phase of composition of sonata-allegro movements which contain subdominant recapitulations, concentrated in the works for solo piano.19 In 1817, three works contain subdominant recapitulations, a reduction from the years 1815 and 1816, containing four and five works with subdominant recapitulations, respectively: however, the subdominant recapitulations of 1817 are exclusively present in the sonatas for solo piano. The subdominant recapitulation was certainly known to Schubert from examples of sonata-

17 18 19

D 566 cannot be seen as an uninflected approach to an individually Schubertian form, and therefore its departure from the three-movement model does not substantially disrupt the appearance of a progression from four to three movements. See the Table of Unattached Movements, Appendix, pages 402–405. Daniel Coren, ‘Ambiguity in Schubert’s Recapitulations’, The Musical Quarterly, 60 (1974), 568–82 (pp. 569–70).

The Fragmentary Sonatas: February 1815 to June 1817

57

allegro works by other composers: the recapitulation of Beethoven’s Coriolan overture begins in the subdominant, and the work was well known to Schubert.20 The frequency with which the subdominant recapitulation appears in the sonatas for solo piano, both fragmentary and complete, and the stark reduction of subdominant recapitulations in the following years are further indication that the sonatas for solo piano composed in 1817 are at the centre of a process of evolution and renewal in the engagement with harmonic structures and their formal effects. ‘The piano sonatas of Schubert written before 1818 demonstrate the composer’s great fondness for experimentation with the sonata as a genre […]’,21 and this is apparent in the prominence of non-typical recapitulatory modalities. The end of the first period of experimental composition of sonatas is not a single event, but a change in the paradigm of the sonata-allegro and the cyclical form which is marked by more or less gradual shifts, including the appearance of new and more complex tonalities, the composition of the first completed sonatas, and the rise of a model of three-movement cycles. With these characteristics, it is possible to determine a loosely-defined period of change in which the Sonata in D flat major D 567 is the central work. Beginning tentatively with the subdominant recapitulation in the piano sonatas in August 1816 and essentially complete with the composition of D 566 and D 567 in June 1817, the transition in compositional paradigm occurs over eleven months and it is apparent that the compositionally completed D 567 is an apposite point of closure for the ‘first period’ of fragments. 4. Fragments and Compositional Experimentation In the seven incomplete piano sonatas composed during the first period of Schubert’s engagement with the genre, an innovative approach to form and musical content is discernible. The experimental impulse is not directed at a single aim, but emerges in diverse musical and formal contexts: each sonata is highly individual in its compositional approach to the parameters of form as they were received by Schubert.

20

21

The famous anecdote recounted by Ebner demonstrates Schubert’s early acquaintance with the work: ‘Als nämlich Schubert das Liedchen “die Forelle” komponiert hatte, brachte er es am selben Tage zu uns ins Konvikt zum Probieren, und es wurde mit dem lebhaftesten Vergnügen mehrmals wiederholt; plötzlich rief Holzapfel: “Himmel, Schubert, das hast du aus dem “Coriolan”. In der Ouvertüre jener Oper ist nämlich eine Stelle, die mit der Klavierbegleitung in der “Forelle” Ähnlichkeit hat: sogleich fand dieses auch Schubert und wollte das Lied wieder vernichten, was wir aber nicht zuließen und so jenes herrliche Lied vom Untergang retteten.’ Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 55. Walburga Litschauer, ‘Unknown Versions of Schubert’s Early Piano Sonatas’, in Schubert the Progressive. History, Performance Practice, Analysis, ed. by Brian Newbould (Aldershot, Burlington: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 101–6 (p. 101).

58

The Early Piano Sonatas: 1815–1817

The following chapters have divergent points of emphasis, which are drawn from observations of the characteristics of the individual sonata fragments. The first sonatas, D 154 and D 157, which are drawn from common material, are directed at a harmonic and structural elucidation of the formal plan of the sonata-allegro movement and the interaction of multiple forms within a single cycle. They are followed seven months later by D 279, in which the evolution of the possibilities of pianistically inflected textures, prominent in the later sonatas composed after July of 1817, in the elucidation of structure is prominent. The unusual reception and publication history of D 459 and its associated works draws attention to a new flexibility in the approach to cyclical forms, as well as emphasising the degree to which the reception of fragments is influenced by questions of provenance in the absence of concrete evidence. D 566 engages with the formal effects of incorporating sources of external influence upon form and thematic and harmonic content, and the last sonata of this period, D 567, offers insights into Schubert’s working process and the nature of fragmentation and completion.

D 154 and D 157 The two sonatas in E major, composed in February 1815, have certain commonalities in material and harmonic structure which renders a comparative examination productive. This chapter approaches the two sonatas in order to determine the extent of their connections, with the aim of establishing their existence as two distinct compositions rather than versions of a single work. I. Compositional History 1. Date of Composition Schubert’s first piano sonata, D 154 in E major, consists of one movement which ends abruptly before the introduction of the recapitulation after 118 bars. The manuscript1 bears the date ‘Den 11. Februar 815 [sic]’ and evokes contradictory impressions, as it is written with unusual neatness and clarity but contains a large number of significant thematic and harmonic alterations, appearing to conform to elements of two manuscript types, that of the Reinschrift and the Niederschrift. It is most likely that the manuscript is a relatively early one as indicated by the substantial nature of the corrections: for example, the two motivic alterations to the passagework in the left hand on the first page and a reimagining of the melodic direction and harmonic content of the entirety of the fourth bar. The duration of the compositional process of D 154 was evidently a matter of only a few days, as the draft of D 157 is dated ‘Den 18. Februar 815 [sic]’ at the top of the first page. The end of the first movement, which in this sonata is complete, is dated ‘Den 21. Februar 815 [sic]’, indicating that the production of the first movement in this manuscript and most probably the composition of the following two movements of the sonata (due to the immediately preceding work on D 154) were not preceded by an earlier Entwurf. This hypothesis is partly confirmed by the appearance of the three

1

Now in the possession of the musical collection of the ISIL AT-WBR under the catalogue number MHc–134.

60

D 154 and D 157

movements in the manuscript; the first movement is largely free of corrections and those that are present are often substantial, involving changes to a single bar (184) to an extent which rendered it necessary to remove the altered passage entirely. The few minor corrections which appear are evidently without substantial effects on the harmonic direction or thematic content of the movement.2 More telling is the continued presence of a key signature relatively late within the movement; the manuscripts which document an earlier stage of composition, such as an Entwurf, Skizze, or Niederschrift, are generally less conscientious with such notational conventions. 2. Alterations in the manuscript of D 157 A contrast emerges between the relatively clean copy of D 157/1 and the following Andante in E minor. The handwriting appears hastier and less orderly and the first page of the Andante contains multiple corrections, occurring on different compositional levels of the movement: the second bar has been substantially altered, but at a point which did not allow for its complete excision and is therefore a matter of afterthought, a correction to which Schubert returned after the continued composition of the movement.3 A structural alteration is effected through the removal of a bar preceding the fifteenth bar of the final version, which is energetically crossed out with two strong strokes without any attempts at replacement.4 The characteristics of the handwriting and corrections indicate that the second movement is closer to an Arbeitsmanuskript, documenting an evolving process of composition open to revisions and corrections, an impression which is supported by the multiple corrections to the key signature following the modulation to C major in bar 63 and finally by the fact that Schubert entered the F sharp indicating the return of E minor in bar 94 in the right hand only. The manuscript pages containing the third movement approach a return to the clarity of the first movement. The key-signatures are entered throughout without correction and the alterations to the musical material fall into similar categories as the re-thinking of structural elements and minor alterations and refinements to melodic 2

3

4

The alterations in bars 97 and 98 involve only the repetition of the motive introduced in bars 95 and 96 one octave lower instead of producing an exact recurrence of the two-bar passage. The mistakenly entered E major key signature in bar 117 at the beginning of the fifth page of the manuscript (the first after the modulation to B flat major) is clearly a matter of absent-minded adherence to the habit of composition in the tonic established during the four pages of the exposition. The notes of the left hand have been individually struck out, whereas the alterations necessary in the right hand line were apparently too substantial for a similar process. Schubert began to alter individual notes before removing the treble system and re-writing it on a hand-sketched stave above the second bar. It is probable that the excision of the bar was also a matter of afterthought, as the pp marking at the beginning of the next bar, most likely present at the time of the correction, was subsequently re-entered.

D 154 and D 157 in Connection

61

figures present in the first movement.5 As the clarity of notation in the third movement runs against the tendency towards increasing spontaneity and less orderly writing as Schubert’s manuscripts progress, it is possible that the second movement required more compositional revision and that the process of committing it to paper records an earlier stage of composition. Drawing upon these conclusions, it is possible that the third movement may have been a continuation of a previously established compositional process, which would explain its more advanced appearance when compared to the rougher second movement. These tenuous indications of a potentially non-linear working process are of significance in evaluating the compositional history of later fragmentary works, as they imply that the composition of a slow movement may have been relegated to a later stage of the process.6 II. D 154 and D 157 in Connection 1. Similarities in Material D 154 and D 157 share not only a key-signature but also a substantial quantity of musical material; the second subject area in both works is thematically identical (D 154 from bar 29 and D  157/1 from bar 47). Furthermore, the largest part of the development of D 154, including the three-bar transition (bars 87–113), is identically reproduced in D  157/1 (bars 105–131), after which the development continues to cite material first presented in the second theme group before returning to the tonic and introducing the recapitulation in bar 148. Extensive similarities between the first movements of D  154 and D  157 and the proximity of the dates of composition have led to the conclusion that D 154 is not an independent composition but a sketch or early draft of D 157.7 8 9 Substantial divergences, not only in musical material, harmonic structure and motivic elements, but also in the essence of the formal plan of the movements demand a more nuanced view of the relation between the works. Differing points of view in the literature regarding the function and relation of the movements nonetheless centre upon the extent of the connection between D 154 and D 157, considering it either a preparatory Entwurf of the 5 6 7 8 9

The latter is apparent in the first correction of the movement in bar 11, in which the first note of the right hand has been altered from a half note (parallel to the left hand) to a quarter note in order to provide a stronger separation before the beginning of the next phrase. Particularly in reference to the potential for re-uniting slow movements in the sonatas composed in 1817 and 1818, D 571/570 and D 604, D 613 and D 612, and D 625 and D 505. Költzsch, p. 4. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 113. Franz Schubert, Franz Schubert, Klaviersonaten Band 3, ed. by Paul Badura-Skoda (München: Henle, 1997), p. 226.

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more advanced D 157 sonata or an abandoned Skizze.10 Although shared material in the second subject and the replication of a large part of the development of D 154 provide a basis for assuming that the two manuscripts are successive versions of the same piece, focusing solely on the overlap of musical material fails to recognise the profound harmonic and formal divergence between D 154 and D 157. 2. Refinement in Dynamic Indications Additionally, there are revealing differences in the use of dynamic and expressive markings between the manuscripts of D 154 and D 157/1. These indications are extremely sparse in D 154: after the opening forte, the next dynamic alteration occurs in bar 8, the beginning of the long transitional passage to the second theme group, where piano is required. In contrast, D 157/1 contains many more dynamic markings: not only is the quantity altered, but also the level of specificity upon which they occur. The indications in D 154 are fundamental instructions regarding the approximate execution of a phrase which may be understood as giving a basic indication as to the character of a motivic unit or even a structural element. In D 157/1 the markings on a larger scale remain present, but additionally there are more sophisticated indications which apply not only to complete phrases or self-contained musical elements. An example of the increased level of detail may be found at the beginning of bar 9: the first note is marked fz and immediately following, piano.

Fig. 1 D 157/1 bars 9–12

The next three bars are also carefully indicated: forte in bar 10, piano in bar 11, and forte once more in bar 12. The level of detail and specificity in the dynamic markings continues in D  157/1, providing valuable insights regarding the compositional status of D 157/1 in comparison to the earlier D 154, placing D 157/1 as a more advanced stage

10

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 388.

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of composition. More detailed dynamic indications in D 157/1 are often aligned with the presence of material not drawn from the earlier sonata. The carefully delineated performance indications in bars 9–12 apply to a transitional passage new to D 157/1, although emerging from motivic material common to the second theme group in both sonatas, and the transition to the second theme group in D 157/1 is also marked pp. The development, which is very similar to that of D 154, returns once more to few sparse fz markings which in many cases are common to both movements, although D 157/1 demonstrates advances in the compositional process and the stage reflected in the manuscript once more through the addition of fz markings not present in D 154.11 3. Scale as a Differentiating Characteristic As an examination of the similarities between D 154 and D 157/1 points to the conclusion that they are different representative aspects of a united work, an examination of the divergences between the works reveals individual structures and distinct compositional methods of approaching the challenges presented by the sonata-allegro form. Immediately apparent is the extended length of D 157/1 which, measured against the exposition of D 154, produces an additional 19 bars (104 bars until the repeat marking the end of the exposition in D 157/1 and 86 in D 154). Increases in the substance of the exposition of D 157/1 are the direct result of thematic elaboration and a fundamental alteration in the structural connection and harmonic progression between the first and second theme groups. Both movements open with parallel harmonic progressions in bars 1–8, differentiated by changes to the metric figuration and ornamentation of the melodic line. The changes demand slight alterations in the harmonic accompaniment of the opening theme, but the larger harmonic structures remain essentially similar.

11

For example, in bar 126 of D 157/1, contrasting with bar 109 of D 154.

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Fig. 2 D 154 bars 1–7

Fig. 3 D 157/1 bars 1–11

Both movements open with a statement of the main thematic material in the tonic, followed by a restatement in the dominant. The continuations from the conclusion of the opening thematic statements produce the first discrepancy with more than a melodic or thematic significance, which culminates in the transition to and appearance of the second theme group. In D 154 the second theme group (from bar 29) is approached through a succession of sustained trilled E naturals interrupted only by cadential appearances of a dominant pedal, all of which serve to reinforce the tonic and prepare for the entry of the second theme group in E major.

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Fig. 4 D. 154 bars 16–27

The second theme group of D 157/1 is the result of a prolonged modulatory process and appears in bar 47 in the dominant, although consisting of the same thematic elements seen in D 154. These changes are extensive, making it clear that the harmonic expositional structures of the two movements are indicative of a divergence in their formal concepts, further reinforcing their independence. D 157/1 relies upon a restatement of the opening thematic material to introduce a wide-ranging modulatory passage (bar 23), which is concluded in bar 47 with the appearance of the second theme group and the simultaneous arrival at the dominant. The thematic structure of the modulatory passage, which expands the harmonic palette of the exposition through the inclusion of a progression of cadential second inversion chords and their resolutions, produces a complex and elaborate transition.

Fig. 5 D. 157/1 bars 35–46

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The modulation to the second theme group in the second version of the Sonata in E major is one of the most artful transitions anywhere in Schubert’s early works. With its organisation through syntactic but not symmetrically placed grand pauses, with its sensitive structural integration in the overall harmonic processes and finally with its balance of persuasive power and surprise, it anticipates many characteristics of the mature late style.12

4. Divergences and Similarities in Harmonic Structure The effect of structural and harmonic divergence of the transitional passage, in conjunction with the emergence of the second theme group in the dominant, is to produce a new structure in the exposition of D 157/1. The movements converge once again at the conclusion of the exposition: in bar 89 of D 157/1, the material occurring from bar 71 of D 154 is subsumed into the expositional conclusion, although it is introduced differently due to the divergent harmonic structures. With the concluding thematic elements of the exposition (beginning in bar 71 in D 154) the piece modulates from the tonic to the dominant. As this modulatory process has already occurred before the beginning of the second theme group (bar 47) in D 157/1, the transitional material (bar 65 until the reintroduction of the theme of the second theme group in bar 95) is used to broaden the harmonic palette of the exposition and invoke a wider range of distant harmonies, most significantly the C major cadence which provides the foundation for the reintroduction of the second theme group material and the possibility for the exposition of D 157/1 to rejoin the structural path of D 154. Although certain parallels in the harmonic structure of the two works appear in the concluding area of the exposition and the preparation of the development, significant variations in D 157/1 demonstrate Schubert’s commitment to reconfiguration of structural and formal elements on a smaller scale. His continued efforts to compress modulations into the smallest possible space and reduce motivic repetition to the minimum result in a more concise structural progression toward the close of the exposition and a clearer transition to the development. The last three beats of bar 88 of D 157/1 contain the harmonic preparation for the transitional passage in bars 89 and 90, which is identical to that of D 154 (from the second half note of bar 69 to the end of bar 70) but the metric values of the harmonies are reduced from half notes in D 154 to quarter notes in D 157/1.

12

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 67. ‘Die Modulation zum Seitensatz in der zweiten Fassung der E-Dur-Sonate ist eine der kunstvollsten Überleitungen in Schuberts Frühwerk überhaupt. Mit ihrer Gliederung durch syntaktisch analoge, aber nicht symmetrisch platzierte Generalpausen, mit ihrer sensiblen strukturellen Integration in den harmonischen Gesamtablauf und schließlich mit ihrer Balance von Überzeugungskraft und Überraschung nimmt sie viele Merkmale des reifen Spätstils vorweg.’

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5. Motivic Divergences Alterations to the left hand line from bar 89 in D 157/1 (analogous to bar 71 in D 154) further demonstrate Schubert’s pursuit of motivic unity through the transitional passage from the end of the second theme group (from bar 65), which contains a rhythmic element composed of three repetitions of the same chord: a half note followed by two quarter notes. This motive, in a compressed form (two eighth notes and a quarter note in bars 89–90), is repeated in the accompaniment of the transition into the concluding statement of the second theme group. It is a departure from the figuration of the transition in D 154, although the melodic line remains the same: as the transitional passage (bar 65–87) in D 157 is not present in D 154, where the structural demands of a modulation to the dominant occupy the parallel space, a reiteration of the motive in the transition to the close of the exposition (bar 71–72 in D 154) is not possible. The interlinked divergences in harmonic and motivic construction at the end of the exposition demonstrate that the underlying formal plan and arrangement of musical content are not only superficially different, but are directed by an underlying change in the compositional approach. D 157/1 is an independently conceived work which shares certain material elements with D 154. Differences on a harmonic and structural level and those evoked through smaller motivic alterations demonstrate the significance of a flexible approach to reimagining extant material for Schubert’s process of composition. The commonalities between the two sonatas signify the material derivation of D 157/1 from D 154, but are not sufficient to reduce D 157/1 to a revision of the preceding sonata, nor to regard D 154 as only a preliminary sketch. III. A Change in the Elucidation of Form D 154 and D 157/1 are distinguished by different approaches to harmonic structure, most evident through the aforementioned modulatory strategies in the transitions between the first and second theme groups. 1. Compositional Sources of Fragmentation It is probable that the refinements and elaborations in the harmonic structure and the presentation of the second theme group in the dominant after a modulatory transition in D 157/1 are largely responsible for Schubert’s decision to abandon D 154. His decision to retain the most promising elements of the work as integrated parts of a new harmonic structure in D 157/1 is revealing, as the transferred elements consist of self-contained motivic and thematic details which, in the case of the main motive of the second theme group, occur in a different context, after the modulatory process to

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the dominant has already been completed. The result is a similarity in melodic content between the two movements, which contrasts with profoundly individual harmonic constructs and presents the familiar motives from a new perspective. The late modulation to the dominant in D 154 and the presentation of the opening motive of the second theme group in the tonic results in a harmonic structure which subsequently proved to be incompatible with the demands of a sonata-allegro form. Nevertheless, Schubert continued the composition of D 154 until the end of the development section, making the work the first appearance of a type of fragmentation present throughout many of the later piano sonatas and emphasising the importance of the recapitulatory entry in revealing insurmountable formal conflicts. In contrast with the later incomplete movements in sonata-allegro form, the difficulties presented by the harmonic structure of the modulation within the second theme group are apparent in the extant composition and indicate sufficient cause for the abandonment of the movement. A satisfactory transposition of the second theme group, evocative of a sense of return and reconciliation in the recapitulation through the presentation of ‘important statements made in a key other than the tonic’ in either the tonic or a more closely related key,13 is neutralised by the close relationship already present in the exposition. Without the possibility of harmonic tension and distance from the E major tonic, the most prominent and fundamental resolution process of recapitulation takes place at the moment of its entry, or possibly through an alteration of the B major statements already present within the transition to the second theme group in the exposition (bars 35–38). 2. Fluidity in Thematic Function in D 157/1 There is an additional alteration to thematic relations between the first and second theme groups in D 157/1 which is revealing in terms of the decision to compose D 157 as a sonata which integrates material from D 154 in a new harmonic structure. The transitional passage at the end of the opening thematic statement is a new addition (bars 9–12), an intermediary statement before the return of the first theme in bar 23 and the true transition to the second theme group from bar 35.

13

Cone, Musical Form and Musical Performance, pp. 76–77.

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Fig. 6 D 157/1 bars 47–51 (for comparison, see Fig. 1)

The significance of the addition is not only a return to the first theme, but also the introduction of material belonging to the second theme group (from bar 47) as an intermediary presence in the first thematic area. The second theme, defined by two rising appoggiaturas and a falling fifth and a following variation, is therein endowed with structural significance in an area of the movement in which it is not identifiable as a stable element of primary thematic material; its identity as a new motivic entity in the second theme group is anticipated by an appearance as a transitional construct. Additionally, it returns at the conclusion of the exposition in both D 154 (bars 73–84) and D 157/1 (bars 91–102) to bring harmonic closure on the dominant and act as a concluding statement for both the exposition and, in D 157/1, the recapitulation. The incorporation of this motive in a structural position which precedes its essential appearance as a thematic element tied to a particular defining aspect of the sonata-allegro, in this case as the contrasting second theme, produces the beginnings of an underlying structural and harmonic understanding which does not adhere to the ‘normative appearances’ of the established sonata principle. It brings an element of retrospection into what is intended to be the novel introduction of an entirely new and contrasting thematic element: instead of evoking oppositional tension through harmonic and more particularly motivic distinction, the second theme appears as an elaboration and echo of a previously heard musical element. It has changed not only its form but also its function. Instead of consolidating the unity of thematic identity and formal location as a component of the sonata principle, in which the transitional figure remains confined by formal boundaries to a single role, acting as a progression from one ‘stable’ aspect of the form (the opening statement of the first theme) to another, equally stable repetition, it has attained formal significance through its dispersal across the structural separation of the first and second theme groups and thereby its own harmonic area and motivic ‘stability’. 3. Motivic Function and its Compositional Implications The revelation of the mutability of motivic function as it relates to the delineation of form is an evolution with deeper implications for the sonata principle in Schubert’s works. As a result of the anticipatory appearance of thematic material native to the

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second theme group in D  157/1, the importance of undermining the oppositional, contrast-based relationships between thematic and harmonic structures at the heart of the sonata principle is revealed as strongly active even in the earliest sonata-allegro movements. The reinterpretation and retroactive integration of the established second theme from D 154 into the first theme group of D 157/1 is a further example of the manifold effects of this re-conception. Retrospective inclusion of a motive based upon the material of the second theme shows the extent to which the already-composed material remained flexible and open to alteration and reinterpretation in Schubert’s compositional process. This is a process which occurs on a more fundamental level than the ‘Rückübertragung’ of alterations to the motivic and thematic elements in the recapitulation to the parallel elements in the exposition.14 In the case of the motivic integration of material derived from the second theme group as a transitional element in the first theme group of D 157/1, the alteration involves the transversal of a previously fixed formal boundary and begins to erode the strict harmonic and motivic separation between the contrasting formal elements of the exposition. 4. Developmental Conclusions The next substantial alterations emerge at the end of the development sections. D 154 ceases abruptly after the introduction of a passage designed to introduce the recapitulation but before it becomes harmonically inevitable, as there is no clear indication of a preparatory cadential process leading back to the tonic of E major in the transitional passage (bars 116–118). The divergence from the second sonata is substantial; the development and the transitional passage to the recapitulation, which are both bearers of formal significance as well as containing motivic or thematic elements such as the main melodic and harmonic structures of the second theme group, are not wholly derived from D 154, but the aspects which are retained are integrated and reconsidered in their capacity as formal determinants in a self-critical manner. The introduction of the development section and the following twenty-four bars are functionally identical with minor exceptions.15 The last four bars of this section continue as an exact mirror of the passage in D 154, but instead of proceeding directly to the introduction of a recapitulatory transition, D 157/1 restates a variation of the second theme with chromatic accompaniment, postponing the resolution of the harmonic tension evoked through the development and drawing out the chromaticism presented in bars 128–131. After an extension of nine bars occupied by references to the second theme group in D 157/1, the recapitulatory transition begins in bar 141 with a resumption of material 14 15

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 171. Such as the rhythmic alteration of the left hand in bars 126 and 127 of D 157/1 (108–109 in D 154).

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inspired by the transition composed in D 154 (bars 114–118). A comparison of the two works indicates that bar 119 of D 154 would have contained a turning point of harmonic inevitability leading directly to an E major cadence. The similarity of the transitional passages and the proximity of the point at which Schubert abandoned the composition of D 154 suggest a further tentative conclusion regarding the reasons for its incompletion: the dominant seventh in bars 114–115 of D 154 is not a rhythmic and motivic re-statement of the primary thematic material.

Fig. 7 D 154 bars 114–115

The sixteenth note scale of the exposition is replaced in the introduction to the recapitulation by a triplet figure which bears a strong resemblance to the primary thematic material of D 157/1. It consists of three rising triplets outlining a B major dominant seventh.16 Nonetheless, the motive is immediately recognisable as the second half of the main thematic material of the first subject in D 157/1. Three bars after this new idea, Schubert discarded the movement and began the composition of a new work which incorporated many of the motives and some significant harmonic structures of the earlier attempt.17 The process of returning to the exposition to correct and amend passages which he composed differently in the recapitulation in order to maintain rhythmic and motivic symmetry is well-documented in Schubert’s later sonata-allegro compositions; thematic and motivic elements are not static after their first appearances in the exposition, but remain fluid and subject to further refinement or alteration, which is then retroactively applied to the previous appearances. The case of D 154 and D 157, although evidently related to Schubert’s later understanding of the analogously symmetrical relationship of the exposition and the recapitulation and its connection to the thematic aspects of composition, is nonetheless an idiosyncrasy. 16 17

In D 157/1, the motive differs only in metric emphasis. The highest note of each four-note group falls upon a strong beat in D 157, whereas a rhythmic variant in D 154 places the concluding note of each triplet group upon a weak beat. The only remaining difference is in the concluding element of the development in D 154, which maintains its function across the transfer to D 157/1 (bars 144–146). The alteration which occurs in D 157/1 is not structurally or harmonically meaningful: Schubert replaced the staccato articulation of the bass line with a long slur.

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IV. A Continuous Compositional Process The extent of the harmonic and formal divergences between the two works decisively exclude the reductive view of a D 154 as a preliminary draft of D 157/1. Motivic and rhythmic alterations to the primary material of the first theme group are of less formal significance than the elaborate and complex modulation between the first and second theme groups in D 157/1: a retroactive alteration reflecting Schubert’s motivic inspiration in bars 114 and 115 of D 154 would have been possible without necessitating a re-composition of the movement. More probably the impulse to compose D 157 arose from a dissatisfaction with the harmonic structure of the exposition of D 154, or the idea of a dramatic and sudden modulation capable of establishing the dominant with the entry of the second theme group. In combination, the formal reinvention of the modulatory passage in D 157/1 and the unexpected appearance of a variation of the main triplet theme of D 157/1 (bars 114–115 of D 154) supply abundant indications revealing not only the causes for abandoning the composition of D 154 (alterations to previously composed material which were too far-reaching to be entered into the existing manuscript) but also an explanation of the point at which it occurred. The new triplet motive was not retroactively modified in the exposition of D 154, but transferred forward into the exposition of D 157/1. The abandonment of D 154 is unique among Schubert’s incomplete and fragmentary piano sonatas, as it is an example of the continued existence of a musical inspiration or motivating idea. The form in which it continues is deliberately separated and made distinct from its ‘original’ iteration through a decisive break in the compositional process, which is then begun anew while incorporating and encompassing elements of the earlier, discarded work. The most plausible description of the two sonatas is one which emphasises their independence while regarding them as progressive intermediary stages in the evolution of a unified compositional impulse. Chronologically and compositionally, the exposition of D 157/1 is the ‘continuation’ of the abruptly truncated development of D 154, and this statement remains true on a fundamental musical level. The first appearance of the main thematic material of D 157/1 is three bars before the cessation of composition in D 154; perhaps it is more accurate to say that the compositional process was not halted or abandoned, but continued almost without a break within the formal boundaries of a new work. The two sonatas are distinguished not only due to their formal differences, but also by the compositional intention with which Schubert approached the demands and challenges of the sonata-allegro form. In order to produce such divergent results, it is manifest that a profound transformation in the understanding and exploration of the form occurred during the compositional process. The presence of a single process of composition divided across two works preserves traces of this internal evolution and the experimental growth and expansion of Schubert’s individual expressiveness within the limits of an established form. The first sonata was not abandoned or left incom-

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plete, but transmuted and partly subsumed into the more advanced and sophisticated formal and musical possibilities of the second. V. A Novel Unconventionality Without doubt, D 157 brought an advance in the distinctive cast which Schubert would lend to the sonata-allegro in the course of his compositional development. Above all, D 157/1 is noteworthy due to the refinement and compositional virtuosity of the modulatory processes. In light of this progression, it cannot be considered as ‘[…] an unimaginative study of form, […] strangely without relation to the works of the middle period, in which Schubert finds himself […]’.18 Indeed, it anticipates the later developments in Schubert’s motivic and harmonic treatment of the sonata-allegro. Although redolent of an assured and proficient certainty, the modulatory techniques are not always compatible with the structural prerequisites of the sonata-allegro form. In this sense D 157/1 is an important step in the process through which the evolution and ultimate arrival at the novel formal mastery of the late work makes its first appearances. The advances are not only comparative when taken in the context of the sonata which preceded it by less than one week, but in the context of Schubert’s oeuvre. D 157/1 contains the nascent beginnings and tentative experiments with what would become a reinvention of the possibilities and boundaries of the sonata-allegro model which he had experienced through the study and performance of the works of his predecessors. 1. Separation of Motivic and Harmonic Recapitulatory Moments The entry of the recapitulation presents a new interpretation of the trope of return and reconciliation based on harmonic return and motivic familiarity which would continue to appear in Schubert’s handling of the introduction of recapitulatory processes throughout his engagement with the sonata principle. Although the ‘false recapitulation’ was established in Haydn’s sonata-allegro movements19 and Haydn’s manifold alterations to the recapitulation resulted in a ‘total transformation’ of the formal element,20 Schubert’s recapitulatory separation is directed at a different aim. It is not an alteration of a recapitulatory process, although Haydn’s propensity to change the 18

19 20

Carl Dahlhaus, ‘Ein Gesamtwerk, das keines ist. Schubert, gespielt von Kempff und Schuchter’, in Carl Dahlhaus. Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Hermann Danuser (Laaber: Laaber, 2007), x, 447–49 (p. 447). ‘[…] eine einfallslose Formstudie […] seltsam beziehungslos neben den Werken der mittleren Zeit, in denen Schubert zu sich selbst findet […]’. Mark Evan Bonds, Haydn’s False Recapitulations and the Perception of Sonata From in the Eighteenth Century (Phil. Diss. Cambridge (Harvard University), 1988). Ethan Haimo, ‘Haydn’s “Altered Reprise”’, Journal of Music Theory, 32 (1988), 335–51 (p. 336).

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recapitulatory material in order to generate large scale structures in his later sonata movements21 is a precursor of the Schubertian recapitulatory evolutions, but its essential concept is based upon a propensity to undermine the unambiguous and unified presentation of an identifiable moment of return. In the case of D 157/1, the motivic ‘recapitulation’ is announced earlier than the harmonic arrival at the tonic: a variation of the arpeggiated motive originating in the first theme group appears in bars 141–143, but instead of introducing the E major tonic, it outlines a rising dominant seventh in B major.

Fig. 8 D. 157/1 bars 141–143

After a further four transitional bars, the true recapitulation begins with a restatement of the first theme group in its entirety from bar 148.

Fig. 9 D 157/1 bars 147–151

The effect of the motivic and harmonic dislocation is to disperse various elements of the recapitulatory moment which are traditionally unified and continue the underlying process of thematic dispersal which is also demonstrated by the retroactive inclusion of the second theme as a transition in bars 9–12 of the exposition. Structural boundaries are harmonically and motivically delineated, but the two elements are increasingly independent of one another, running roughly parallel without being entirely simultaneous. The boundaries of structural elements in this sonata-allegro movement are increasingly frangible and their permeability is demonstrated by the ‘out of place’ thematic intermingling and asynchronous structural processes. The result is to place stronger emphasis on the content, both harmonic and thematic, which provides

21

Haimo, p. 348.

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structural coherence to the form and to move away from an oppositional formal projection based upon externally imposed conventions. 2. Recapitulatory Modulation The innovations and forward-looking musical constructs of D 157/1 are concentrated in the first movement, especially in the shaping of the exposition and recapitulation. The point of formal tension which remained a challenge for Schubert through his engagement with the sonata-allegro form, centred increasingly upon the recapitulatory principle over the next three years, is the modulation of the second theme group in the recapitulation and its function as a resolution of expositional tension. The ‘modified transpositional recapitulation’22 is prominent among the methods which appear in Schubert’s early works, in order to solve the problem of an effective modulation in the recapitulation without succumbing to the established paradigm of harmonic tension and opposition in the sonata form movement. In D 157/1, this is the formal adaptation implemented with the intention of supporting an interpretation of the sonata principle as one of complementarity rather than opposition. In D 157/1, the recapitulatory entry appears in the tonic (from bar 148) but the transition is displaced by a fourth, leading directly to the second theme group in the tonic without the necessity of composing a new modulation. The handling of the modulatory passage between the first and second theme group in the recapitulation is exemplary of the most significant divergence between D 157/1 and D 154. It shows a new sense of flexibility in the periodisation of the phrases and the deliberate dramatisation of the modulatory process through the use of a two-bar rest. However, the sophistication of the modulatory passage conceals a fundamental challenge when it is considered in the harmonic context of the recapitulation. It is necessary to turn the twelve-bar sequence in a new direction, so that it leads towards the tonic. This is achieved through an earlier transposition of the preceding material, a restatement of the opening theme as a preparation for the true transition.23 This method of arranging the modulatory passage, so that the modulation itself is determined by the process of transposition in its original form instead of being altered to lead in a new direction, contains the source of Schubert’s fundamental reinterpretation of the function and purpose of the recapitulation.

22 23

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, pp. 67, 75. ‘Modifizierte Transpositionsreprise’. The changes necessary to transpose the transitional material begin in bar 158, as the concluding octave passage of the opening theme is raised by one octave and therefore allows the intervening material to lead to a restatement of the opening theme in the dominant (bar 170) instead of in the tonic, as in the exposition (bar 23).

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3. Recapitulatory Arrangements in D 157/1 A causal symptom of the unusual predominance of piano sonata fragments is expressed in the earliest attempts at composition in the genre. In D 157/1, tension between the aspirations to symmetry and resolution in the recapitulation, which are no longer justified by the reinterpretation of the harmonic and structural function of the development, and the essential negation of the oppositional, harmonically defined sonata principle is apparent. In addition, the presentation of the recapitulation as an analogous constellation of harmonically defined areas which reflects but is not compelled to ‘resolve’ the thematic and harmonic constellations of the exposition and development is indicative of a novel approach to structure which is central to the piano sonata fragments of the following years. On a fundamental level, adherence to the metric and thematic structure of the transitional passage is not the result of a whim or a lack of forethought; it reveals the importance of stable, unalterable transitions in Schubert’s increasingly static interpretation of the sonata-allegro and, due to the avoidance of an unquestioning acceptance of the established arc of harmonic tension, raises fundamental doubts regarding the necessity of a modulation toward the tonic as a preparation for the second theme group. It would be a grave error to disregard the complex interactions of musical form, content, and a critical engagement with established structures giving rise to the ultimately unsatisfying modulation as merely the expression of a young composer as yet unable to integrate his innovative musical instincts with the ‘existing, fixed forms’.24 Modulatory processes related to the establishment and organisation of the recapitulatory area in the early sonatas are of great importance as they contain revelations regarding the methods and experiments with which Schubert took his first tentative steps towards the renewal of the sonata principle. This endeavour to reproduce the modulations as formal points of attraction would become characteristic for Schubert’s treatment of the establishment of the recapitulation in general.25 The significant advance in the first piano sonata is the understanding of the transition not as a dynamic link which is defined by its modulatory purpose and direction, but as a fixed formal element capable of providing balance and stability to the form. That the first half of the modulatory passage cannot sustain the weight of this new ambition does not make the advance any less meaningful; on the contrary, it demonstrates that the primary impulse, even in the earliest works, is a strong and abiding will to invent and inhabit a new formal constellation.

24 25

Költzsch, p. 57. ‘[…] vorhandenen festen Form’. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p.  68. ‘Dieses Bestreben zur Reproduktion des Tonartwechsels als eines formalen Attraktionspunktes wird für Schuberts Umgang mit der Repriseneinrichtung überhaupt kennzeichnend werden.’

Form in D 157/2

77

4. Sonata-Allegro Model in D 157/1 The formal approach to the sonata-allegro in D  157/1 shows an experimental drive towards removal from the established dynamic and oppositional narrative, primarily expressed through the evocation of harmonic tension and subsequent resolution. The intersection of harmony and form occurs on a more fundamental level; the harmonic structures are no longer considered as a paradigm for articulating the formal planes of the sonata principle, but become intrinsically linked with the form itself. This is apparent in Schubert’s treatment of the modulatory passage between the first and second theme groups not as a flexible element which should be altered to lead to a different harmony, but as a fixed formal entity which is no longer open to melodic or harmonic variation. It maintains its essential identity and is simply displaced by a fourth: the modulatory process is dissociated from the transitional material and therein the function of ‘transition’ is not determined by the structural planes which are to be connected. In a manner similar to the strengthened individual identity granted to the material of the second theme group, it has become a stable formal element, and the individual moment of harmonic redirection in the recapitulation must therefore be placed earlier to maintain the structural integrity of the modulatory passage. This new understanding of the interdependence of musical form and harmonic structures, which results in an increase in the status of the latter, continues through Schubert’s late works and is largely responsible for the presence of unabbreviated transitional passages in Schubert’s mature sonata style. VI. Form in D 157/2 1. Small-scale Lied Forms Unusually, the Andante is composed in the parallel minor, a harmonic relation which emphasises the place of the solo piano sonata as a plane for experimenting with the intersection of harmony and form. The movement is complete and has a complex form which is distantly related to a classical rondo, but with significant divergences. It adheres generally to the plan of a sequence of smaller A–B–A forms which distinguish the individual formal sections of the movement from one another, before a final return to the original material of the movement (bars 1–16). The formal constructs which define the slow movement are further complicated by an unusual pattern of repeats, which acts to define larger structural entities beyond the thematic divisions caused by the miniature A–B–A or lied events. Following two distinct lied structures (A– B–A and C–D–C, see table), the movement begins to develop an underlying, largescale structure beyond the sequence of lied events occupying the preceding 44 bars: a transitional theme (E), which is neither drawn from earlier material nor repeated lat-

B

9–16

A

1–8

Structural elements

Bar numbers

Secondary structural elements

A1: 13–16

G maj. / E min.

Key

E min.

17–26

C 27–34

D

G maj.

35–44

C1 45–54

E (A/H)

G maj.

55–62

F

E min.

New Material

ABA

Smaller binary forms

CDC

B

A

Rounded Binary

63–72

G

C maj.

Table 5 Structure and Harmony in D 157/2

73–83

H

E maj.

GHG

84–93

G

C maj.

94–101

A2

E min.

Coda

E min.

102–109 110–112

B2

G maj.

ABA

A

78 D 154 and D 157

Form in D 157/2

79

er.26 The division of the movement into two distinct halves is further underlined by the presence of the final set of repeat signs, which enclose the chromatic eight bar theme and serve to strengthen its structural significance, and the conclusion of the movement follows a similar pattern as the opening (Table 2). After two bars of dominant preparation in B major (92–93) and a double-bar line, the original opening A–B–A form is restated in its entirety, although without an individual repetition of the A section. The movement closes with a three-bar coda, which acts to reinforce and stabilise the conclusive arrival at the tonic of E minor once more and emphasises the finality of the last restatement of the opening A–B–A form (bars 94–109). The precise formal construction of the slow movement reveals itself at first as essentially directed by a chain of four distinct lied forms interrupted after the second complete cycle (C–D–C in bars 17–44), the last of which is an exact repetition of the first. However, the underlying large-scale structure of the movement is generated by the return to E minor and E major as harmonic anchor points, presented in the context of repeated or new thematic material. 2. Harmonically Delineated Large-Scale Structure An examination of the disruptions to this already unusual plan reveals the inventiveness and novelty of the approach to form, both within D 157/2 and in relation to the preceding sonata-allegro. Internally, the movement demonstrates a parallel structure which rests upon the harmonic symmetries between the E minor opening episode (A–B–A, bars 1–16) and the unexpected return to the tonality from the parallel major after the transitional theme (E, bars 45–54). The structural presentation of the E minor return (F, bars 55–62) is emphasised not only by its isolation and independence, as it is not part of a closed lied form episode, but also by the repeats which surround it. The repeated theme acquires the function of a harmonic anchor in the middle of the movement, before the last tonal explorations in the following lied form episode (G–H–G, bars 63–93). The architectonic structure resting on E minor as a tonic and place of recognition is resumed at the conclusion of the movement with the restatement of the opening lied form episode (bars 94–109) and reinforced by the final dominanttonic cadence added in bars 110–112 as a coda. The centrality and stability of the E minor tonic serves as a foundation for the harmonic excursuses of the movement as well providing an overarching point of tonal orientation and therein a source of structural coherence. 26

Although it contains elements of both the opening rhythmic motive of theme A and lends its syncopated accompaniment in octaves to the later theme H, the transitional theme E leads to a highly chromatic thematic element (F) which occurs only once almost exactly in the middle of the movement (bars 55–62).

80

D 154 and D 157

VII. Cyclical Projections 1. Structural Integration of a Two-Movement Form in D 157 Strong contrasts in the chained lied structures of the second movement and the sonataallegro form of the first movement provide a fertile ground for examining the fragmentary nature of the work as a whole. The evocation of two complementary formal arrangements in the second movement as a series of chained lied forms and a tripartite return to the tonic of E minor are unusual in their thematic and motivic variety and in the level of structural complexity which emerges from the interaction of the two formal planes. Furthermore, the choice of the parallel minor for a slow movement is unusual and contains the roots of difficulties regarding the cyclical form in its totality; as convention strongly indicated that the closing movement should be a return to the tonic or in a related key, the only true tonal departure from the realm of E major and its parallel minor occurs in the following Menuetto and Trio. Perhaps coincidentally, the key structure of the first two movements of D 157 is a mirror image of Beethoven’s Sonata in E minor Op. 90, which was composed in the preceding year,27 several months after the composition of D 157 in February. Schubert could not have been acquainted with the work,28 however the roots of a stable harmonic construct comprising two movements in the parallel major and minor are present. The structural reflection which occurs in the chained lied form slow movement, which can be read as a harmonically-based inversion of the sonata-allegro first movement, provides subtle and implicit indications towards a formal plan in which contrast and duality between the first two movements of the cyclical structure play a significant role. If D 157 contains implications of a completed two-movement cycle, the necessity for tonal closure is obviated by the related keys of the first and second movements. A convincing structural evolution occurs within the dual-movement construct, producing a two-part cyclical form with distinct tonal centres and complementary harmonic and formal plans. However, the main argument against such a proposal arises from the presence of the third movement in the same manuscript: a Menuetto and Trio in B major. D 157 displays parallels to a later piano sonata which is clearly inspired by Beethoven’s Op. 90; D 566 ( June 1817) also evinces a compelling two-movement structure which, in the absence of the following scherzo, would be experientially plausible as a ‘complete’ sonata, with no perceptible fragmentary aspects.

27 28

Published in the summer of 1815. D 566 bears a direct resemblance to the Op. 90 model in both motivic, metric, and harmonic content, and is chronologically more plausible as a musical reference to the Beethoven sonata.

Cyclical Projections

81

2. Emergence of a Formal Plan The addition of a menuett or scherzo movement to an existing two-movement form centred upon the tonalities of E major and E minor (or vice versa in D 566), which is nominally convincing as a cohesive work according to the compositional practice of the early nineteenth century, provides several reasons to return to the putative implication that the form of a work is singular and fixed from the beginning of the compositional process, before its material realisation. In the case of D 154 and D 157, it is apparent that formal projections regarding related works are mutable and frequently so fundamentally altered during the process of composition that the boundary to a new work with an individual identity is crossed, although the new composition retains elements of the preceding piece. Indications pointing to a similar evolution in the formal projection of a sonata may be observed in the convincing level of implicit completion present after D 157/2; the achievement of a stable and closed structure must not necessarily be undermined by the decision to continue a cyclical evolution, which then expands the formal boundaries of the work. As the impulse towards completion present in the early string quartets, which may have been intended for performance by members of his family,29 is absent in the sonatas for solo piano, the latter offered a more accessible and open field for structural and formal experimentation. Although the first two movements of the sonata D 157 are capable of creating a convincing formal completion were they to stand alone, the following Menuetto and Trio should be considered not as a definitive step towards the fulfilment of a previously determined form but seen in a context of continuous exploration. The formal projections implied by a dance-like third movement indicate the almost ineluctable necessity of a completion through a fourth movement which should bring a return to the original tonic of the first sonata-allegro movement, but should be considered as a parallel, perhaps more strongly emphasised but ultimately unrealised structural projection rather than the unavoidable continuation of the fragmentary sonata. 3. A Three-Movement Fragment A brief speculative excursus demonstrates the implicit tendencies towards a complete structural projection attained through an expansion of the existing material: it is evident that the final manuscript of D 157 is not finished in the sense of being finally prepared for public presentation, either through publication or performance. The possibility that the three-movement structure is itself complete and the concluding Menuetto

29

Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 45.

82

D 154 and D 157

and Trio are the expression of a radical structural experiment30 may be excluded on the basis of a comparison with Schubert’s compositional output over the course of a lifetime of experimental formal evolution and the modality by which his prevailing interest in structural renewal and novel musical possibilities reveal themselves, even in the earliest works. There is no indisputable example of a work which exhibits structural closure through a concluding menuett or scherzo movement. Although the subjectivity of a convincing experience of closure is difficult to avoid, it must be recognised that Schubert’s cyclical conception of the sonata, as expressed in the works for solo piano, for chamber ensemble and for orchestra, does not include the possibility of a dancemovement finale. The addition of the Menuetto and Trio to D 157 cannot reflect an increased level of structural closure: the structural projection which arises from the continuation of the dual form expressed in the Allegro ma non troppo and Andante movements necessitates a theoretical fourth movement in order for the sonata to be considered complete. Further indications of the unlikelihood of an intentionally completed form which concludes with a menuett and trio in the dominant may be drawn from the complex nature of the structural experiments presented in this early sonata, which indicate a determination to adhere to a predetermined formal plan while retaining invention and originality in the harmonic and thematic content. The formal experiment of a menuett and trio as a last movement does not display any aspects of the internal disruption and reinvention of established forms which are evident in the preceding two movements. The truncation of a four-movement structure through the absence of a traditional finale does not lend itself to contextualisation as a reinterpretation of a form; nor does it appear to contribute to an evolution of the cyclical sonata projections known to Schubert as compositional tropes. It is therefore evident that the reinvention of the fourth movement or finale within a cyclical structure did not occupy Schubert in the year 1815 to the same extent that the challenges of the sonata-allegro fascinated him. The discussion of the fragmentary status of D 157 has been concentrated almost entirely upon the absence of a final movement, although occasional assessments of its parallel structural projections have occurred in more recent examinations.31 Although it is unlikely that the last movement, or a draft thereof, had been composed and subsequently lost on the basis of the two and a half blank pages which follow the completed Trio, it is not possible to conclude on the basis of an absent finale that the concrete three-movement structure is the only possibility. D 157 must be considered incomplete, but it acquires additional dimensions as a fragment from the plurality of structural projections which emerge from the manuscript, particularly with regard to the convincing degree of formal and

30 31

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 121. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 121.

Integration of the Menuetto and Trio in a Large-Scale Cyclical Form

83

harmonic closure and structural reflexiveness present between the first two movements of the work. VIII. Integration of the Menuetto and Trio in a Large-Scale Cyclical Form D 157/3 appears to be a return to musical structures with which Schubert was familiar in 1815: there are multiple cycles of menuetts and trios originating in the preceding years. The menuett occupies an unusual place in the context of the dance cycles: the vast majority are walzer, ländler, and deutsche (Schubert composed, approximately 130  walzer, 130 ländler, and 160 deutsche). By comparison, the thirty menuetts form only a small proportion of the approximately five hundred dances. The menuett is the oldest form among Schubert’s dances, but its origins appear to indicate that the dances were generally composed and received as concertante works. The re-contextualisation of the menuett as a form existing within the accepted boundaries of aesthetically driven kunstmusik, increasing the already present distance between the menuett in its iteration as a social dance and the Schubertian model of the ‘stylised instrumental form’32 occurred remarkably early, as Schubert ceased to engage with the menuett as an element of a cyclical arrangement of short dances in 1816. The increasing complexity of the form and its integration into the centre of the new experimental field of the piano sonata provides a convincing explanation for its diminished role among the dances. The divergence between the genres would only expand in the following years; the ‘concertante’ menuett form, already present in the earliest string quartets from the year 1810, found its place among the cyclical compositions in sonata form without entirely losing the traces of its origins in the established dances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The menuett and trio is not the only dance structure to have attained a stature beyond that of gesellschaftsmusik, or functional music intended for light entertainment or composed to accompany dancers. Unlike the later cycles of walzer or deutsche such as D 145 or D 366, which depend upon overarching cyclical structures and melodic connections for their elevation to a ‘Werkcharakter’,33 the menuett and trio gains its ‘serious’ content due to the abstraction of the formal plan from a cycle of dances and its placement in a cyclical work based around a sonata-allegro form. This occurs independently of the presence of interconnections in the musical content of the individual movement to its cyclical surroundings. The increase in the ascribed aesthetic purpose of the form 32 33

Walburga Litschauer, ‘“Halt’s enk zsamm”. Tänze und Märsche für Klavier’, in Schubert Handbuch, ed. by Walther Dürr and Andreas Krause (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1997), pp. 436–50 (p. 442). ‘[…] stilisierten Instrumentalform […]’. Litschauer, ‘“Halt’s enk zsamm”. Tänze und Märsche für Klavier’, pp. 436, 439.

84

D 154 and D 157

is not only effected by its transposition into a genre with aspirations to the status of kunstmusik; this process is reflected internally through increasingly complex structures and elaborated musical content. From its role as a sonata movement, the Menuetto and Trio attains a more complex phrase structure and more adventurous and broader thematic content than the individual pieces of self-contained dance-cycles. The most obvious departure from the established dance form is the absence of an upbeat. Excluding the last four piano sonatas, D 157/3 is the only dance movement among the works for solo piano and piano duet which may be considered as bearing a sonata form, whether fragmentary or complete, which does not begin with an upbeat.34 It seems that the absence of upbeats in dance movements contained within sonatas for solo piano, almost invariable among Schubert’s works until 1824, ended with the incomplete D 840, composed in the early summer of 1825, in which the Menuetto returns to the upbeat-model first present in D 157.35 IX. The First Sonatas: A Paradigm of the Sonata Principle 1. Compositional Innovation The first two E major sonatas demonstrate the essential connections and interdependence between the harmonic constellations and tonal planes, which are expanded to include a new stability in transitional and modulatory elements and are central to the reinvention of the sonata principle for Schubert, and their motivic and thematic expression. The disruption of the tonal sonata plan36 indicates the priorities and aspirations which define the experimentation with the sonata allegro form and the invention and evolution of individual principles with which it was possible to bring a modern context and individual expressivity to the established structural principles, without

34

35

36

The prevalence of the dance movement without an upbeat rises sharply in the last years of Schubert’s compositional activities; three of the five sonatas composed after the summer of 1825 beginning with D 850 contain scherzo and trio movements rather than menuett and trio movements. With the exception of D 894, each of the dance movements in the piano sonatas spanning the years 1825–1828 begins without an upbeat. This development is at least partly limited to the composition of sonatas for solo piano, as the chamber music compositions, including the piano trios D  898 and D 929 and the String Quintet D 956 contain dance movements (in the case of the quintet only marked as presto) which begin with an upbeat. There appears to be an abrupt transition between the two modes of scherzo or menuett composition: the Sonata in C major D 812 for four hands composed in the summer of 1824; D 845, composed in the spring and early summer of 1825; and D 850, composed in August 1825, all contain dance movements which begin with upbeats. This is most evident in the absent modulation to the second theme group in the exposition of D 154 and the substantive advances in harmonic sophistication and evocative motivic structures with underlying formal significance present in D 157/1.

The First Sonatas: A Paradigm of the Sonata Principle

85

distorting them into unrecognisability or removing the sonata-allegro from its roots in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is clear from each of the individual movements of D 157 that the approach of the earliest compositional experiments is closely related to the compositional and musical fulfilment of the mature late style of the sonatas composed from 1825. 2. Similarities to the Later Works The strength and directness of the link between the earliest and last sonatas is further underlined by the divergence of the works in the middle period from the harmonic and modulatory processes and structural elements presented and established in D 157. The process which, through a decade of formal, structural, and ultimately musical experimentation, inevitably results in the idiomatic universality of form and content in the late sonatas is, in a sense, a return to the first attempts at the reinvention of a sonata-allegro and the surrounding movements. However, this only becomes possible after attaining a distance from the origins of these experiments, expressed through modulatory and harmonic innovation, in order to be able to accept them as a novel and conclusive solution to the continuing challenge of composing in an established form without entirely succumbing to the rigours of its determinate parameters. The compositional processes which lead to the fragments of the following years are also inherent in the challenges and methods by which Schubert approached their resolution in D 157. These ideas, which reappear only after the conclusion of the compositional experimentation productive of so many abandoned and unfinished sonatas and the space to engage with an enormous variety of formal, motivic, and modulatory arrangements to undermine and simultaneously revivify the sonata-allegro model, reveal themselves once more in the last years of Schubert’s life as a gradual and certain return to the most fundamental musical instincts and desires of some of the earliest sonata compositions. Resemblances between D 157 and the late works are present in each of the three movements. The modulatory processes and reinterpretation of the ‘tension-based’ sonata form in the harmonic structures of the first movement, the complex structural planes of the second movement, and the absence of the upbeat and essential recontextualisation of the menuett in the third movement, are too numerous and too significant to be set aside as coincidental. They reveal a unified and unaltered will on Schubert’s part which drove the continued composition in the form of the piano sonata as well as its deliberate predestination as a genre uniquely suitable for experimentation and renewal. Each of the following fragments builds upon the foundations laid in D 154 and D 157 from 1815; although formal, harmonic, and motivic departures are prominent, it is the inexorable determination to progress and to create an individual and profoundly novel sonata which lies behind the following years of composition.

D 279 The Sonata in C major D 279 marks a distinct departure from the preceding sonatas on different levels, with regard to the musical content, the formal arrangement, and the physical records of the works. The sonata is clearly oriented towards and formed by a more extroverted and virtuosic idiom but nonetheless sustains a ‘classical’ aesthetic.1 It contains sophisticated and complex chromatic modulations and a far more elaborate tonal plan than the preceding piano sonatas, which is presented early in the exposition. The extant manuscript (MHc–136) demonstrates several individual features which serve to set it apart. Beginning with particularities of the history of the composition and its reception, including the title of the manuscript as Sonate I, an examination of innovative processes which are directed towards the discovery of new expressive forms continues with an analysis of Schubert’s early experiments in recapitulatory structures. A philological and analytical examination of the cyclical interconnections evoked through parallels in motivic and harmonic references leads to a discussion of the fragmentary status of the sonata as a whole. I. Compositional History 1. Sonate I Unlike the preceding sonatas D 154 and D 157, the manuscript of D 279 has a numeral in addition to its title. Indicative of a new approach, the title Sonate I is a break with the preceding works. It is probable that Schubert did not count D 154 and D 157 as ‘works’ insofar as their fragmentary and incomplete status disqualified them from inclusion in a numbered series. The following sonata, D 459, returns to the convention of a genre title without sequential indications, which appears to continue in D 566.2

1 2

Andreas Krause, ‘“So frei und eigen, so keck und mitunter auch so sonderbar”. Die Klaviermusik’, in Schubert Handbuch, ed. by Walther Dürr and Andreas Krause (Kassel etc.: Bärenreiter, 1997), pp. 380–434 (p. 384). The autograph is lost; descriptions of the manuscript do not include a numbered title.

Compositional History

87

An examination of the retrospective implications of the title provokes questions regarding its informative relevance for the projected structures of D 279. It appears that Schubert, distancing himself from the incomplete sonatas for solo piano, intended a ‘first’ composition in the genre: the conclusion is that a stronger emphasis on completion and its concomitant expectations of totality and vollendung was present at the inception of the manuscript.3 The moment at which the title Sonate I was attached to the composition remains a matter for speculation. Whether the point of decisive separation from the preceding works, consigned by the numeral to the status of ‘nonworks’, arose simultaneously with the original conception of the sonata in its earliest notational iterations, or whether the possibilities of conclusion and completion appeared to Schubert only after a certain portion of the compositional process and the increasing formal stability and tenability of the sonata began to reveal themselves, is not possible to discern from the only extant manuscript. The implications for D 279 are clear: it was intended to be the first work in the genre ‘piano sonata’, a decisive step beyond the youthful experimentation of the preceding works and simultaneously a dissociation from the incompatible experimental freedom and aesthetic ideal of the fragmentary. The question of intentionality with regard to incomplete compositions is rarely so clearly and decisively answered as in the case of D  279; the title makes evident the primacy of the momentum towards conclusion and completion as markers of compositional ‘success’, and its fragmentary status was not anticipated. These indications may assist in the interpretation and evaluation of the work as an incomplete or fragmentary sonata. Strong extra-musical evidence from the title and the ambiguous state of the manuscript, which does not contain any empty pages or staves and demonstrates a remarkable degree of compression during the composition of the last extant movement, point to a possibility that D  279 may fall under the category of an ‘Überlieferungsfragment’,4 or fragment of transmission, in which the compositional process was complete and the fragmentary status of the work is due to subsequent damage to the sources from which it was received and transmitted. 2. Philological Indications of Compositional Progress The extant manuscript is dated September 1815, but it appears to record a relatively late stage of composition and imply that work on the sonata may have preceded its notation. This conjecture is based upon the unusual clarity of the first page of the manu3 4

This is not to be understood as an assertion that the sonata bore such a weight of compositional expectation from the beginning of its compositional process: the manuscript of D 279 records a more advanced stage of composition than that of the two preceding solo piano sonatas. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 45.

88

D 279

script, which is one of the most neatly written among Schubert’s manuscripts for solo piano. The empty staves which characterise later autographs or manuscripts with Reinschrift character, such as that of D 459 in E major, are not yet present in the 1815 works, but in particular the first page of D 279 is remarkable for the unusually precise vertical alignment of the note-heads and stems. As is the case in many of Schubert’s manuscripts, it is difficult to consider the entirety of the manuscript of D 279 as conforming to one particular archetype, whether Reinschrift or Niederschrift, since categorisation of a manuscript as belonging to a theoretically defined type is always to some degree a matter of interpretation. The clarity of the opening page rapidly shows signs of deterioration in the following pages; the second and third pages are evidently written with much greater speed and significantly less regard for legibility and an orderly presentation, and the close of the recapitulation on the fourth page brings the first corrections. These alterations are heavily eradicated with large quantities of black ink and cannot be said in any way to conform to description of corrections in Reinschrift archetype manuscripts as being ‘as unobtrusive as possible’.5 However, the carefully executed first page contains contraindications for an earlier stage of composition, described as an Entwurf or Niederschrift. In the case of a majority of the fragmentary piano sonatas in which the manuscripts are marked by a gradual deterioration in the handwriting and the neatness, care, and organisation of the manuscript, a particularly common pattern is evident. Independent of questions of completion associated with such typological distinctions, the alteration in the visual conformity of a manuscript from the ‘Reinschrift type’ to a ‘Niederschrift type’ is similar to a process in the chamber music or orchestral works in which the type of the Niederschrift is altered and generally visible as a transition from a more complete score to one in which certain elements are missing – for example one in which only the outer or harmonically significant parts are entered.6 In the absence of an earlier manuscript for comparison, only a tentative statement regarding the compositional stage recorded in the manuscript of D 279 is possible, but a comparison with the earlier sonata autographs provides several points which indicate that the D 279 autograph is a record of a more advanced state of composition. 3. Detailed Alterations in D 279/1 The first alteration which indicates a deeper rethinking of the harmonic plan than is present in D 279/1 occurs on the third page (bar 84, shortly before the beginning of the development), later than in comparable manuscripts of the early piano sonatas; 5 6

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 128. ‘[…] möglichst unauffällig vorgenommene Korrekturen […]’. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, pp. 125, 129–30.

Compositional History

89

this implies that elements of the fundamental structures of the exposition were largely fixed, confirming the view that D 279/1 records a later compositional stage. Returning to the first page of the manuscript, there are two corrections which appear to contradict one another in the indications they provide about the state of compositional progress of the movement. The first and most evident is clearly a matter of oversight: Schubert accidentally extended the brace connecting the two staves of the third system to include the upper stave of the fourth system before scribbling it out and reducing the lower half to include only the lower stave. The momentary inattention conforms to observations regarding the diverse nature of corrections in Schubertian manuscripts: along with refined musical alterations, some corrections originate simply from a momentary lapse of concentration.7 This alteration is fundamentally incompatible with the observations regarding the avoidance of obvious corrections in a Reinschrift-type manuscript;8 however, it is difficult to imagine a method of eradication which does not require abandoning the leaf and beginning again. Evidently the work had not reached such a stage of progress that an entirely perfect copy was necessary, and it is possible that Schubert did not consider this state realistic or attainable.9 It is apparent that the visual impression of neatness remained a priority in the notation of D 279/1, as the second correction, an alteration three notes in the left hand of bar 20 which also appears to be the result of inattention rather than a compositional alteration, is executed carefully and neatly, with as little disruption as possible. Schubert’s documented practice of composition in Niederschriften and the preceding stages of composition, which, although more relevant to the orchestral practice, is nonetheless of interest regarding manuscripts of polyphonicallyinflected instrumental works including string quartets and of particular relevance to compositions for solo piano, as the ‘particell’ bears a strong resemblance to the Niederschrift of a piano work,10 was to enter the melodically and harmonically significant elements first and fill out the remaining voices later:11 it is possible that the error in bar 20 is the result of this practice.

7 8 9

10 11

Griffel, p. 189. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 128. Griffel, p. 191. The example of the manuscript of the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony D 759 to the Steiermärkische Musikverein in appreciation for his appointment as an honorary member, is significant, as it is remarkably clean in comparison with the other symphonic autographs; it contains the fewest corrections but is not entirely without errors. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 125. Griffel, pp. 189–90.

90

D 279

4. Corrections in D 279/1: Small Refinements of Extant Material The corrections in D 279/1 show certain commonalities which support the premise that this manuscript represents an advanced stage of composition. Many of the corrections are registral in nature: an amendment not to the harmonic content or melodic line in itself, but instead a change in the register in which the musical element occurs. These emendations are often the result of a musical concern, or doubt concerning the melodic and registral progression in its original form;12 a refinement, rather than a fundamental alteration with large-scale structural consequences. The appearance of more substantive corrections on the second and third pages of the manuscript is an exception to the otherwise minor alterations, which result from a particular compositional habit of Schubert’s: when altering a motivic element later in the composition, he often returned to its earlier iterations and amended them retrospectively to maintain motivic symmetry. The first alteration in bar 36 is a reflection of the changes made in bar 155 of the recapitulation, where a similar change appears. The probable chronology of another change, affecting the register in bar 71, is divergent. It does not result from a similar retrospective inspiration emerging from the fully composed recapitulation, but appears to have occurred in the composition or copying of the passage immediately following the entry of the motive, as the recurrence of the motive in bar 73 contains no alterations and evinces the first uncorrected appearance of the lowered opening eighth-note figure, which was then immediately revised in its first occurrence (bar 71) and consequently retained this altered form throughout its recurrences in the recapitulation. An examination of these two parallel corrections demonstrates the clarity with which Schubert dedicated himself to the refinement of the compositional process. The apparent Reinschrift of the first page is revealed as being open to continuing work and a constant, unceasing search for a more elegant variation. The manuscript of D  279 records an artefact caught in the process of crystallisation; the desire to present a finalised version of an evolving piece is suspended and drawn into question by the equally strong impulse towards transformation, evolution, and further improvement. As is the case in many of the manuscripts of the piano sonatas, particularly those which remained unfinished, the latter impulse gains strength throughout the movement until it dominates even the more carefully executed exposition.13 It is the persistent tension between an aesthetic of finality and completion and the openness and musical freedom of the fragmentary composition which informs

12

13

As visible in the lowered eighth note figure in bar 71. In its original form, the first and second eighth note figuration occur in the same octave, with only an alteration in the middle voice providing melodic direction. The melodic contour is rendered more dramatic and the placement of the first eighth-note figure one octave lower produces a two-octave ascent to the climactic repetition in bar 72. For example, through the retrospective alteration to the parallel passages in bars 64 and 65.

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the notation of D 279/1. The observations drawn from the interconnection of these contradictory and essentially incompatible compositional aims are pertinent to the examination of the movement and serve to further emphasise the importance of the sonata-allegro movement and D 279/1 in particular as an exploratory composition, in an expressively musical as well as a structural and formal sense. II. Innovation The same process of compositional exploration applies to larger formal aspects of the work encompassing the developments and evolutions between the first two sonatas, D 154 and D 157, composed seven months earlier, and D 279. A further departure from the earlier characteristics of compositions for solo piano is the fundamental alteration in the stylistic model, taken as an individual aesthetic profile which informs the melodic content, musical texture, and rhetorical expressiveness of D 279, rather than the established formal model of the sonata-allegro. Instead of a continuation of stylistic characteristics and fundamental aesthetic principles established in the earlier sonatas for solo piano, D 279 produces a caesura and a new approach, guided by an aesthetic which is characterised by the extroverted and virtuosic, rather than the more chamber ensemble-like and texturally varied writing of the preceding two piano sonatas. 1. Virtuosity in D 279 The differences between D 279 and its predecessors are audible in the first eight bars of the first movement, in which the melodic material is presented in octaves without harmonic elaboration. The rhetorical construction of the first theme group draws from the expressive textural aspects of orchestral writing, in contrast to the more intimate earlier sonatas. The use of a pianistically-generated effect of variations in ‘instrumentation’ of D 279/1 is evident in the repetition of the opening theme (bars 13–18), this time piano, with neither the emphatic octaves nor the opening trills, and with a staccato accompanying voice in the left hand reminiscent of woodwinds. The movement is not only quasi-orchestral in its texture and inspiration, as the rapid figuration in triplets (from bar 23) and later in sixteenth notes (from bar 64) emerge from a heritage of purely pianistic virtuosity, without imitative inspiration in an instrumental genre. Similar elements in the piano sonatas of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries find an echo in D 279/1 and it is evident that Schubert’s models lie further in the past than the already established tempestuous middle period of Ludwig van Beethoven. Although sonatas such as Op. 31 No. 2 in D minor, composed 1801–1802, would most certainly have been known to Schubert, and the virtuosic elements of D 279 bear certain similarities to Beethoven’s middle period (including insistently repeated rhyth-

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mic motives and some of the rare occurrences of repeated crossing of the hands among the works for solo piano), the stylistic and aesthetic background of the sonata is drawn from the keyboard sonatas of the generation of Clementi and Haydn, with reference only to the earliest works of Beethoven, such as Op. 2 No. 3 in C major.14, 15 2. Instrumental Origins of an Expanded Textural Palette The instrumental texture of D 279/1 is markedly broader than that of the preceding sonatas for solo piano. The movement demonstrates an increased interest exploring the full extent of the technical and instrumental possibilities of the piano and departing, temporarily, from the ‘string-quartet-like’ writing of the E major sonatas D 154 and D 157. The appearance of the first theme in octaves is a prescient indication of a stylistic element common in the sonatas of the middle period, culminating in its more refined and elaborated appearance in the first movements of the two piano sonatas of early 1825, D 840 and D 845. The introduction of the main thematic material in octaves remains a semi-constant presence throughout the following years, gaining particular prominence in 1817 and 1818, a period in which the first movements of no fewer than five of the eight sonatas16 open with a thematic statement in unison or in octaves without harmonic elaboration.17 The apparent contradiction inherent in the description of D 279/1 as having both an orchestral and pianistic compositional texture is readily resolved: ‘quasi-orchestral’ is an apt description of the more extroverted and overtly dramatic aims of the opening phrase, as well as the deliberate use of strong textural and registral contrasts to illuminate the opening theme from multiple perspectives. However, the obvious contrast emerging from a comparison with the delicate multi-linear textures of the earlier E major sonatas does not signify the ascendency of orchestral composition over the composition of string quartets as a source of inspiration. What is significant is the emerging realisation of the expressive capacity of the piano and a convergence of experimental 14 15

16 17

Krause, ‘‘So frei und eigen, so keck und mitunter auch so sonderbar’. Die Klaviermusik’, p. 384. The most notable similarity between the latter sonata and D 279/1 is the occurrence of an almost identical motivic construction, composed of two eighth notes followed, in the case of the Beethoven sonata, by a third eighth note (bars 13–14) and in D 279 by a quarter note (bars 64–70). This motive is repeated three times, rising each time before the progression is reversed in D 279 by the following descent. D 567 and D 568 are counted as only one sonata, as the date of the revision of D 567 and composition of D 568 is not necessarily contained within this two year period. The duality of thematic presentation among the piano sonatas composed before 1819 is evident: the ‘string quartet’ multi-linearity of the E major sonatas D 154, 157, and subsequently in 1816 D 459 is contrasted with the more orchestral textures and simultaneously pianistic compositional texture which first emerges in D 279 before becoming increasingly prominent in the works of the following years.

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compositional tendencies with the individual and specific possibilities offered by an instrument capable of encompassing an approximation of both the intimate balance of four instruments in a string quartet as well as the striking contrasts of a fully orchestrated composition. 3. Textural Distinction as a Formally Significant Element of Contrast Expanding the range of textural modalities brings the possibility of an expressive contrast through direct associations with a variety of stylistic tropes: in addition to the duality of orchestral and string-quartet or polyphonically inflected textures, references to elements of virtuosity in compositions for solo piano in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are consequently restricted to the thematic or structural areas which conform to the more extroverted orchestral trope. In contrast, the second theme group is distinguished by a conscious return to the closely written, ‘string quartet’ mode of the earlier E major sonatas D 154 and D 157. The recurrence of this textural and rhetorical expressive model in the context of the opening of the first movement casts it in a new light: rather than being established as an aesthetic standard informing the composition of the movement as whole, it serves as a further support for the highly dramatic expressivity upon which the first theme group is centred. Reinterpreted within a new context as a novel element of textural and rhetorical contrast, the fourline polyphonic inflection of the lyrical second theme group advances the underlying aesthetic principle of contrast and tension which finds expression throughout the musical planes of the movement. Additionally, the contrasts between texture and rhetorical expressivity are arranged along structural lines, producing a distinct and obvious parallel and interconnection between the intrinsic content and extrinsic form of the movement. The use of divergent textures to present thematic material provides another layer of formal delineation of the boundaries between the first and second theme groups. The result is an overarching symbiosis and closer unity of the formal and expressive planes; each gains a new dimension through the deliberately evoked structural import of the other. Essential links between textural archetypes and independent musical expressivity (the parallel between an aesthetic impulse towards highly vivid dynamic and rhetorical contrasts in the presentation of thematic material and the use of a pianistically virtuosic style which draws upon the textural range associated with orchestral composition) allow an oppositional relation between the individual structural elements of the sonata allegro to emerge. This relation, which is unparalleled in its intensity in comparison to the piano works of the preceding years, does not depend solely upon polarising harmonic shifts.

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III. Early Recapitulatory Experiments Another precedent in the composition of sonatas for solo piano is found in the recapitulatory process in D 279/1. The subdominant recapitulation and the harmony of the development may be seen as early but unmistakeably experimental steps towards the late work, although they are apparently without a direct impact upon the fragmentary nature of the work as a whole, as the first movement is completed. The function of the recapitulation as the formal response to the ‘structure of promise’18 laid out in the material and the structures of the exposition is largely unaffected by the tonality in which it begins: however, the Schubertian approach to the sonata form was profoundly influenced by his novel approach to ‘[t]he principle of recapitulation as resolution [which] may be considered the most fundamental and radical innovation of sonata style […]’19 and is most evident in the early works in their divergence from the established model of drawing expositional material into the tonic. Additionally, the use of the subdominant as the recapitulatory tonality is evidence of a further divergence from the harmonic paradigm of the sonata-allegro movement: ‘Schubert broke at times with the classical opposition between dominant and subdominant – in this, he is the true precursor of the romantic generation born around 1810.’20 The reinterpretation of a recapitulatory process, based upon the association of the subdominant with the recapitulatory entry, as the teleological culmination of the harmonic tension which sustains the exposition and the development, adds a new inflection to a moment in which ‘[…] the tonal expectations of the generically essential sonata action are satisfied […]. It is here that the presence of the tonic becomes finally secured as real rather than provisional.’21 The appearance of the main expositional material in the subdominant is a significant departure, leading to accusations of compositional laziness.22 This is not the case: the appearance of the subdominant recapitulation in D 279/1 is closely related to the transposition of the modulatory passage in the first movement of D 157/1; both are directed at evoking harmonic structures and, more essentially, modulatory processes which are not characterised by the necessity of mediating tensions and creating contact between two polarities, but an interpretation of the sonata form in which the modulatory passages, transitions, and harmonic planes are equally responsible for evoking structure and elucidating a highly symmetrical form.

18 19 20 21 22

Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 18. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 284. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 359. Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 232. Költzsch, p. 77.

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1. Anticipation of the Harmonic Structures of the Recapitulation The development of D 279/1, not unusually in Schubert’s sonata-allegro forms, relies upon the tritone as a constitutive structural interval.23 However, it is a sign of the advanced nature of Schubert’s harmonic understanding that the subdominant recapitulation has a subtle influence over many harmonic and thematic possibilities which present themselves at the opening of the movement, long before the emergence of an unconventional recapitulatory tonality. The importance of the subdominant F major for the first movement may be extrapolated from its integration through the primary thematic material, as it is introduced in the second bar. In the opening thematic material, emphasis of the subdominant is brief, but it constitutes half of the smallest and most recognisably defining motivic element of the first theme group, anchoring the subdominant as a harmonic reference point of structural and melodic importance for the emerging form.

Fig. 10 D 279/1 bars 1–4

A further element of the tonal plan of the exposition provides an indication that the prospect of a subdominant recapitulation had been planned. The modulatory effects of the subdominant recapitulation exert a retroactive influence upon the harmonic structures of the exposition. The conclusion of the first presentation of the thematic material in bar 12 concludes with an unusual emphasis on the half cadence24 which cannot be explained solely by the necessity of strengthening the C major tonic: it is realised in the transposition of the recapitulatory processes to the subdominant, as it will then function to ‘finally secure’ the cadential tonic.

23 24

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, pp. 258–59. The strong inclination towards the dominant in the opening theme of the movement is reinforced by the reiteration of the opening motive (bars 1–2), transposed one tone higher to appear in the dominant in the third and fourth bars of the movement. The dominant occupies a substantial proportion of the primary thematic material, as four full bars of the first twelve are occupied by a dominant pedal.

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Fig. 11 D 279/1 bars 9–12

The early distance from the tonic and strong emphasis not only on the dominant but also on chromatic inflections which refer to the parallel minor (bars 9 and 10) before the return of the opening thematic material and the brief reappearance of the tonic in bar 12 are unusual for Schubert’s thematic construction, but demonstrate no immediate musical or structural consequences. However, when considered in the context of a recapitulation planned as a ‘Transpositionsreprise’25 in the subdominant of F major, the prominence of dominant (G major) harmonies is revealed as an advanced degree of structural prescience and forethought, becoming a sustained ‘tonic’ pedal and functioning as an anticipation and a foreshadowing of the ultimate arrival on the tonic at the entrance of the second subject in bar 164.

Fig. 12 D 279/1 bars 126–128

IV. D 279/2 The Andante second movement is a departure from the elaborate formal model of the only preceding slow movement for solo piano, the Andante of D 157. It is a straightfor-

25

Salzer, p. 122.

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ward example of a traditional A–B–A lied form, in which the return of the opening section is elaborately ornamented and harmonically altered before the movement concludes with a brief coda (bars 76–79). The manuscript of this movement appears more hastily written than the first pages of the first movement, conforming to the qualities of the handwriting, ink, and pen present in the last pages of the preceding movement. It is nonetheless unusually clean, and the corrections it contains are informative. Like the first movement, the second movement is almost certainly reflective of an advanced stage in the process of composition, as is evident from mistakes which appear to originate from a lapse of attention or simple oversight. However, the exact vertical alignment and general impression of care present in the opening pages of the first movement are absent in the eighth page of the manuscript, which contains the opening of the Andante.26 1. A Manuscript Recording Liminal States of Composition As D 279/2 progresses, its transition from a manuscript approaching completed Niederschrift status as the record of a fully worked-out composition gradually shifts into a manuscript which is more closely related to an Entwurf, documenting the emergence of new ideas and substantial refinements to the existing material. Further parallels in the corrections and emendations between the first and second movements appear: in the left hand of bar 41 of D 279/2, the triplet sixteenth notes appear indicative of a deliberate change in the harmonic arrangement of the bar. Excluding an error in the work of copying, it is clear that Schubert corrected the accompaniment on the first and third beats after having completely notated the bar and continued to the next. The shift to an A natural in the bass is moved from the second beat to the first beat of the bar, providing an increased tension between the right and left hands and a stronger preparation for the brief D minor inflection on the third beat of the bar. This D minor harmony is further strengthened by the alterations to the third beat. The purpose of the corrections to the left hand on the first and third beats of bar 41 is therefore more profound than an error in copying or a merely superficial refinement to the accompaniment figuration. The presence of these alterations is evidence of a continuing interest in incorporating harmonic refinements to extant material.

26

The first correction in the movement occurs in the seventh full bar of the manuscript: instead of a minimal correction in the style of the altered upper octave notes in bar 20 of the first movement, the notehead appears as a large blot, expanded downward to encompass the originally intended G sharp before Schubert appears to have resigned himself to its illegibility and followed the correction with another notehead, G sharp.

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2. Alterations in Notational Convention In the opening (A) section and the middle (B) section of the movement, clefs are generally used in order to indicate a continuing change in the register and appear only when the left hand is required to remain centred around the middle C for more than two full beats. In the return of the opening A section this model has been disrupted: although the essential harmonic structure of the left hand including the form of the chords is maintained, there are three occurrences of a treble clef in the notation of this section (upbeat of bar 52–bar 79)27 and only one in the opening of the movement (bars 1–25; the change in clef appears in bars 14 and 15). The reasoning behind Schubert’s alterations, which in every case in the closing A section are followed by confusion and a correction at the beginning of the next system from the bass to the treble clef, is simply a matter of notational clarity. The absence of forethought demonstrated by the necessity to change the notational disposition of the left hand for the purpose of a single eighth note (bar 58 and bar 75) almost certainly arises from an ongoing process of composition, rather than the refinement of an already extant work, and strongly indicates that the concluding A section of the movement was composed in the absence of a previously notated draft from which to copy.28 That the transition between the two manuscript typologies (the Niederschrift, involving work on a movement which is concrete in its defining musical elements, and the earlier Entwurf, in which the musical material is captured at the beginning of its process of coalescence) becomes apparent at a formal boundary is not coincidental. From the later sonataallegro movements within the fragmentary sonatas for solo piano, it is evident that earlier stages of the compositional process involved only the elaboration and decisive notation of the ‘original’ or ‘new’ material. Sections which are largely based upon an essential, although varied, return to previously stated material are often a point at which a movement is abandoned, although the composition continues in manuscripts which reflect earlier stages of composition than the complete Niederschrift. The manuscript of D 279/2 therefore reflects a particularly important stage of composition; a point at which a clear boundary between the often intermingled or indistinct manuscript types emerges. With this, the manuscript provides a rare opportunity not only to distinguish between the Entwurf and the complete Niederschrift, but also to draw valuable conclusions from the possibilities of comparison which will provide a point of orientation and enable a more accurate interpretation of manuscripts for which such comparisons are not feasible.

27 28

Appearing in bar 58, bars 65–66 (the parallel of the opening clef change), and bar 75. The first and third treble clefs, each occurring at the beginning of a new system (in bars 58 and 75) are used to notate only a single eighth note, which due to a potential conflict with the stems of the line on the upper stave would not be legible if the use of the upper stave to notate the left hand were continued from the preceding bar.

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V. Processes of Unification 1. Expressive Continuity between D 279/1 and D 279/2 In terms of harmonic and motivic content, the second movement demonstrates a close adherence to the aesthetic plane of the first movement, but is nonetheless distinguished by a return to the string-quartet-like polyphonic inflections common to the preceding sonatas. It is noteworthy that this texture and sonority remained a definitive inflection in the slow movements of the works for solo piano, in contrast to the integration of similar textures in the outer movements. It should not be considered a regression or an unthinking reliance on older models; D 279/2, although composed only seven months later than D 157/2, demonstrates a profound departure in its structural foundations and formal aspirations. The underlying compositional aim of innovation, which in D 157/2 found its expression in an extremely complex structural arc, finds its articulation in D  279/2 through an impressive variety of ornamental techniques and the striking and contrast-rich rhetorical handling of the thematic material. The virtuosic demands of D 279/1, as well as the newly arisen interest in exploring the instrumental possibilities of the pianoforte, remain present in the rapid figuration and intricate rhythmical inflections of the Andante. Additionally, the movements display several shared textural characteristics, producing a greater impression of continuity and contributing to the coherent totality of the formal connections between individual movements.29 The commonalities between the movements do not end with the textural resemblances, as the two movements integrate chromatic elements, both on the level of motivic ornamentation30 and on a deeper structural level, involving the harmonic plans of not only individual sections but also the overall systematic arrangement of tonalities. 2. Contrast as a Factor in Structural Delineation Similarities in texture, ornamentation, and harmonic content are not merely confined to an apparent resemblance or repetition of a particular recognisable texture; the context in which these techniques are integrated into the composition and the musical significance they express remains remarkably constant across two movements which are nonetheless strikingly different in tone and atmosphere.

29 30

Among the most prominent examples are the dramatic interpolation of thematic elements presented in unison without an elaborating harmony or accompaniment, for example in bars 1–8 in the first movement and bars 25 (from the third beat) and 26 in D 279/2. For example, D 279/2 in bar 7 or bar 58, and in D 279/1 in bars 77–80.

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The ‘open octave without harmonic elaboration’ texture31 is implemented to create an impression of a strong and vivid thematic statement in both movements, and is moreover placed to create strong contrast with either preceding or following material. As a result, contrast between the first and second theme groups in D 279/1 is evoked through thematic, rhetorical, and textural divergence, in which the former group is marked by extroverted and virtuosic orchestral tendencies. This pattern is reversed in the second movement: the middle section of its lied form (from the third beat of bar  25) is set in contrast to the more lyrical and polyphonically-inflected opening through a return of the energetic unaccompanied octave texture from the opening of the Allegro moderato. The textural contrast at the opening and conclusion of the B section with the close and intricate texture of the outer sections of the movement acts as an unmistakeable signifier of the boundaries of internal structural elements, drawing a strong parallel between the essential formal construction of the movement and its experiential aspects as perceived through sonority, rhetoric, and texture. As a rhetorical and textural device, the reintroduction of unaccompanied octaves is immediately recognisable, drawing a retrospective connection not only through a similarity to the statement of the first theme in D 279/1 but also to the associations, sonorities, and expressive content contained therein. The textural distinctions which in D 279/1 occur over complete eight-bar phrases are compressed into smaller motivic units: the octave passage in the Andante is only three and a half beats long, but the octave texture maintains its function and acts as a striking alteration in the musical fabric, thereby delineating significant elements of the formal plan of D 279/2. Through the interpolation of an established textural procedure in a compromised form, the Andante draws upon an experiential memory of the preceding Allegro moderato and as a result, a fundamental link between the individual rhetorical tones in the shared range of expressive modalities emerges across both movements. 3. Textural Elucidation of Structure in D 279/3 Textural contrasts, used effectively in D 279/1 and D 279/2 in order to delineate structural divisions on a purely experiential plane, create deeper connections between disparate compositional elements and a fundamental unity for not only the individual movements but the sonata structure as a whole. These contrasts retain a vital role in the structural elucidation of the Menuetto.32 There is an obvious shift in the textural paradigm between the first (bars 1–16) and second (bars 17–36) parts of the Menuetto, which is then reversed in bar 36 with the return of the opening material. This altera31 32

Bars 1–8 of the first movement and intermittently in bars 25–30 and 45–48 of the second movement. The Menuetto title of the movement is taken from the autograph, MHc–136.

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tion encompasses a variety of smaller elements,33 all of which combine to produce a sense of more vertical activity through a denser musical texture. It becomes apparent that textural changes are concomitant with a vertical reversal of the individual motivic elements presented in the opening section (from bar 17): the texture is not only richer, but this expansion rests upon an inversion of the melodic content of the right and left hands.

Fig. 13 D 279/3 bars 1–4

Fig. 14 D 279/3 bars 17–20

Textural inversion in combination with the classical reliance upon melodic primacy of the upper register results in the reevaluation of the separation between accompaniment and melody; these individual elements have been shorn of their original significance through the vertical exchange of voices. Although consistency in the deliberate use of textural devices to delineate structure throughout the three movements of the sonata is striking, it does not produce a monotonous or invariable composition. The advances present in D 279 in the compositional generation of overarching structures consist of an ability to retain the individual and varied characters of each movement while unifying the sonata through a nuanced reflection of an underlying fundamental principle, which itself is capable of connecting formally objective and expressively subjective musical elements, structure and rhetorical texture. VI. Menuetto and Trio The manuscript of the third movement, a Menuetto and Trio in A minor, confirms the progression of the preceding two movements from a more advanced compositional stage, which draws upon extant working manuscripts, to a manuscript for which no previous copy exists, roughly identifiable as an early first Niederschrift. The Menuetto has not forsaken every trace of an aspiration toward the status of a clean copy, as the careful notation of the title and tempo marking Allo vivace demonstrate, but the first 33

The opening bars of the middle section (bars 17–20), although based upon the first three bars of the Menuetto, contain an elaborated accompaniment, particularly visible in the eighth note figuration in the left hand of bar 19. In addition, the right hand has been expanded to include a doubling of the upper note one octave lower.

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page shows several instances of compositional revisions on a deeper structural level than in the opening of D 279/2.34 Musical and aesthetic considerations, spanning the range of minor alterations to significant changes in the phrase-structure, occur in tandem with errors of oversight, indicating an evolution which is simultaneously present across multiple levels and recorded as the image of a moment of creation in a single manuscript. 1. Revisions to the Trio Notable corrections to the Trio, which occupies the lower four staves of the last page of the manuscript, taken in combination with striking and characteristic changes in the handwriting and spacing provide insights into the fragmentary nature of D 279 as a whole. The most evident change is the eradication of the opening brace and title, originally entered at the beginning of the third system. The entirety of the initial notation, including the key-signature and time-signature as well as the brace and title, has been moved back to fill the remaining space following the conclusion of the Menuetto on the preceding stave; this correction occurred at a point subsequent to the composition of the originally planned beginning of the Trio (the original point of origin is effectively the second complete bar of the Trio in its final form). As the original version of the Trio began in its current second bar, it can be accepted that the revisions to the opening include not only the two bars placed before the original title, but also at least two and more probably all three of the accompanying chords in the left hand in the first bar of the third system (now bar 2), as the conclusion of the Menuetto on the second beat necessitates an upbeat to the Trio.35 The reason for the introductory bar, in which the rising chords of the left hand are introduced, becomes clear when examining the periodisation of the phrases which emerges from the original version. The opening phrase, beginning with an unaccompanied upbeat in the right hand, would have originally been conceived as a six-bar structure concluding at the repeat in bar 8.36 The addition of a single introductory bar 34

35

36

Although the re-disposition of the chords in the left hand of bar 13 occurs without appearing to alter the harmonic structure of the passage, more significant alterations in bar 19 (although consisting only of raising the lowest note of the right hand chords on the last two beats from G to B) have a profound effect on the metric emphasis of the phrase. The original manuscript notation of the bar contains three repeated chords; the alteration to the latter two creates a new rhythmic division within the existing phrase structure. The notation of the clefs, time-signature, and key-signature at the beginning of the Trio are much more compressed and notated in a finer, paler hand than the following three chords: the noteheads of the revision to the opening were most probably entered before the title and head of the stave. Although an eight-bar structure predominates in the composition of menuetts and trios both in the context of sonatas and as individual elements of a cycle of dances, the divergence from an

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with an upbeat would have resulted in a seven-bar phrase; as the following phrase is eight bars long (9–16), this would cause significant metric difficulties and it is therefore probable that the revision is an extension of an already notated six-bar structure and could not have occurred before the composition of the first full phrase. It is far more likely that the changes to the opening of the Trio occurred at an important structural juncture, the return of the opening material in bar 25. Alterations to the preceding phrase (from bar 17) extended by the addition of two bars (now 24 and 25) and the postponement of the upbeat of the right hand, which was originally entered on the third beat of bar 24, to the third beat of bar 26, necessitates a retroactive alignment of the opening bars of the Trio. It is probable that a new conception of the return of the opening material occurred in the process of notation and Schubert then retroactively altered the original opening of the movement, a practice well-established in his compositional process. The result of these changes is the constant presence of eight-bar phrase periods across the Menuetto and the Trio. These alterations are a clear example of the importance of structural elements in the context of a small-scale dance movement and the care and attention with which Schubert strove for a stable and symmetrical musical form, as the changes in the phrasestructure provide support for an effective presentation of the underlying formal sections. Changes directed at facilitating the transitions between them demonstrate the extent to which primary importance was placed upon a unified and coherent formal periodisation, supported by all structural elements, from the smallest phrases and metric entities to the principal sections of the formal model. 2. A Previous Version of the Menuetto and Trio The Menuetto of D 279 was not composed for the sonata, but exists in another, almost certainly earlier version, in connection with an entirely different Trio in F major. The work was first published in 1925 with only the remark ‘Aus frühester Zeit’.37 The Menuetto and Trio in their original form are known under the number D 277A and provisionally dated to 1815.38 Otto Erich Deutsch brings D 277A tenuously into connection with a set of lost menuetts and trios originating in 1812,39 a date which contradicts that

37 38 39

eight-bar structure to another even number is not impossible. The Menuetto of D 840, composed in 1825, is based upon an antecedent-consequent phrase pair in which each six-bar phrase is further divided into a four-bar and a two-bar element. The Trio of D 566, composed less than two years after D 279, begins with a six-bar phrase which is followed by an extended variation of the opening material occupying eight bars. Otto Erich Deutsch, Der intime Schubert (Wien: Moderne Welt, 1925). Reinhard van Hoorickx, ‘Thematic Catalogue of Schubert’s Works: New Additions, Corrections and Notes’, Revue Belge de Musicologie, 28/30 (1974), 136–71 (p. 151). Deutsch, Der intime Schubert, p. 32.

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of the catalogue. More significant than differences regarding the date of composition is the context in which Deutsch evidently placed the Menuetto and Trio D 277A, as a detached work from a cycle of menuetts and not the movement of a sonata, although D 279 was first published in the AGA in 1888. The Menuetto in D 279 and the Menuetto in D 277A are recognisable as two versions of the same work, followed by different trios, but they are not identical. The divergences are of interest not only in themselves, but are pertinent for establishing a chronology of composition. Consequent alterations of the quarter notes in D 277A into half notes at the conclusions of phrase periods occur throughout the Menuetto D 279, demonstrating an emphasis on motivic conformity and a deeper structural reliance upon the half note–quarter note rhythmic element through its resulting elevation of the motive, in D 277A relegated to its function as one among several possible menuett rhythms, to a small but fundamental structural constituent which pervades and defines the rhythmic content of the Menuetto D  279 and occupies different functions.40 The changes are therefore not only in the interests of symmetry, but draw a stronger connection through varied appearances of the metric element and create a deeper sense of structural unity throughout the Menuetto, expanding the function of the metric element to engage with the melodic structure as a motivic determinant. The recurrence of the interwoven metric and motivic construct acts as a unifying element and a structural connection between the series of thematic and melodic entities which supersede one another as the movement continues. The tendency of the corrections and alterations in the notation demonstrates a clear advance from D 277A to D 279/3. Not only is the metric element of a half note and a quarter note, often with the latter attaining the function of an upbeat, raised to a vital constituent element of structural coherence, but changes to the harmonic structures and textures are also directed at providing a richer musical presentation of the existing material, emphasising its underlying formal plan (as is visible through the textural expansion of the opening motive in the right hand after the repeat in bars 17 and 18) and creating a greater sense of formal contrast. Taken together, the changes to the harmonic and textural elements of the Menuetto provide support for regarding D 279/3 as a more advanced version of D 277A. The movement has undergone a series of small but significant revisions which draw smaller expressive and harmonic elements together into a unified symmetry with the underlying musical structures of the Menuetto.

40

For example, in bars 9–12 as an accompanying figure where it provides metric contrast with the element expressed through quarter notes tied over the bar-lines in the right hands, and in bars 24–28 in an inverted arrangement of the same figure.

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3. Structural Impact of Textural Revisions in D 277A and D 279/3 The alterations to the notated material of D 277A and D 279/3 which occurred in the process of recomposition as recorded in the latter manuscript and are visible through corrections and alterations are united by a single common factor: they are primarily concerned with textural alterations, often to the inner or lower voices of passages containing intervals or chords and occasionally with implications for the harmonic structure or the melodic direction of individual lines. An example of the far-reaching metric and structural effects of such corrections is found in the alteration to bar 19, consisting of struck out alterations to the lower notes. In the manuscript, the lowest note of the second and third chords of the right hand in D 279 were notated as G, and then changed back to the original version of D 277A, with a bass note B, while the first chord in the right hand retains its bass note of G. As a result, the metric stability and individual rhythmic elements of the passage as a whole are altered; the static repetition of a single harmony and a single texture is replaced by a divided function within bar 19.

Fig. 15 D 277A bars 17–20

A comparison of the passages centred on bar 23 in D 277A and D 279/3 reveals a structural rationale behind the revisions, which is strongly related to the function of changes in the length of melodic notes at the close of phrases or individual phrase-elements as a method of increasing motivic and metric continuity. The correction to bar 19 also increases the symmetry of two passages which are largely similar in metric and textural content and function as melodic periods. The parallel to bar 19 occurs in bar 23, and appears in the original manuscript without corrections. The correction to bar 19 in the manuscript of D 279 brings the phrase-element in which it is present (bars 17–20, fig. 14) into concordance with the textural and metric profile of its sequential parallel (bar 20 from the third beat–bar 24) and is not only another example of retrospectively applied alterations within the movement, but also evidence of a continued process of increasing conformity which involves the material in D 277A gaining a greater consistency of expression in D 279/3 and strongly supports a chronological sequence of composition placing the former at least shortly before the latter.

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Fig. 16 D 279/3 bars 20–24

Like the assimilation of the quarter note rests at the end of antecedent and consequent phrase periods into longer half notes, the consistency of these two parallel passages at the beginning of the second part of D 279/3 also incorporates a greater structural and metric delineation of irregular divisions of the three beats, in this case into a single concluding quarter note on the first beat of bars 19 and 23, and two ‘anticipatory’ and static chords, which precede the arrival on the dominant and lead to the conclusion of the phrase period on the first beat of the following bar. The final passage (bars 29–32 of D 279/3) which shows significant revisions present between the Menuetto in the versions of D 277A and D 279/3 involves multiple levels of compositional, textural, harmonic, and metric changes which come together to emphasise structural clarity and an increase in the division and function of the individual musical and motivic elements.

Fig. 17 D 277A bars 29–36

In D 279/3, this passage diverges from the established rhythmic model of extended half notes and is the result of a compelling formal and functional significance attached to the quarter note figure. At the end of the middle section and before the transition and return to the opening material, it is desirable to evoke a strong contrast in the metric and motivic elements across the structural boundary between the B section and the return to the opening A section, in this case through the use of a noticeably dissimilar metric element.

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Fig. 18 D 279/3 bars 29–36

The inclusion of an upbeat before the repetition of the figure presented for the first time in bar 29 (and derived from the third full bar of the Menuetto) in its second appearance from the third beat of bar 30 is a strong emphasis on the repetition of the motive, while avoiding the possible impression of a four-bar period or the extension of its original appearance through the registral dislocation and the metric alteration of the added upbeat. This structural delineation through apparently localised alterations to the smallest metric elements of the individual motives is facilitated by the consistent symmetry of the closing half-note in the main thematic source material of the Menuetto (bars 1–4) and its consequent restatement as a recognisable and distinctive metric signifier. As a result, the variant presented at the close of the B section in bars 29–34 (D 279/3) attains structural and formal significance through its emphasis of the decisive emptiness of the second beat, which creates a metric division of the phrase periods on a larger level than that of the divergence between the half note and quarter note closures, separating each phrase period into two-bar elements in contrast to the preceding four-bar periodisation.41 The fundamental importance of these changes to the metric division of the passage may be seen in a myriad of smaller revisions: the six bars at the conclusion of the middle section (bars 29–34 of D 279/3) are subject to a more intense process of reworking, involving more individual alterations, than any other passage in the Menuetto. However, they remain dedicated to an ultimate aim of structural delineation, both on a small scale between the two-bar thematic periods and on a larger scale in order to elucidate the conclusion of the middle section and emphasise its closing dominant cadence, and increasing the connection between textural elements and their metric function. The process of heightened concordance between analogous passages has far-reaching effects with structural implications and recurs once more with alterations in the transition to the repetition of the main thematic material from bar 36 (D 277A: bar 38). This bar is the subject of a final revision, which clarifies the process of introducing the 41

Further indications that metric consistency and symmetry of phrase periodisation are significant are found in the excision of bars 33 and 34 of D 277A, producing consistent four-bar periods across the middle section and eliminating a third repetition of the two-bar motive present in bars 29–30.

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return of the A section while increasing the important elements of metric conformity throughout the B section.42 When considered together, the revisions to this conclusive passage of the B section (bars 29–36 in D 279/3, bars 29–38 in D 277A) are committed to creating an increase in textural distinction through a closer link between metric and melodic content of the individual lines and their function in the context of particular phrase periods. VII. A Lost Movement or an Unfinished Work The indications of increasing flexibility and possibilities for revision and refinement evident in the Trio as the manuscript progresses have a clear connection to the fragmentary status of D 279. It appears to be structurally similar to the preceding sonata, D 157, as both works consist of three completed movements: a sonata-allegro, a slow movement, and a menuett and trio, and the fragmentary status of the work rests upon the absence of a finale. Nonetheless, there are substantial divergences in the manner and type of fragmentation discernible between the two works. 1. Indications Regarding the Fragmentary Status of the Manuscript D 279, although no less experimental than its predecessors, is more occupied with rhetorical, textural, and virtuosic exploration of the instrumental possibilities of the piano than complex and novel formal constructs. Additionally, the consequent usage of shared expressive modalities and methods used to delineate structural and formal elements unites all three movements of D 279 in a common stylistic and rhetorical mode. The resulting structural projection for D 279 is unequivocal: the work requires a fourth movement, a conclusive finale in order to be considered complete. Unlike other fragmentary sonatas,43 D 279 has no viable alternative modes of creating formal closure in its internal structure. However, the status of the manuscript and placement of the Menuetto and Trio provide indications regarding the type of fragmentation in D 279: the manuscript consists of four leaves (each folded in half) which produces a total of sixteen pages. The conclusion of the Menuetto and Trio is on the verso of the eighth page, the outermost leaf of the manuscript. Unlike D 157/3, which is followed by several blank staves and two empty pages, it is unclear whether the composition

42

43

The first version, D 277A, contains only an E in the right hand, repeated three times on each beat of the bar. The version of bar 36 (D 277A: bar 38) in D 279 has been elaborated on the second and third beats in order to include an E one octave higher, evoking a textural and metric symmetry with bars 32 and 34. D 157 and D 566 both display strong elements of formal duality between the first two movements.

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of D 279 was continued in another manuscript due to the simultaneous caesura after the Menuetto and Trio. The notation of a presumptive finale movement coincides with the end of the space available in the extant manuscript: it is possible that D 279 was a complete sonata from which the last movement became detached rather than an incomplete work. 2. Possible Finale Movements: D 346 As is often the case in the publication of the fragmentary and incomplete piano sonatas, the cyclical incompletion of the form led to a search for an unattached movement to serve as a finale, including the Allegretto in C major D 346 (MHc–140), itself a fragment which breaks off after 261 bars.44 45 Maurice J. E. Brown found the inclusion of the Allegretto D 346 unsatisfactory, as ‘[…] it surely belongs to a later date than 1815 […]’46 and proposed instead the fragment of a Rondo, D 309A. The manuscript of D 309A bears the date ‘18. Okt. 1815’, and consists of a single stave which is struck through and immediately followed by the lied Sehnsucht, D 310, and its connection with D 279 is based solely upon the key signature and the date of composition.47 D 346 was composed at ‘around the same time as D 279 […]’,48 or tentatively in 1816.49 The manuscript is without a date and the handwriting and paper quality, although the former is as close to that of D 279 as would be expected from a composition originating at approximately the same time, are sufficiently dissimilar to conclude that it is not part of the same, uninterrupted process of composition. It is difficult to ascertain whether D 346 was intended as a finale for D 279, but the approximate date of the composition in addition to the differences in of paper and handwriting indicate an unusual compositional process if the movement was indeed intended as a conclusion. It is not usual for Schubert’s working process, particularly in the context of the early sonatas for piano, for a pause of several months (conforming to the ‘Sept. 1815’ date of the first movement of D 279 and to the approximate 1816 date of D 346) to occur before the resumption and conclusion of a work. The majority of the extant manuscripts, although due to their status as documents of a compositional moment rather than the totality of a process they are capable of providing only limited

44 45 46 47 48 49

Maurice J. E. Brown, Schubert. A Critical Biography (London: Macmillan and Company Limited, 1958), p. 56. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 173. Brown, Schubert. A Critical Biography, p. 56. Brown, Schubert. A Critical Biography, p. 56. Badura-Skoda, ‘Vorwort’, p. VII. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 205.

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indications of chronology and compositional progression, seem to indicate a concentrated and intensive process of composition occurring in a relatively short period.50 It is instructive to consider the Allegretto D 346 in the context of its self-evident status as a single, detached work, amenable to incorporation into a larger cyclical construct but not necessarily conceived with this specific function at the forefront of the compositional impulse. A ‘mythos’ surrounding the supposedly complete cyclical works has been attached to the isolated single movements, leading to continued attempts to associate them with cyclical fragments and to a misunderstanding of their formal and aesthetic conception.51 There are no similar detached movements or independent works for solo piano in the year 1815, although 1816 is much richer in truly ‘unattached’ movements, which are excluded from possible associations with D 279 due to their potential connections with another work.52 It is more probable that the Rondo was composed in connection with the 1816 experiments than as a belated conclusion to D 279. 3. D 346 in the Context of the Menuetto and Trio Before discarding the plausibility of the Allegretto D 346 as a concluding movement for D 279, it is necessary to examine it in the context of the preceding Menuetto and Trio. Although the Allegretto displays a textural and thematic approach which is dissimilar to that of the first two movements of D 279, its mode of using textural contrast is similar to D 279/3, which would have immediately preceded it in a potential cyclical completion. This connection rests upon a shared reliance upon the prominence of octave figurations in the melodic lines53 and a striking thematic similarity between the movements, centred upon the third bar of the Menuetto and the sixteenth note figuration of the fifth bar of the Allegretto, and similarities in the accompaniment figuration in both movements. The first five notes of the sixteenth note figure which first appears in bar 5 of D 346 and maintains a prominent role as a source of thematic inspiration for the sixteenth-note figures from bars 76–101 is a precise melodic repetition of the third bar of the Menuetto.54 50 51 52 53 54

The best evidence for this process in the piano works are the two E major sonatas of February 1815, D 154 and 157, begun within one week of each other. See D 154 and D 157 I: Compositional History, page 59. Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Der Zyklus als Mythos’, in Schubert: Interpretationen, ed. by Ivana Rentsch and Klaus Pietschmann (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2014), pp. 119–32 (p. 122). Discussed more closely in their connection to the conglomerate work known under the catalogue numbers D 459 and D 459A. See D 459 and D 459A, VI: D 459A: An Unknown Sonata? pages 151– 158. Evident in bars 1–12 of the Menuetto and from bars 42–75 in the Allegretto D 346. In addition, there are two obvious textural similarities in the accompaniment figure of the Trio. The first between the second part of the Trio (bars 8–14), in which the left hand consists almost entirely of repeated chords over the three beats of each bar, providing a textural and harmonic

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Fig. 19 D 279/3 bar 3

Fig. 20 D 346 bar 5

Without concrete and objective evidence connecting the works, it is difficult to determine the precise significance of motivic parallels between D 279/3 and the Allegretto D  346. Of primary importance when evaluating potential connections between the works is the stylised dance movement model which informs many of the details of the Menuetto and Trio. The elements mentioned as similar to those present in D 346 arise largely from its identity as a dance movement and are not determined by its cyclical function as a movement of D 279. It is therefore an unusual coincidence that the ornament-like motive forms a prominent element of the main melodic material of both the Menuetto and the Allegretto, but in itself is not evidence of a compelling motivic connection between the works. It is more probable that the similarities and shared motivic content arise from the fact that the Allegretto has multiple characteristics of a

‘block’ under the alternately flowing and static melodic material. The Allegretto D 346 relies heavily on repeated chords in the left hand in which each harmony fills at least one bar (with a few exceptions for chromatic inflection such as those found in bars 10 and 11). The second connection is the rising third motive presented in bars 17–24 of the Trio (leading back to the return of the opening material in bar 25). A similar motive, also consisting of three rising thirds outlining the constituent notes of a major triad, is present in the left hand of the Allegretto in bars 76–81 and 93–100, where it serves a tellingly similar purpose. In the case of the Allegretto it is not a reintroduction of the primary thematic material, but acts as a transitional passage or brief motivic interpolation between two repetitions of material closely linked to the main theme (upbeat to bar 84–90 and upbeat to bar 103–114).

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Schubertian finale movement which may also be present in the textural, melodic, and expressive repertoire of a typical dance movement. 4. Incompatibilities in the Material and Structures of D 279 and D 346 Further indications which diminish the plausibility of regarding D  346 as a closing movement of D 279 are found in the structural, harmonic, and textural aspects of the piece. It appears to conform to the structure of a complex rondo with certain elements of a sonata-allegro (a repetition of the opening material and following episodes from bar 158 with the beginning of a modulation in bar 216). It exhibits a degree of formal complexity based upon the repetition of individual thematic elements (of which the larger parts are drawn from the opening theme, bars 1–15, and subsequently varied and elaborated), presented in new combinations and transposed into new harmonic contexts. The texture and rhetoric of the Allegretto inhabit a different plane than the strongly unified reliance upon textural contrast as an effective method of elucidating formal periodisation on a large scale in D  279. Textural contrast in D  346 is placed in the realm of melodic and thematic inflection and, although prominent between more distant sections of the rondo form, is generally the result of a more gradual shift through the addition or removal of a single melodic or rhythmic element.55 This procedure of gradual textural evolution contrasts with the sudden changes and deliberate confrontation between two entirely distinct and oppositional textural constructs presented in the first and second movements of D 279, further distancing D 346 from an internal sense of musical connection with the C major sonata. D 279, most strongly in the opening two movements, is based upon the symmetry and cohesion of textural, motivic, and rhetorical shifts in the compositional fabric, whereas D 346 is focused on spinning out the expressive possibilities of an intensely limited source of motivic material, as most of significant melodic and thematic material sustaining the work is drawn from the theme presented in the first fifteen bars. Motivic unity is not clearly evident as a formal principle in D 279, and similar impulses towards motivic economy and reduction of the ‘source’ material are not evident in the works for solo piano composed before 1816, which further supports a later date of composition for D 346. Finally, the rhetorical tactics evident in the gradually-inflected and altered material of the Allegretto, effective at producing a continuity of expressive content, support its incompatibility with a cyclical projection of the incomplete D 279. The Allegretto not only avoids strong conflicts and rapid alterations in the texture of individual 55

The sixteenth note accompaniment figure in bars 42b–58, which is at first an elaboration of the preceding (bars 1–42a) ostinato eighth note accompaniment and then is itself replaced with the formal break indicated by the fermata in bar 59, after which the octave figuration of the main melodic material of the right hand remains present and provides a sense of textural continuity.

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formal elements, but instead displays a process centred upon the variation and inflection of existing material. In combination, the incompatible handling of motivic and textural contrast, the structural importance of thematic diversity, and the fundamentally different approaches to virtuosity for the piano render the Allegretto D 346 untenable as a finale movement for D 279 and indicate that it was composed in the context of the works of 1816, with connections to compositional developments spanning the following seven years. 5. D 279 as an Unfinished Work As there are no other known unattached movements from the year 1815 which might conceivably complete D  279, it is almost certain that its current status is that of an incomplete and fragmentary composition. Although it is not impossible that the work was continued on another manuscript which has since entirely vanished, this would be extremely unusual in the case of the sonatas for solo piano and additionally reliant upon a highly coincidental circumstance: that the caesura after the Menuetto and Trio occurs as exactly the last page of the available paper for notating the manuscript was filled. Furthermore, a defining feature of the early sonata fragment model – if such a thing may be said to exist – is fragmentation on a cyclical level; the lack of a finale for D 279 would therefore conform to the expected fragment-type of the years preceding the sonata-allegro centred experimentation of 1817. VIII. Harmonic Experimentation The first and third movements of D 279, in addition to their textural and rhetorical elucidation of fundamental structural divisions and formal caesurae, display several unusual features in their large-scale harmonic planning; the harmonic structure of both movements is itself innovative and experimental. Elements of vertical texture, expressive rhetoric, and structural and formal elements of the movements display symbiotic support for one another and provide an internal explication or reflection of significant content drawn from another of these elements. The unusual features of the movements lie in the choice of tonalities occurring late in the progression of the Allegro moderato but at the opening of the Menuetto and Trio, at moments which are of fundamental importance to the harmonic plan of the movements as a whole. In both the first and third movements, Schubert has chosen to expand the harmonic plan in a way which is indicative of his approach to structural and formal questions in the context of the composition of sonata-allegro movements as well as within the larger context of cyclical works. From the perspective of a harmonic analysis, the two less conventionally structured movements of D 279 reinforce the importance of a sta-

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ble and relatively concordant structure consisting of harmonic planes, set against one another to produce an alternative to the classically established structural arc based upon harmonic tension and opposition. This emphasis of Schubert’s compositional methods and the importance of tonal plans based upon larger structural sections such as the recapitulation of a sonata-allegro movement or the trio of a dance movement is reinforced by the divergences from an entirely conventional harmonic plan in the first and third movements of D 279. 1. Subdominant Recapitulations in Schubert’s Early Piano Sonatas The most obvious harmonically experimental element in D 279 is found in the first movement; the recapitulation begins in the subdominant, F major and offers the potential of a transpositional recapitulation in which the ‘recapitulation displays an exact transposition of the exposition.’56 As Schubert approached the sonata without systematic lessons in the form as a series of harmonically defined principles, but as a received and relatively static formal construct in which the tonic was established as the recapitulatory key,57 he may have been influenced by the conventions in which the subdominant was established as playing a role in the recapitulatory modulation58 and attained other associations with the recapitulatory area: The subdominant plays a special role in sonata style; it acts itself as a force for resolution, an anti-dominant, in fact, and there is a tendency for the second half of a sonata to move toward the subdominant and the related flat keys. There even arose a kind of degenerate recapitulation, which began not in the tonic but in the subdominant, and which made possible a literal reprise of the exposition, transposed down a fifth.59

This is the Schubertian transpositional recapitulation, which has some precedents at the close of the eighteenth century in the works of C. P. E. Bach, Mozart, and Hummel.60 Non-tonic recapitulatory entries also appear in the string quartets of Haydn.61 Furthermore, avoidance of the tonic as a recapitulatory tonality is not uncommon in

56 57 58 59 60 61

Salzer, p. 122. ‘[…] die ganze Reprise eine genaue Transposition der Exposition darstellt!’ Antonin Reicha, Reicha’s Compositionslehre Theil 8–10. Abhandlung von der Fuge, und von der Kunst, seine Ideen zu benützen, oder dieselben zu entwickeln, trans. by Carl Czerny (Wien: Diabelli, 1832), iv, p. 1166. ‘Der dritte Theil beginnt und endet in der Haupttonart wie der erste Teil.’ Heinrich Christoph Koch, Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition. Dritter und lezter Theil (Leipzig: Böhme, 1793), p. 311. ‘[…] wobei sich die Modulation gemeiniglich in die Tonart der Quarte hinwendet, aber, ohne darinne eine Cadenz zu machen […]’. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 288. Hepokoski and Darcy, pp. 264–65. Lars Schmidt-Thieme, Die formale Gestaltung von Exposition und Reprise in den Streichquartetten Haydns (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 2000), p. 118.

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Schubert’s sonata-allegro form compositions: ‘in only forty-seven of Schubert’s seventy-five sonata form movements is unaltered primary material recapitulated in the tonic key’.62 Furthermore, in the twenty-eight remaining recapitulations,63 ten begin like D 279/1, in the subdominant. Strikingly, the subdominant recapitulations belong to a distinct phase of composition, as they are are concentrated in the years 1815–1819.64 As the year 181965 coincides with a pause of four years in the composition of sonatas for solo piano, the subdominant recapitulation is placed in the context of the early and middle period of structural experimentation, as a temporary solution or strategy for exploring the challenges of reinterpreting the sonata-allegro form. Long considered a weak point in Schubert’s compositional abilities, the evocation and reconciliation of harmonic structures on a large scale through the subdominant recapitulation drew criticism early in the serious musicological examination of the sonatas for solo piano: I do not intend to discuss a convenience which Schubert allows himself here – a formal freedom which is based upon a fundamental misunderstanding of an important formal principle.66

This view of Schubert’s complex engagement and reinvention of the sonata-allegro form and its underlying principles is disputable and coloured by the early twentiethcentury view that the sonata-allegro form is incompatible with the ‘lyrical’ structural principles characteristic of Schubert.67 68 The implementation of unusual harmonic planes as a mode of formal elucidation is present from the earliest works and in such cases is indicative not of a youthful inability or, more seriously, a fundamental conflict between the lyrical content and formal principles of Schubert’s compositions, but must be recognised as evidence of the importance of the sonata-allegro in the genre of compositions for solo piano as an experimental field and therefore of the significance of these works for Schubert’s compositional evolution as a whole. 62 63 64 65

66 67 68

Coren, p. 569. It appears that Coren did not include the sonata-allegro D 459/2 in his survey; its inclusion would produce a final total of 76 sonata-allegro movements, but its recapitulation is regular and therefore not to be counted among the 28. Coren, pp. 569–70. The exception is D 840, of which the first movement has a subdominant recapitulation, but it is distinguished by its highly modulatory continuation. Although there is some dispute regarding the date of D 664, which has been suggested as originating in 1823, its ultimate placement in the context of recapitulatory tonalities does not have a serious effect on the chronological development. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 386. Költzsch, p.  76. ‘Ich stehe nicht an, hier von einer Bequemlichkeit zu reden, die sich Schubert leistet, – einer formalen Freiheit, der indessen ein prinzipielles Verkennen eines wichtigen Formgesetzes zugrunde liegt.’ Költzsch, p. 76. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 19.

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The recapitulatory processes in the earliest piano sonatas are a further indication that the choice of the subdominant for the recapitulation of D 279/1 was not implemented as an attempt to avoid modulatory difficulties. In the first two piano sonatas which contain a complete sonata-allegro movement, D 157 and D 279, two distinct harmonic strategies are evident, both of which remain relevant for the later evolution of Schubert’s compositional exploration of the sonata-allegro form. The two alternatives are centred upon the modulation to the second theme group; the first piano sonata with a complete sonata-allegro movement, D 157/1 displays ‘[…] the difficulties connected with the reorganisation of the modulatory passage […]’, the second in D 279 is not ‘[…] the first subdominant recapitulation in Schubert’s oeuvre, but arguably the first consequent [example], in which one may suggest the unaltered adoption of the elaborately formed modulatory passage […] the transposition of the change in key as its cause.’69 An examination of the two sonatas reveals that they act as a pair of exploratory compositions directed at problems presented by sonata-allegro forms. Therein D 279/1 appears as a response to the areas of particular difficulty exposed in the recapitulatory modulations of D 157/1, and this is sufficient to reveal D 279/1 as a movement conditioned by the search for possibilities of harmonic and formal resolution and the musical and compositional integration of the modulatory demands of the recapitulation into a stable structure. Within the period which is marked by a preference for ‘transpositional recapitulations’70 which are most often reliant upon subdominant recapitulatory entries, 1815– 1819, all of the incomplete and fragmentary sonatas for solo piano with the exception of D 840 (1825) and most probably the extremely brief fragment D 769A were also composed. It is evident that the subdominant recapitulation and its underlying cause, the desire to engage with the established formal and tonal plan of the sonata-allegro, are closely associated in a chronological sense with the increased composition of piano sonatas which remained incomplete, but as a compositional strategy the subdominant recapitulation is exceptionally successful. As it is established as a formal model in Schubert’s piano sonatas of 1817–1819, it is found only in the completed sonatas and movements, and therefore it appears to be valid solution to the ‘problem’ of the recapitulation. The subdominant recapitulation is an expression of the desire for structural experimentation which finds its most constant and daring manifestation in the composition of piano sonatas, either fragmentary or complete.

69

70

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 72. ‘[…] die mit der Umgestaltung der Modulationspartie verbundenen Schwierigkeiten […] nicht die erste subdominantische Reprise in Schuberts Oeuvre, wohl aber die erste konsequente, bei der man die unveränderte Übernahme der kunstvoll gebauten Modulationspartie, […] also die Transpostion des Tonartwechsels, als Ursache unterstellen darf.’ Salzer, p. 122. ‘Transpositionsreprise’.

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2. Formal Effects of the Subdominant Recapitulation in D 279/I The most obvious effect of the subdominant recapitulation consists in the avoidance of a complex harmonic process between the first and the second theme groups in order to produce a modulation before the entry of the latter in the tonic. A closer examination of the recapitulation of D 279/1 demonstrates that judgments ascribing the subdominant recapitulation to compositional inertia or inability due to the possibility of an exact repetition of the exposition without the necessity of complex modulations are unjustified. The recapitulation is not an exact repetition of the exposition, but is expanded by three bars (138–140), which are inserted before the beginning of the modulation between the first and second theme groups. This affirms the primacy of a model based upon evoking musical forms through the juxtaposition of relatively static and self-contained tonal planes in the earliest works. The significance of the subdominant recapitulation, in which harmonic stasis is promoted through the avoidance of novel modulatory passages, reduces the extreme teleological significance of the recapitulation as the point of harmonic and thematic return and resolution. It is an early anticipation of a strategy for contravening and simultaneously revivifying the moment of recapitulation in the context of Schubert’s non-oppositional arrangement of the harmonic plan, which finds its ultimate expression and triumphant conclusion in D 840/1. The complex chromatic modulations between the first and second theme groups are left untouched by the three-bar interpolation at the conclusion of the first theme group in the recapitulation; it is isolated from the modulatory processes and is harmonically and structurally ‘neutral’. Its presence raises questions regarding musical effects and compositional function: as the advantage of the subdominant recapitulation is the avoidance of a recomposition of the modulatory passages, the interpolation is carefully placed to avoid any drastic harmonic consequences. The subdominant recapitulation of D 279/1 is a substantial divergence from the previously explored possibilities of the recapitulatory process in the context of the piano sonata. It is partly based upon the tactic of retrospective explication which is often seen in the composition of formal relations between the exposition and the recapitulation, particularly involving modulatory practices and transitional passages. Bar 138 produces a return to the recapitulatory tonic, F major, which is emphasised by a change in texture and dynamic, before the modulatory departure to the transition to the second theme group and afterward the conclusion of the tonal plan of the movement to its original tonic, C major. In the context of establishing a stable harmonic structure for the movement, the return to the recapitulatory tonic is of primary importance and shows Schubert’s concern for the effects of the subdominant recapitulation on the formal and harmonic planes of D 279/1.

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The additional three bars, which provide a third point of return to the tonic71 in the recapitulation (an emphasis which is not present in the exposition), are rendered necessary by the subdominant recapitulation, which evidently requires harmonic support and additional confirmation in a way that the tonic of the exposition did not. This addition fundamentally anchors the subdominant as a stable, if temporary, recapitulatory tonic from which the modulatory process through the transition and finally to the tonic of the movement in the second theme group may begin. It is intrinsically linked to the choice of recapitulatory tonality and demonstrates the interaction of different planes of the composition. The explication for the subdominant recapitulation, which is enacted as a part of the form and corresponding harmonic plan of the movement, is found in a reactive alteration in the thematic and formal divisions between individual sections of the movement, which are drawn into connection with the underlying harmonic plan of the movement as vital confirmation and support for its projected structures. 3. Established Tradition of the Menuetto and Trio In keeping with the mode of expression chosen in D 279/1, it is the relation between the tonalities of the Menuetto and Trio which reveals the underlying impulse toward reinvention of established models present in D 279. That the two most strongly codified movements, the sonata-allegro and the menuett and trio, are drawn into the process of reinterpretation through unusual harmonic choices with wide-reaching structural effects is not coincidental, but is the result of the underlying compositional impulse of the sonata. It is directed toward the internal reorganisation of the musical content of established formal models while holding fast to their fundamental structural principles. Most recognisable and central to the established A–B–A form of the menuett and trio movement are its origins and historical context: considered an ‘ancient dance’, it ‘[…] became a cultural and historical icon […]’.72 The contrast between the minuet, in its earlier appearances, or menuett and the trio encompassed dynamics, texture, and metric division of the bass line.73 It remained constant across its transition from an independent work intended for performance in the context of a social dance to a movement integrated into a larger, purely instrumental work. The extent to which the minuet as an abstract instrumental work retained the culturally and musically defined

71 72 73

After the second point of tonic confirmation, a restatement of the theme with an eighth note figuration in the left hand in bar 13 of the exposition and the parallel bar 129 of the recapitulation. Eric McKee, ‘Mozart in the Ballroom: Minuet-Trio Contrast and the Aristocracy in Self-Portrait’, Music Analysis, 24 (2005), 383–434 (p. 420). McKee, p. 383.

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form and expressive characteristics established through its historical development as a dance should not be underestimated. Among classical instrumental movements, the minuet was unique: its title revealed its subject. For eighteenth century critics and theorists, the minuet possessed a ‘fixed generic identity’. The title Minuet indicated a specific dance type and therefore implied a particular musical and expressive content and its musical material preserves much of its Baroque ancestry.74 4. Harmonic Innovation within Established Forms It is from this context of a rigorously defined form which, more strictly than the sonataallegro, required a recognisable ‘musical and expressive content’ established through centuries of tradition and a shared understanding of the paradigm, that Schubert found fertile ground for working towards formal and structural renewal within the context of D 279. Here, the vital element of contrast between the Menuetto and the Trio is maintained, but drawn into a paradigm of harmonic structural reinvention. The contrasting element, both within the harmonic structure of the movement and within the larger cyclical structure, reflects the abiding interest in the interactions between harmonic structure and traditionally established form, and rests upon the chosen keys of A minor and A major. The movement is largely dependent upon a differentiation through an abrupt change in the tonality to evoke the contrast between its constituent formal parts. The sudden introduction of an A major Trio in the minor Menuetto produces an immediate and compelling contrast between the two sections, on a plane which is more fundamentally linked to the underlying structures of the sonata and the paradigm of formal delineation and reinvention through harmonic innovations than the dynamic contrast between the Menuetto and the Trio (forte and pianissimo), which recedes to the status of an expressive detail. A major, in its context as the parallel major of the Menuetto tonic, is highly unusual in Schubert’s early compositions. Both in the cycles of dances which originated in circumstances which reflect the genre’s original purpose as music for dancers75 and in the early and purely instrumental movements contained within larger works, the shift between the minor and major mode between the menuett and its trio is seldom found. It is therefore evident that the choice of high-contrast tonalities for the Menuetto and Trio of D 279 is not the result of a previously established harmonic practice in Schubert’s compositional development, or in the paradigm of the established contrast between the menuett and the trio which in the preceding works found other and equally plausible forms, but a deliberate reiteration of the emerging 74 75

Melanie Lowe, ‘Falling from Grace: Irony and Expressive Enrichment in Haydn’s Symphonic Minuets’, The Journal of Musicology, 19 (2002), 171–221 (p. 172). Litschauer, ‘“Halt’s enk zsamm”. Tänze und Märsche für Klavier’, p. 440.

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technique of harmonic stability and differentiation through the proximal arrangement of harmonically defined structural areas. 5. Tonal Plan on a Cyclical Scale This perspective on the internal tonalities of the Menuetto and Trio is reinforced by its overarching harmonic relationship with D 279 as a whole. A dance movement in a minor mode within a sonata in a major key is unusual, although a similar relationship of tonalities in the opposite direction, a sonata with an overarching minor tonic and a scherzo or menuett in the major mode is more common in Schubert’s oeuvre.76 The tonal plan of the Menuetto and Trio reflects the harmonic expansion and increasing distance from the established modes of producing a stable structure, oppositional harmonic relationships which are productive of a direct structural tension and rely upon a reconciliation through the often simultaneous return to the tonic and the opening thematic material of a sonata-allegro movement, by drawing into question long established formal tropes and models throughout the larger structure of D 279. This procedure occurs within the confines of individual movements, but also in the delineation of a larger tonal plan based upon the choice of keys which are in close proximity to the C major tonic for the second and third movements, indicating the importance of mediant-conditioned relationships in forming larger structures.77 The second movement, in the subdominant F major, is based upon a tonality which is an echo not only of the recapitulatory entrance in the first movement but also reflects the emphatic subdominant of the opening phrase of the first movement: already central to the tonal plan of the first movement, it receives confirmation as a fundamental tonal plane of the sonata as a whole through its tonicisation in the second movement, and is placed in contact with the Allegro moderato and the Menuetto and Trio as a submediant of the latter’s A minor tonality. The choice of the relative minor for the Menuetto and its

76

77

This harmonic arrangement appears predominantly among works composed between 1816 and 1818. Three minor-key piano sonata fragments of this period, D 566 (1817), the Scherzo and Allegro D 570 (1817), and D 625 (1818) have scherzo and trio movements in a major key. Two minor-key sonatas for violin and piano, D 385 (1816) and D 408 (1816) have menuett and trio movements in the major mode. However, only D 894 (composed in October of 1826) has as its third movement a menuett and trio in a minor key, which presents similarities in its internal harmonic relationships but also the place of the menuett and trio movements within the harmonic context of the overarching work. As in D 279, the Menuetto is in a minor key; more unusually, it is in the minor of the mediant (or the relative minor of the dominant), B minor. Furthermore, the Trio of D 894 stands in precisely the same harmonic relationship to its Menuetto as in D 279; it is in the relative major, B major. Schubert has chosen to evoke musical and expressive contrast between the Menuetto and the Trio, and it is perhaps revealing that the title of the movement is a return to a formal paradigm which is increasingly rare among the later works, a Menuetto and not a Scherzo. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 354.

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parallel major for the Trio brings a new dimension into the plan of the sonata, which strengthens its formal and harmonically structural roots in C major while expanding the tonal ‘range’ of the tonic to encompass increasingly distant keys. IX. Fragmentation at a Harmonically Significant Point The question of whether the sonata is a fragment of composition, left incomplete and without its ultimate return to the C major tonic in a missing last movement, or whether a once complete sonata was rendered fragmentary due to the loss of a last movement remains open. However, an indication of the most likely possibility may be found in examining Schubert’s later sonatas, particularly the point at which many of the sonata-allegro movements of the following three years were abandoned. For Schubert, bringing a novel tonal plan within the strictures of the sonata-allegro form to the determinant moment, the return (however it is interpreted as a harmonic event) or reconciliation appears to have been of primary importance.78 An analogy with the formal and harmonic arc evoked by the early sonatas in which an absent finale movement is the source of fragmentation within a work otherwise comprising internally completed movements and that of the fragmentary movements of the following years points to the importance of attaining tonal and formal closure. The point at which D 157 and D 279 are abandoned bears a strong resemblance to the recapitulatory process within the structure of a sonata-allegro. The inherent harmonic and musical function of a finale movement, although not inevitably a return to the tonic,79 must provide a convincing degree of harmonic closure and a sense of aesthetic conclusion and finality to the form of the sonata as a whole, much as the recapitulation brings not only a sense of return, but also a harmonic and formal reconciliation and musical closure to the sonata-allegro movement. The absence of a finale and its underlying function of harmonic reconciliation and musical closure is, after the abandoned recapitulation, the most common source of fragmentation among the incomplete piano sonatas. It must be stated that the loss of a single movement as a formal element which is self-contained, presents greater difficulties in determining whether the sonata in question is a compositional fragment or a fragment of transmission.80 It is possible that

78

79 80

A number of movements of fragmentary piano sonatas composed during the years 1816–1818 break off at or shortly before the point of recapitulation, including the first and last movements of D 571/570 (1817), both movements of D 613 (1818) and D 625/1 (1818). D 154 (1815), is also abandoned at the conclusion of the development. D 557 (1817), which is indubitably complete, closes in E flat major. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 45.

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some of the five fragments81 which partially conform to this plan were at one point completed works, but the frequency with which finale movements are missing does not only rest upon the ease with which the last pages of a manuscript may be detached. The significance of the formal and harmonic aspects of the finale movement indicate the unavoidable challenges which are attached to the formal elements of return, reconciliation, closure, and completion. The fragmentation of D 279, like the points of fracture in the two preceding sonatas, D 154 (at the recapitulation) and D 157 (after the third movement), is symptomatic not of a coincidental loss of a movement, but of the fundamental impulse and determinant of the fragment in Schubert’s compositional development. It contains a deliberately antithetical dialectic which places completion and return as an aesthetic principle which conflicts with the location of the fragmentary impulse within a musical structure striving for reinvention. The internal structures of the sonata are directed towards a departure from the established strictures of convention, which reappear at the formal moments of recapitulation or conclusion. As yet unable to undermine and reinvent their oppressive significance, the nascent works are left to disintegrate and simultaneously to embrace an openness and individuality of form which is for Schubert as yet only possible in the context of a fragment.

81

D 157, D 279, D 459, a further E major sonata centred upon D 459A/3, and D 566, composed in 1815 and 1816.

D 459 and D 459A Unlike the piano sonatas which have been examined in the previous chapters, D 459 and D  459A present complex problems regarding the precise boundaries between individual works, which are not easily clarified due to the unusual publication and reception history. The last of the fragments from Schubert’s earliest engagement with the piano sonata, before the composition of the first complete piano sonata (D 537 in A minor in March 1817), presents unusual and individual difficulties which arise primarily from the absence of any unambiguous manuscript sources and the necessity of disentangling centuries of editorial alteration and musicological speculation. Accepted during the nineteenth1 and twentieth centuries2 and printed in the AGA as a fivemovement sonata, comprising the two movements of D 459 and three further pieces or movements (now referred to in the NGA Catalogue as D 459A) and first printed as Fünf Clavierstücke in 1843, newer research has cast the unity of this construct and its identification as a single sonata into doubt.3 In order to determine the precise nature of the connections between D 459, D 459A, and the three pieces contained therein, as well as possible associations with other, apparently unattached compositions, it is necessary to examine the individual works independently and then approach the tenability of an overarching structure based upon the information contained in primary sources and first editions, as well as the harmonic, thematic, and formal characteristics of individual elements of the conglomerate surrounding D 459 and D 459A. Resulting from a philological and analytical approach to the five pieces, questions regarding the Werkbegriff, particularly as it affects the identification of a cyclical structure from a collection of loosely associated movements, are central to the following study. The nature of the manuscript conglomerates which are the subject of this chapter place unusual demands upon the researcher and require a range of perspectives. Firstly, philosophical approaches to the work and the fragment and an analytical examination of the extant musical material in the context of Schubert’s established

1 2 3

Franz Schubert, Fantasie, Impromptus und andere Stücke für Pianoforte, ed. by Julius Epstein, Franz Schuberts Werke, XI (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1888), pp. 170–89. Költzsch, p. 11. Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’.

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compositional practices are drawn together, and subsequently the cyclical possibilities inherent in the individual movements are examined with respect to their plausibility as formal constructs. Beginning with the publication history which led to the identification of the five pieces as a single work, questions of form and fragmentation, both internal and cyclical, in the two movements of D 459 (an incomplete sonata in E major) will be the focus of an examination which includes the authenticity of the complete first edition printing of D 459/2, involving an intersection of philological and formal-analytical approaches to the manuscript and the musical content of the movement. Subsequently, the potential cyclical forms of the three pieces known under the catalogue number D 459A and their potential as an uncatalogued sonata fragment4 in connection with the Andantino D 348 and the Adagio D 349, involving a harmonic analysis of Schubert’s methods of generating overarching cyclical links between movements of a larger work, provide a foundation for examining the possibility of a cyclical connection between the five pieces. I. Compositional History and Sources There is no single complete manuscript containing all of the pieces comprising D 459 and D 459A. A chronology of the extant material and significant documents for the study of these five pieces is as follows: the two extant fragmentary manuscripts, in which D 459 and a part of D 459A/3 are recorded, were notated in 1816. The first of these manuscripts disappeared in the nineteenth century, ‘briefly resurfaced’ in 1928,5 but was lost for more than fifty years in 19476 and finally rediscovered in 1999. It is now in the possession of the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus as MHc–16261, as is the manuscript containing the only extant material of D 459A, the last bars of the Allegro patetico. In combination with the 1843 first edition of the Fünf Clavierstücke, these two manuscripts are the basis for the current musicological reception of the work. 1. Contemporary Records and Primary Sources The two movements of D 459, Allegro moderato and a following Allegro, are notated in a manuscript titled Sonate, August 1816. Also present in the Wienbibliothek under the

4 5 6

Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 135. Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 134. Carlton, p. 115.

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catalog number MHc–154 is a convoluted manuscript containing a collection of works, including the only autograph record of any of the pieces of D 459A: the last eight bars of D 459A/3.7 The contemporaneous manuscripts and shared key signature of these movements are first indications that a potential formal connection between the fragments may be present. However, there is no extant manuscript in which the works known as D 459 and D 459A appear together. The only other contemporary records are Carl August Klemm’s 1843 publication and a catalogue compiled by Aloys Fuchs with the help of Ferdinand Schubert in 1840, in which a ‘Sonate E-Dur fürs Klavier 1te Satz u. angefangenes Allegro. I’ appears with the date August 1816.8 The catalogue refers to two further sonatas for the piano in E major: one is clearly identifiable as D 157, composed in February 1815, but the second is listed directly following a ‘Klavier-Sonate in e-Moll (1. Satz u. Scherzo)’,9 as ‘detto, detto. E-Dur. detto’10 As there are no incipits in the catalogue and the individual movements are not listed for this second E major sonata, it is uncertain whether it refers to the E major fragment centred upon the three pieces labelled D 459A, but the absence of other works in E major from the appropriate period provide further support for this conclusion.11 2. Fünf Clavierstücke The formal ambiguity regarding the E major manuscripts of 1816 is the result of two factors: first is the long disappearance of the manuscript containing the fragmentary D 459 which left space for speculative and unfounded formal approaches to the works, and the second is the original publication of D 459 in combination with D 459A as a work entitled Fünf Clavierstücke. This edition, containing the two movements D 459 in which the second appears as a complete ‘scherzo’ (the title does not appear to originate from Schubert), an Adagio in C major, a second scherzo in A major, and the E major fragment as a complete Allegro patetico, was issued by C. A. Klemm with an unusually emphatic title: ‘From his estate: undoubtedly guaranteed as authentic, legally obtained compositions’12 and remained the only source for the publication and study of the frag-

7

8 9 10 11 12

This includes parts of a collection of thirty menuetts and trios for piano D 41 composed in 1813, a counterpoint exercise executed partly in pencil marked ‘Fuge Allo moderato’, an Andantino in C major D 348, an Adagio in C major D 349, and the last eight bars of a what is identifiably a fast movement in E major, D 459A/3. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, pp. 471, 473. This is probably a reference to D 566, although the second movement of this sonata is absent in the catalogue listing: it is an indication that the information in the catalogue is not entirely reliable. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 473. Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 137. ‘Aus seinem Nachlasse. Unzweifelhaft als ächt verbürgte, rechtmäßig erworbene Compositionen.’

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D 459 and D 459A

ment known under the catalogue numbers D 459 and D 459A for more than fifty years following the disappearance of the E major sonata (D 459) manuscript in 1947. As a result the work was largely accepted as an unusual five-movement form: this was the case among musicologists even before the disappearance of the manuscript, perhaps due to the influence of the first publication and the fact that of the three movements comprising D 459A only the last eight bars of the Allegro patetico exist as autographs. In the first complete study of Schubert’s piano sonatas, Hans Költzsch states: ‘The authority to bring these five pieces together as a sonata cannot be questioned’13 and furthermore, that this is proven through the style and orientation of the individual movements as well as Klemm’s description of the work as ‘guaranteed as authentic’.14 However, the assumption that the work is a sonata in five movements, rather than a collection of individual pieces in the manner of the Impromptus D 899 and D 935 or the Drei Klavierstücke D  946, is not present in Klemm’s edition. Contrary to the widespread practice among publishers of Schubert’s piano sonatas, both during his lifetime and after his death, of printing the sonatas with an explicit title and as coherent works without dividing the movements for individual sale,15 16 Klemm’s original publication does not intend to produce the impression of a piano sonata.17 The pieces are advertised individually and priced accordingly: ‘No. 1. Allegro Moderato ⅓ Thlr’, ‘No. 2 Scherzo ⅓ Thlr.’, ‘No. 3 Adagio ¼ Thlr.’, ‘No. 4 Scherzo con Trio ⅓ Thlr.’, and ‘No 5. Allegro Patetico ½ Thlr.’ The complete work was also available for 1 ½ Thlr, although this information is presented in much smaller letters and it is clear that the individual purchase of the pieces was of more importance, perhaps in order to appeal to the public or cater to the rising popularity of character-pieces.18

13 14 15 16 17 18

Költzsch, p. 11. ‘Die Berechtigung, diese fünf Stücke als “Sonate” zusammenzufassen, kann nicht in Zweifel gezogen werden.’ ‘[…] ächt verbürgte’. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, pp. 533, 618. This is evident from Diabelli’s 1839 edition of the last three sonatas D 958, 959, and 960 and the first edition of D 845 under the opus number 42 by Pennauer in 1826. See Spina’s printing of nine sonatas in 1853: D 845 as Op. 42, D 850 as Op. 53, D 568 as Op. 122, D 784 as Op. 143, D 575 in B major as Op. 147, D 537 as Op. 164 and the last three sonatas, D 958– 960 without opus numbers. Franz Schubert, Fünf Clavierstücke, ed. by Carl August Klemm (Leipzig: C. A. Klemm, 1843). Daniel Rieppel, ‘To find one’s path: the early keyboard sonatas of Schubert and their relationship to the work of Beethoven’, in The Oxford Bicentenary Symposium 1997: Bericht, ed. by McKay, Elizabeth Norman and Rast, Nicholas, Schubert durch die Brille, 21 (Tutzing: Schneider, 1998), pp. 89–110 (p. 89).

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II. Cyclical Fragmentation and Formal Projections in D 459 D 459, comprising the first two movements of Klemm’s conglomerate Fünf Clavierstücke, is recorded in a manuscript consisting of two movements on two double sheets, one of which is folded in the other and each with sixteen staves, producing eight pages in total. These two movements are identifiable as belonging to a single cyclical work, based upon the position of the Allegro second movement as directly following the Allegro moderato, the colour and relative transparency of the ink and the unified character of Schubert’s handwriting. Based solely upon this manuscript, it appears that D 459 is a dual-type fragment: the two movements are not evocative of cyclical closure, although they continue a trope of ambiguous two-movement structures centred upon E as a tonic note also apparent in D 157 and D 566, and the second movement, marked ‘Allo’, is abruptly broken off after bar 142. In the manuscript (MHc–16261) it is clear that this is the result of Schubert’s abandonment of the composition, as the break occurs not at the end of a page, but in the middle of a line, leaving more than half of the page unfilled. The impression produced by the second movement is that of an early stage of composition, in contrast to the measured and orderly first movement which, although increasingly hurried and obscure in its later pages, presents a strong contrast with the disorder of the second movement. 1. Manuscript From a relatively clean beginning, the orderliness of the manuscript decreases throughout the following pages, producing an impression of increasing speed and intensity in the compositional work. The ink of the first page remains relatively consistent, but the ink of the second, third, and fourth pages is noticeably lighter in colour and more transparent approaching the bottom right corner of each page. This is the characteristic appearance produced by blotting or sand absorption before the ink has had time to dry fully and indicates a more rapid progression in the composition than is apparent from the (consistently darker and therefore more fully dried) ink on the first page of the manuscript. The observable differences in handwriting and ink quality, as well as the more carelessly executed corrections, provide evidence of a gradual transition from displaying the characteristics of a Reinschrift to an earlier-stage manuscript: ‘increasingly cursory handwriting’ is not unusual in Schubert’s Reinschrift manuscripts and it is possible that a manuscript of the first movement, now lost, existed in a rougher form, from which Schubert was making a clean copy.19

19

Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 139. ‘[…] zunehmend flüchtigere Schriftduktus […]’.

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D 459 and D 459A

The immediately obvious differences in the handwriting and character of the manuscript of the second movement, which begins on the fourth stave of the fifth page, provide visible support for a theory proposed by Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl: the impression produced by the manuscript of the second movement is one of volatility and haste, most apparent in the disappearance of the empty intervening staves of the first movement. Additionally, Schubert’s handwriting is more difficult to decipher and the notation is much denser than even the most cursorily notated bars of the first movement, and the movement contains numerous emphatic corrections, primarily of notation or pitch. 2. Cyclical and Formal Implications of an Altered Time Signature Corrections to the second movement include the emendation of the time signature, from 2/2 to the current time signature of 3/4. There is some uncertainty regarding the original time signature, as it is possible to read it as a bar notated in 2/2, indicated by a struck-through C;20 but due to the slanted execution of the vertical stroke and its position, it is more likely that the vertical stroke is a continuation of Schubert’s eradication of the C, indicating 4/4, rather than a part of the original time signature.21 The importance of the distinction rests in the structural implications of the time signature; although the fundamental difference of opinion is vanishingly small and rests upon the interpretation of two pen-strokes, the conclusions to be drawn diverge significantly. Based upon the alteration of the time signature (assumed to originate as 2/2), the suggestion that the first movement is a Reinschrift copy of an earlier manuscript, and the proposal that the first movement is a copy of an earlier draft, Lindmayr-Brandl states that D 459/1 was originally composed with a different second movement, bearing an alla breve time signature and also present in the lost earlier draft. This movement was then spontaneously replaced by the Niederschrift of the Allegro movement, an uneconomical decision. It would have been more appropriate to prepare the second movement on another manuscript and later copy it into the extant Reinschrift, following the first movement. Furthermore, Schubert’s decision to substitute the Entwurf of the second movement might be understood if the manuscript containing the Niederschrift of the first movement and the lost second movement extrapolated from the al-

20 21

Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 140. For a comparison of Schubert’s handwriting of the time signature C from July 1817, approximately one year after the manuscript of D 459, the opening of the manuscript of D 571 shows a radically different execution of the C, with a strong downward vertical stroke which extends further above and below the notated C.

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tered time signature were available, raising the question of whether Schubert intended to compose a two-movement sonata.22 3. Reinschrift or Niederschrift? A manuscript containing D 459/1 and a second movement in cut time has never been found: the suggestion of its existence rests on the incongruous time signature in the manuscript. However, a philological examination of the manuscript and the musical content of the second movement contradict the suggestion that D 459 was intended as a two-movement sonata and that the ‘original’ second movement had been replaced and then lost. The first movement represents a relatively advanced stage in composition and draws from an earlier draft: the clarity of the writing, the spacing of notes, bars, and staves in addition to the title and heading seem conclusive. However, these appearances of order, particularly at the beginning of a manuscript, are not unusual among Schubert’s piano sonata manuscripts and do not always entail the existence of an earlier Entwurf or Niederschrift. A comparison of some of the surviving sonata manuscripts composed during or close to the summer of 1817, shortly after the composition of D 459, provide a wide range of examples of the flexibility and interpretative flexibility present in the determination of the status of a manuscript as a Reinschrift or Niederschrift.23 The identification of the manuscript of D 459 (MHc–16261) as a Reinschrift rests primarily upon the title, date, and instrumentation as well as the neatness and orderly execution of the score, which, in addition to the presence of empty staves to increase legibility, are indications that the manuscript was preceded by an Entwurf or earlier Niederschrift.24 The intervening staves are of particular importance, as Schubert’s working manuscripts seem intended to conserve paper and are therefore significantly more compact. The presence of clefs throughout D 459/1 and their absence in the second movement may be taken as internally coherent evidence of an earlier stage of composition in the second movement, but bears little conclusive weight regarding the possible existence of an earlier Niederschrift of the first movement.25 The heading containing a title and date and the instrumental indication may be similarly excluded as reliable 22 23 24 25

Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 140. The manuscript of D 459/1 inhabits a middle-ground between the earlier stage recorded in the following movement of the manuscript and the unambiguous Reinschrift character of manuscripts such as the last manuscript of D 567, dated ‘Juny 1817’. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 205. Evident in the manuscripts of D 154, D 157, and D 279, although Schubert was occasionally inconsistent in this regard: D 567 (MHc–162) presents the appearance of a Reinschrift, but has clefs only

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indications of a Reinschrift due to their presence in all of Schubert’s extant piano sonata manuscripts, regardless of the nature of the compositional stage recorded. The only reliable indicator of a change in the compositional stage recorded in the first and second movements is the deterioration of the handwriting and increasingly disorderly appearance of the later movement. Additionally, there are significant differences between the manuscript of D 459 and other Reinschriften from the summer of 1817 which are centred upon Schubert’s method of entering corrections into and, still more importantly, deleting errors from his manuscripts: these are carefully eradicated with a sharp object rather than being amended with ink. However, D 459/1 in the MHc–16261 manuscript contains multiple corrections which are eradicated by a process of obliteration with ink, or are merely struck through, leaving the original entry visible if not always legible, resulting in extremely visible corrections and detracting from the organisation and legibility of the manuscript.26 The Reinschrift of the first movement was less of a clean copy of a fixed and completed musical structure, but contained aspects of a process of composition and offered the opportunity for Schubert to make substantial alterations. This is significant not only for the movement itself but also for the interpretation of Schubert’s possible intentions for the emerging structure, and reveals that the distinction between Reinschrift and Niederschrift is more fluid than the strictly separated terms would imply. Such alterations are not unusual in Schubert’s compositions, as ‘the beginning of the definitive Reinschrift can occur before the completion of the planning of the total progression of the movement.’27 The alterations and corrections in D 459/1 are indications of a flexible record of a Reinschrift-in-progress in various different ways, demonstrating a process of reconsideration and development of compositional ideas and modes of expression, while the corrections point towards a process of partly free composition rather than an orderly copy from a complete and unambiguous manuscript.28

26 27 28

at the beginning and subsequently only when a departure from the expected treble and bass is present. See bars 14 and 18. D 784, the sonata containing eradications rather than corrections, was composed in 1823, but a similar approach is visible in the Reinschrift of D 567 (MHc–162). Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 164. ‘Der Beginn der definitiven Reinschrift kann bereits vor dem Abschluß der Planung des ganzen Satzverlaufs erfolgen.’ These conclusions must be considered as partly speculative, based upon the best available evidence but without decisive proof. It is important to note that the interpretation of corrections and manuscripts without the possibility of direct comparisons is fraught with difficulty and uncertainty, particularly because there is as yet no ‘[…] systematic examination of errors and types of corrections in Schubert’s autographs […]’ and no systematic and objective typology of different autograph types. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 158. ‘Bis heute fehlt eine systematische Untersuchung der Fehler- und Korrekturtypen in Schuberts Autographen, die um eine Typologie dieser Autographen selbst zu ergänzen wäre.’

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4. Formal Projection for the Fragment D 459 An intensive examination of the manuscript of the first movement results in uncertainty regarding its status as an unambiguous Reinschrift and therefore the existence of an earlier manuscript is also uncertain. This reflection has an effect on the projected structure of the fragment, especially when taken in the context of the corrected time signature at the beginning of the second movement. Returning to the question of the potential ‘original’ second movement and its replacement with the current Allegro movement, if the Reinschrift character of the first movement is rejected and the alla breve time signature mistakenly entered at the beginning of the Allegro is that of the first movement, an equally plausible explanation which does not require the presumption of a lost earlier manuscript and a lost movement would be that Schubert simply made a mistake. The time signature is not an indication of a significant alteration in the structure of the multi-movement cycle but a repetition of the previous movement’s opening bar and of no further import for the continuation of the sonata. The second movement may be accepted as the ‘originally’ intended second movement (precluding the appearance of an earlier manuscript containing a marked variation in the order and collocation of movements), and this produces the beginnings of a projected cyclical structure for D 459, predicated upon the formal function assigned to the second movement. III. D 459/2: Allegro An examination of the second movement with the intent to identify its musical form is necessary before drawing conclusions about the fragmentary nature of the sonata cycle present in D 459 from the extant manuscript, MHc–16261: the cyclical identity the sonata is dependent upon established models of formal closure, which include the tonal resolution inherent in the two E major movements of D 459, but additionally require certain formal and expressive characteristics associated with a finale and would be substantially undermined by a two-movement cycle in which the final movement is recognisably associated with the dance-movement type common to the middle movements of cyclical works. Therefore, the identity of the second movement is of importance in discussing the potential manifestations of a completed structure. 1. Form: Sonata-allegro or Scherzo? In the manuscript, the second movement is incomplete in itself: the last page covers two and a half staves of the obverse side, leaving space for five further staves in addition to the reverse of the page, all of which are empty. Regardless of its cyclical status as a fragment, the sonata is recorded only in an incomplete manuscript and there is no

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autograph record of the completed second movement. However, in the first edition (Klemm, 1843), the movement is printed as complete, allowing a concrete determination of its formal model.29 Independent of questions regarding the authenticity of its completion, the structural implications of the intended form of the second movement are significant when evaluating the fragmentary status of D 459 as a cyclical work. The title of the manuscript confirms the formal paradigm of D 459 as a sonata, and in Klemm’s edition this movement is given the title Scherzo. However the form of the second movement is highly unusual for a dance-movement in Schubert’s compositional oeuvre as there is no trio, and the movement is identifiable as a sonata-allegro movement in which the development begins after the exposition repeat in bar 97 and occupies the bars 98–142, at which point the manuscript ends.30 Additionally, diastematic and harmonic alterations present in the return of the opening material produce structural characteristics common to the recapitulation of a sonata-allegro movement,31 extremely unusual for Schubert’s scherzi, as the scherzo section is generally unaltered in its return. The absence of the characteristic repeated sections which define the rounded-binary form common to Schubert’s dance movements is in itself significant: even if the sonata-allegro model is not accepted as the basis for the Allegro, it conforms to a ternary structure which is further emphasised by the single repeat present in the movement, placed in bar 97 at the conclusion of the exposition, or opening section (A). The presence of a period of harmonic experimentation and flexibility (B), which extrapolates a phrase from A which first occurs in bars 13–18, evokes the formal function and content of a conventional development, and the extant material of the Allegro is organised in a profoundly different form than a recognisably Schubertian scherzo. In light of these divergences, there is sufficient evidence to cast serious doubts upon the identification of the movement as a scherzo by the composer, and to consider that it may have originated with Klemm.32 29 30 31

32

The divergence between the two sources is highly significant for the internal, movement-conditioned fragmentary status of D 459. Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 145. The primary material is altered in order to provide a satisfactory close to the movement, including a transposition of the material (bars 46–49) which originally led to a cadence on the dominant on the first beat of bar 50 which in the concluding section (bars 188–191) is lowered by a fifth and therefore leads to a cadence on the tonic on the first beat of bar 192. Apart from purely commercial interests focused upon increasing the success of a movement with a recognisable title, it is of interest to note the shift in the meaning and formal implications of the ‘scherzo’ since the composition of the two movements which comprise D 459 in 1816, and 1843. In the intervening years, the scherzo or menuett movement became looser and freer in structure. The decision to ascribe the characteristics and form of a scherzo to D 459/2 in 1843 appears more reasonable when taken in the context of more recent scherzi within sonata cycles, for example those of Robert Schumann, including the third movement of the Sonata in G minor Op. 22, composed between 1831 and 1838, or the Scherzo e Intermezzo from the Sonata in F sharp minor Op. 11

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2. Expositional Structure The Allegro is substantially and essentially removed from Schubert’s relatively consistent scherzo model, and it conforms without any straining of formal boundaries to the expectations of a sonata-allegro movement, with an exposition in which thematic material is presented and a harmonically adventurous development which expands the expressive potential of the expositional themes. However, a reading of the movement as following the formal dictates of the sonata-allegro has its own weaknesses: the first and second thematic groups (bars 1–24 and bars 26–50) are not as clearly differentiated in character, harmony, and melodic and rhythmic construction as is often the case in Schubert’s sonatas. In the context of the point at which the movement is abandoned, the beginning of the recapitulation, it is notable that increased motivic economy, or the use of related material across structural boundaries, is a characteristic of the unfinished sonatas which contain movements similarly abandoned at the point of recapitulation, composed in 1817 and 1818. The second theme group is entirely conventional in its establishment of a strong dominant tonality, and with the transitional material it provides a surprisingly exact iteration of the ‘[…] hallmarks of the High Classic sonata-form exposition in the major mode’.33 The generalised description of the formal tropes from which such a structure emerges as an individual work applies precisely to the second Allegro movement of D 459 with its ‘[…] clear and definite statement of dominant tonality for the second theme group, after either a rest following a cadence on its dominant or an extended upbeat to a generally cantabile theme.’34 Although for sonata movements ‘[…] individuality does more than matter; it is of the essence […]’ and there is therefore no such thing as ‘the sonata’35 as a generalised construct, ‘[…] understanding any compositionally selected gesture requires an awareness of the backdrop of typical choices against which it was written and within whose world of norms the piece was to be grasped in the first place.’36 It is against this background that the divergences from normative characteristics of the first and second theme groups become apparent. The melodic character of the second theme group is

33 34 35 36

(1835). The latter, through its title, demonstrates the distance attained from the eighteenth and early nineteenth century scherzo in the years following Schubert’s death. It is possible that the formal rigidity of the scherzo movement for Schubert was no longer at the forefront of the consciousness of the musical public. The placement of D 459/2 after an opening movement in sonata form and considerations of musical content, rhetorical gestures, and phrase-formation may have been the main considerations in deciding upon the title. Rey M. Longyear and Kate R. Covington, ‘Sources of the Three-Key Exposition’, The Journal of Musicology, 6 (1988), 448–70 (p. 459). Longyear and Covington, p. 459. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. preface. Hepokoski and Darcy, p. vi.

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captured by the universalised description of the ‘typical’ characteristics of the theme. The fact that it is, melodically, an exact reiteration of the first four bars of the first thematic group is therefore a reflection on the unusual departure of the first thematic group from the norm, current at the beginning of the nineteenth century, of the possibility of a ‘strong launch option’ with associated extroverted dramatic expressivity.37 Schubert engages with an associated aspect of the ‘strong launch option’: ‘[…] sometimes an initial forte basic idea is riddled with back-and-forth interpolated piano responses – hesitant, gentler, contrasting, or questioning replies […]’.38 Although appearing to undermine the opening gesture and therefore the dynamic evocation of strongly contrasting phrase by composing a fp followed by a diminuendo, the chosen mode of contrast is not rhetorical or dynamic, but textural, in keeping with the experiments in textural modes of structural delineation established in the preceding sonata, D 279. The first four bars are composed of two unison melodic lines, and the following four (bars 5–8) consist of a response in which the melodic line is supported by three independent lines. Through the conformity of the second theme group to classically established models, it becomes apparent that the aforementioned lack of distinction between the first and second theme groups originates in an economy of material between them. This is initiated in the fluidity of function and structural position of the thematic material in the first movement of D 15739 and remains a characteristic of Schubert’s later sonataallegro movements, including the more experimental works which emerged from the years 1817 and 1818.40 A further characteristic of thematic distinction which recurs intermittently in the piano sonatas until 1825, the presentation of the opening statement of the material for the first theme group in unaccompanied unison lines followed by a second theme with more expansive accompanying elements or a more fully harmonised restatement of the first theme, is also common in movements relying upon the strategy of extreme economy with thematic material.41 However, it is of primary importance to maintain the distinction between the two thematically-defined structural areas. The impulses produced by the metric structure, interrelation of phrases and phrase-elements and harmonic direction present in the first and second theme groups are diametrically opposed to one another: in D 459/2 the first theme group is deliberately evocative of a halting and static atmosphere, in which the opening harmonic ambiguity is maintained for as long as possible before the following 37 38 39 40 41

Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 66. Hepokoski and Darcy, pp. 68–69. See D 154 and D 157 III, 2: Fluidity in Thematic Function in D 157/1, pages 55–56. Among others, the previously mentioned first and second theme groups of D 625/1 and to a lesser extent the first and second theme groups of D 566/2. Appearing in D 625/1 between the opening statement of the theme (bars 1–8) and its reiteration in the first thematic area (bars 15–22), and in D 784 between the opening statement of the theme (bars 1–4) and its appearance in a varied form in the second theme group (from bar 61).

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consequent phrase (bars 5–8) ultimately establishes the tonic, although it appears only as a passing harmony on the first beat of bar 7 (a mode of reference which is repeated on the first beat of bar 16). The first full cadence on the E major tonic is placed late in the progression of the movement (bar 192), at a moment of formal significance which emphasises the priority of the harmonically-elucidated sonata-allegro concept. The tonic cadence introduces the transposition of the closing thematic material from the dominant (in the exposition from bar 50) to the tonic (in the recapitulation from bar 192). The exposition of D 459/2 is based upon an expressive duality drawn from related thematic content: the juxtaposition of a strong expressive contrast and shared material between the first and second theme groups produces a structure in which the ‘primacy’ of the first theme group is undermined and the two structural elements function as two divergent extrapolations of the musical possibilities inherent in the fundamental thematic material which are of equal worth and of parallel importance in the developing structure of the exposition. It is only with the introduction of the second theme group that the possibilities of the thematic material are expanded and lead to meaningful harmonic development. A sense of movement, emerging from melodic and metric impulses and the division of the original material in bars 1–4 into an antecedent and consequent pair, propels the second theme group forward and provides a strong musical and rhetorical contrast with the iteration of related material and the same melodic line in the first theme group. The emphasis upon motivically and harmonically expressed parity and continuity instead of oppositionally defined contrast which would become definitive for Schubert’s interpretation of the sonata-allegro model appear for the first time in a thematic-structural context. 3. Third Theme Group It is therefore more accurate to describe the structure of D 459/2 as a thematic duality in which two structural areas act as variant extrapolations of the musical possibilities inherent in the fundamental thematic material. Both are of equal worth and of parallel importance in the developing structure of the exposition. Tonal dislocation adds to the separation between the first and second theme groups, as the melodic and harmonic material is removed from the established tonic of E major. Although falling short of a modulation away from the tonic, the second-theme group contains a process of gradual withdrawal, which is finally realised through the eventual concluding dominant modulation. The avoidance of a full modulatory process in favour of a slight reorientation towards a new tonal centre while maintaining links to the established tonic of E major will be of significance when examining the harmonic structure and modulatory elements of the recapitulation. The second theme group begins with a dominant pedal over twelve bars (26–37), which is not resolved to the tonic of E major, but instead to the submediant and relative

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minor, C sharp (bars 38–39, immediately repeated for further emphasis in bars 40 and 41), producing further harmonic dislocation and weakening the function of the preceding B pedal as a dominant harmony leading towards the tonic of E major. The use of the term ‘mediant’ in place of the diatonically-inflected relative minor emerges from the harmonic structures inherent in this movement and others present in D 459A, and their function as cyclical points of reference. In this sense, the mediant and submediant define pitch-based relations to the tonic and function in a similar manner to the dominant in Schubert’s harmony, as occupying tonal planes which are removed from the tonic. The major or minor mode is of less import than the pitch-centred location of mediant-conditioned tonalities, resulting in an almost complete obviation of the formal distinctions between the diatonic and chromatic mediant.42 In D 459/2 the entrance of a recognisable E major chord, when it occurs in bar 45, is not accompanied by a sense of return and the resolution of a prolonged period of harmonic tension. This is due to Schubert’s approach and presentation of the ‘tonic’: it is reached through a continuation of the chromatic progression from B sharp to C sharp (beginning in bar 38).

Fig. 21 D 459/2 bars 37–45

The E major harmony in bars 45–47 is never fully realised, as the chromatic inflections of the upper line in the left hand accompaniment and the suspended A to G sharp progression in the right hand melodic line result in the avoidance of a stable and simultaneous E major chord. Finally, the function of the un-tonicised E major chord in the 42

This is evident in Schubert’s use of the major and minor inflections interchangeably, for example in D 459A/1 (bars 49–53), in which the dominant preparation to the return of the tonic is introduced by its own parallel minor, itself preceded by the relative major.

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phrase-structure and harmonic progression of the second theme group is not conclusive or final: it acts as the subdominant of the approaching modulatory key of B major and is followed by the modulatory dominant of F sharp major in bars 48 and 49 before the final cadence on the newly tonicised B major. The structural predominance of the third group (bars 50–94) is emphasised by its proportions: it is almost as long as the first two elements combined and contains two motivic constructs loosely based on the opening theme of bars 1–4, although it is melodically more distanced from the closely linked first and second theme groups. The primary thematic material of the movement is increasingly distant from its first iteration (bars 1–8), creating a motivic parallel between the harmonic movement away from the tonic. The main thematic material of the movement (bars 1–4) is no longer a melodically unified entity, but appears through the repetition of brief and fractured internal rhythmic or melodic derivations, for example the melodically constitutive element of the fourth which opens the left hand in bar 53 and the D sharp–F sharp–E melodic line in broken octaves which appears simultaneously in the right hand. The defining metric unit of the movement is the rhythmic pattern of a half note followed by a quarter note, producing a lilting imbalance and constant sense of movement which is variable according to the demands of the melodic or phrase-structure, and this remains present in the third theme group as well as playing a significant role in the development. Further differentiating the metric and thematic content of the third theme group from the first and second groups is the displacement of the accented beat: in the third theme group, it is the third beat which is accented, creating a metric contrast with the accented first beat of the first and second theme groups. The presence of the half note and quarter note metric unit in the third theme group is indicative not only of a continued reference to primary thematic material, but also of its alteration and evocation of increased distance between the strongly interrelated first and second theme groups and the third theme group. Points of motivic continuity,43 in which a tripartite thematic structure is fully realised from identifiable ‘source materials’, including variants of diastematic and metric elements, represent the first appearance of a formal trope which becomes prominent and highly characteristic of the sonata-allegro movements for solo piano composed in 1817 and 1818. In conjunction with the use of textural dis-

43

The melodic source of the third theme group is an upbeat outlining a rising third, followed by a descent through a fifth, which occurs from the upbeat to bar 54 until the third beat of bar 56. It is later shortened to produce the melodic motives which fill out the thematic material (the upbeat of bar 56 and first and second beats of bar 57 are a three-beat melodic arc which echo the first three beats of the source). It is not immediately recognisable as thematically related to or inspired by the opening material of the first theme, but the descending shape, (bars 54–55), and the subsequent step (third beat of bar 55) to A sharp are an approximately symmetrical repetition of the descent occurring in the second appearance of the ‘response’ material which makes up the second half of the opening structure of antecedent and consequent phrases (bars 13–15).

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tinction and harmonic ambiguity in the original presentation of thematic material, the Allegro anticipates a range compositional developments of the following three years. 4. Bipartite and Tripartite Expositional Structures A strong statement of altered thematic material, harmonic distance, and textural differentiation places structural emphasis on the third theme group to create contrast against the first and second theme groups. The first and second theme groups are rhythmically and texturally distinct and the metric impulse and phrase structures of the two groups produce a highly divergent impression. Therefore, it is untenable to maintain that the two constitute an extended unit, as both are capable of demonstrating unique musical identities based upon individual content and rhetorical elements drawn from the same motivic material, presenting and illuminating its manifold possibilities. However, in a continuation of the compositional tradition which was widely followed until Beethoven’s expositional innovations, there are only two tonal areas in the exposition, resulting in a structure in which three distinct thematic elements distributed over a structure with only one essential modulatory process (to the dominant in the course of the second theme group). This produces a degree of asymmetry between the forms which emerge from the harmonic and motivic structural implications of the exposition. Not only in its use of motivic content to elucidate a new structural model, but also in the harmonic and thematic arrangement of the exposition, D 459/2 is a preliminary step in the direction of the more radical works of 1818–1821. It is a tripartite expositional structure which emphasises thematic distinction between the three elements, supported but not overshadowed by a shifting harmonic focus. This produces a three-part exposition with implications of three harmonic centres, but without a final departure from the established model of tonic–dominant tension evoked over contrasting thematic areas from which the development and recapitulation draw their thematic content and harmonic impulse. Although the three-part expositions of Schubert’s experimental sonatas, in major keys as well as some of the minor key movements, return to the dominant before the close of the exposition, the introduction of a third, unrelated tonal area serves to dilute the oppositional relationship between tonic and dominant, with far-reaching effects on the function and perception of the recapitulatory modulations. The avoidance of a distinct third key produces less disruption to the recapitulatory model of ‘return’ to the tonic44 and brings increased prominence to the harmonic duality of the expositional structure, rather than its tripartite thematic elements. 44

Regardless of the source of the recapitulation in D 459/2, it is reasonable to assume that the recapitulatory form and necessary alteration of the modulations would have been of importance for Schubert and to attempt to discover traces of this attention through compositional preparation in the exposition.

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The duality of an exposition with three theme groups but a harmonic structure which involves only two keys produces an unresolved formal–semantic quandary: determination of the harmonically-conditioned structural pivot. This point of definition may be placed either between the first and second theme groups (supported by the A sharp leading note presented at the opening of the transitional passage in bars 24 and 25 immediately following a dominant cadence) or in a parallel to the final modulatory process which is completed in bars 50 and 51, the result of a significantly longer harmonic process involving the alienation of the previous tonic of E major in bars 45–47. As a result, the recapitulation, through the location of the necessary modulation to the tonic, offers a conclusive solution to the question of whether the harmonic two-part structure or the thematic three-part structure has primacy. The question of the authenticity of the recapitulation, to be discussed at length, attains a new interpretative and structural urgency through the innovative construction of the exposition. IV. The Recapitulation of D 459/2 After the exposition, a brief and harmonically adventurous development (bars 98–142) concludes with a bar of rest preceded by a dominant seventh in B major, clearly implying a return to the opening tonic of E major, most probably in the form of the ambiguous unison opening statement of the first theme, displaying similarities in the trope of fragmentation present in many of Schubert’s incomplete movements in sonata-allegro form, which are abandoned shortly before or at the point of recapitulation. However, as the first edition of the movement is complete, it is not clear whether the Allegro is a compositional fragment or a fragment of transmission, in which complete manuscript served as the basis of Klemm’s publication and was later lost. The aesthetic fragment categories presented earlier45 are united in drawing a clear distinction between a completed work which was subsequently fragmented, or a work which was never finished. As the only remaining source material, this edition can provide a degree of insight into the material then available: Klemm must either have had a completed manuscript, most probably Schubert’s version of the movement, or arranged for the movement to be completed by another composer. 1. Authenticity and a Study of the Manuscript Based upon a detailed presentation of the questions surrounding this enigmatic work, Lindmayr-Brandl suggests that the manuscript of the first two movements (MHc–

45

See the Fragment Table, pages 21–22.

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16261) was the only material available to Klemm and he commissioned an unnamed third party to complete the movement, concluding on the basis of the use of different colours for pencilled notations on the manuscript that the movement was not originally intended for publication and that this decision was later revised. These notations are considered to reflect various stages in the process of preparing the manuscript for publication (the lack of numbers between the staves in the second movement providing further support for the idea that it was not originally intended for publication).46 If the extant manuscript was the only source for Klemm’s edition, the completion which he must have presented for preparation of the engravings has since been lost without a trace: […] The second movement, due to its incompletion in the autograph and its challenging legibility, was notated on an extra sheet, whereby the galley proofs were also collated with the autograph. […] The second movement of the sonata is not by Schubert, but was completed by a third person commissioned by Klemm.47

The evidence for Klemm’s reliance on an external completion of D 459/2 is, as is to be expected in the absence of a further manuscript, minimal: it rests upon the faint ‘NS’ notated in bar 53 of the second movement and perpendicular pencil-strokes, interpreted as a sign that a completion was substituted, which upon careful examination of the manuscript in 2016 were no longer visible to the naked eye.48 The presence of an additional pencilled correction in the first movement, providing a third stage of the process of preparing the manuscript for publication, only compounds the confusion. Bar 35 ends with two D sharps in the right hand tied to an eighth note at the beginning of bar 36. In all other occurrences of a similar figure in this movement, Schubert carefully entered a following slur over the break between the staves, but in bars 35–36 this has been omitted in the original inked notation of the score. The missing slurs have been emphatically added in heavy pencil strokes, which are undoubtedly not in Schubert’s handwriting: this is, however, the only pencil entry which is marked strongly enough to be attributed to the ‘original’ process of composition rather than a later editorial intervention.49 46 47

48 49

Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 141. Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 141. ‘Der zweite Satz wurde aufgrund seiner Unvollständigkeit im Autograph und seiner schwierigeren Lesbarkeit auf einem Extrablatt notiert, wobei die Druckfahnen aber auch mit dem Autograph kollationiert wurden. […] Der zweite Satz der Sonate ist nicht von Schubert, sondern im Auftrag von Klemm von einer dritten Person fertiggestellt worden.’ Although my examination of the manuscript took place without the assistance of a backlight in order to preserve the fragile manuscript, it was conducted by daylight with the assistance of a bright lamp. Although it is possible that the alteration in the clarity of the addition was intended for the engraver, to make clear that this correction, unlike the fainter numbers and red pencil markings, should

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Inconsistency in the numerical pencil-entries between the staves which appear in the earlier pages of the manuscript, containing the first movement, casts further doubt upon whether a precise interpretation of these notations is productive of useful conclusions or even possible:50 the engraver’s markings are not without ambiguity. The second movement bears only the almost indecipherable ‘NS’51 or ‘NB’, which may indicate the beginning of a new page in Klemm’s edition. In comparison with the variety and quantity of engraver’s marks in the first movement, it appears unlikely that the extant autograph source of the second movement was the sole basis for the printing of the first edition.52 2. A Structural Basis in the Search for Authenticity Although conjuring the spectres of lost manuscripts without supporting evidence is inadvisable, there are both formal and practical considerations regarding the second movement which raise the possibility of a complete but lost manuscript authored by Schubert. The harmonic construction of the modulatory elements of the recapitulation present the only complications in a possible expansion and completion of Schubert’s manuscript, particularly the entry of the second theme group and the transition from the conclusion of the third theme group to a satisfying close in the tonic. The transposition of the cadence of the second theme group from the B major dominant to the E major tonic and the consequent transposition of the third theme group from F sharp major to B major, allowing its bassline to assume the function of a long dominant pedal preparing the entry of the E major tonic (bars 195–199 and 213–215), is achieved shortly before the end of the second theme group in bar 188 by an ‘inconspicuous fifth-shift’53 from a G sharp in the melody of the exposition (bar 46) to a C sharp in the melody of the recapitulation (bar 188).

50

51 52 53

be entered into the final version of the plate, it is highly unlikely, as no engraver would consider entering figures denoting stave-breaks. On the second page of the manuscript a faintly written ‘10’ appears at the end of bar 43 and is followed in bar 49 by the number ‘11’, also placed directly before the bar line. These two numbers correspond with the tenth and eleventh line-breaks on the second page of Klemm’s edition, just before the exposition repeat. However, two bars after the number 11, the number 12 is clearly visible at the beginning of bar 51. This does not correspond with a line-break or any other marking for the engraver, as in Klemm’s edition this bar is the second on the last line of the second page. Additionally, the line-break number 12, occurring at the exposition repeat in bar 53 is marked faintly at the end of the bar, conforming to the previously established model. Carlton, p. 118. Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 141. Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 145. ‘[…] unauffällige Quintrückung […]’.

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Fig. 22 D 459/2 bars 45–47

Fig. 23 D 459/2 bars 187–189

The subsequent transitional passage must therefore also be altered, as the melodic displacement downward over the interval of a fifth is sufficient to result in an impractical register for the presentation of the third theme group. If the transitional passage after the completed modulation in bars 192–194 were not displaced, the melodic elements of the third theme in the right hand would enter in the middle of the keyboard and the left hand would contain a dominant pedal centred upon a reiteration of the B, the deepest note in the movement.

Fig. 24 D 459/2 bars 50–53

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Fig. 25 D 459/2 bars 192–195

The resulting alteration in the timbre is not only a substantial departure from the appearance of the thematic group in the exposition, but also has structural implications: Schubert’s use of the B natural in the bass had been previously confined to points of formal significance,54 and it is instrumental in emphasising elements of the strong dominant seventh which prepares the return of the expositional material (bar 141). A disconcerting recurrence of the B natural in the bass register is avoided by transposing the transitional passage, and results in the presentation of the third theme group a fourth higher, producing a more consistent reproduction of the acoustic and textural characteristics of its appearance in the exposition (in the exposition and the development, bars 50 and 192 introduce the third theme group material in the right hand, and bars 53 and 195 fully establish the new structural area). An examination of the necessary divergences between the expositional and recapitulatory harmonic form reveals a structure in which the recapitulatory iteration is as closely imitative of the structure of the exposition as possible. For determining whether the recapitulation is an authentic composition or a clever pastiche produced to cater to the commercial motives of Klemm and the taste of a public with little interest in unfinished works, the musical content of the movement offers very little concrete evidence. The solution for the recapitulatory modulation is ultimately indistinguishable from an authentically Schubertian movement, which is apparent from a comparison with the displacement of the transitional passage to the second theme group in D 157/1. The arrangement of the brief coda and its tonic closure is similarly unobtrusive, produced with as little deviation from the ‘model’ of the exposition as possible, utilising the motivic and melodic template derived from bars 84–87.

54

Drawing only upon examples which are contained in the manuscript and therefore authentic: the transition in bars 24–25 and the conclusion of the development in bars 137 and 141.

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3. An Example of Schubertian Recapitulatory Tropes The difficulties of attempting to discover traces of an imitative completion are increased by the concision and elegance with which the simplest solutions, requiring the least deviation from the existing exposition,55 have been implemented. A comparison of these recapitulatory procedures to structural characteristics evident in Schubert’s sonata form compositions surrounding the year 1815 provides a striking similarity: the harmonically equivalent structure of the recapitulation and arrangement of the second theme group including its transposition from the dominant to the tonic was often, particularly in Schubert’s earlier works, achieved through a transposition at or before the opening of the transition, allowing the modulatory passage to continue without alteration and arrive on the ‘new’ tonality.56 This modulatory tactic is present in the Allegro, but instead of appearing between the first and second theme groups, it is implemented before the transition into the third theme group, resolving the open question of the placement of the structural and modulatory turning point, or pivot, arising from the expositional material. As previously mentioned during an examination of the three-part thematic structure and two-part harmonic form which coexist during the exposition, the point at which the recapitulatory modulation occurs is of great significance to the structural interpretation of the exposition form. In the early and experimental movements with true three key expositions, it is not reasonable to interpret the middle group as an ‘extended transition’.57 However, D 459/2 presents an ambiguous model, as no unambiguous modulatory process precedes the second theme group. The significance of Schubert’s placement of the recapitulatory modulation necessary for tonal closure becomes apparent, as it is capable of giving predominance to a three-part structure (implied through thematic differentiation) or a two-part structure emerging from the harmonic progression from the tonic to the dominant, in which the second theme group acts as an extended harmonic transition, although possessing its own motivic and rhetorical identity. The chosen solution places the emphasis produced through a transposition of thematic material and the concomitant stabilisation and a sense of ‘return’ to the established E major tonic not on the second theme group, which remains centred upon the tonally distant dominant but without the independence of a complete modulation, but before the transition into the third theme group in bar 188. This alteration 55 56 57

Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 145. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 69. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p.  101. ‘[…] die eine Deutung des Mittelbereichs als einer verlängerten Überleitung von vornherein ausschließt […]’.

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may be seen as a decision to obfuscate the harmonic weight of the ‘return’ to the tonic through a prolongation of the dominant area of the second theme group. It can be interpreted either a sign that the movement is the result of an anonymous pastiche, as Schubert’s recapitulatory processes generally place the structural emphasis on the transition between the first and second theme groups, or that it is a further example of the experimental nature of this sonata-allegro form movement and a deliberate choice on Schubert’s part to develop his ‘repertoire of solutions’ in the context of the ‘compositional demands’.58 4. Divergences between the Exposition and Recapitulation An alteration to the established harmonic schema through the addition of new material must occur at the end of the movement (after bar 225) in order to avoid the dominant cadence and transitional material present at the conclusion of the exposition: the conclusion of the recapitulation is eight bars shorter than that of the exposition. Tonal closure is achieved by an alteration of the melodic and harmonic treatment of the cadential note (in the case of the exposition, a B major harmony and in the recapitulation an E major tonic) present in bars 84 and 226, respectively. The recapitulation, unlike the exposition, contains no chromatic inflection of the third beat away from the leading-tone and is accompanied on the third beat by a restatement of the dominant as a seventh, further strengthening the tonic, which in the exposition serves to produce sufficient harmonic dislocation and enable a transition away from the second and third theme groups. The motivic construction of the exposition remains intact, as the diversion of the broken octave figure which comprises the main melodic element of the third theme group occurs in bars 226–229, analogous to its first appearance in bars 84–87 at the end of the exposition. In the recapitulatory conclusion, the element is presented only once, before concluding with a tonic cadence in E major comprised of two chords on the first beats of bars 230 and 231, each followed by two beats of rest, and therein it is evident that the conclusion of the movement is accomplished with as little disruption to the expositional structures as possible. This is not the case in the arrangement of the octave transposition of the transitional material (bars 192–194), which is without tonal or modulatory effect and lacks significant structural implications. However, it would have been possible (and perhaps a more truly ‘simple’ solution) to combine both the harmonic transposition in bar 188 and the registral transposition in bar 192 and allow them to occur simultaneously. The

58

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 124. ‘[…] Repertoire an Lösungen […] kompositorische Aufgabe […]’.

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separation of the transpositional elements shows a striking similarity to the ‘typical’ methods for meeting the demands of the harmonic recapitulatory alterations. The two complementary transpositional events in the recapitulation of D 459/2 are both individually characteristic of Schubert’s innovative compositional methods in the earlier works. Dislocation of the transpositional event from the boundaries of the structural elements as they are delineated by three distinct thematic areas, seen in the recapitulatory arrangement of D 459/2, is characteristic of Schubert’s earlier works. Transpositions are ‘[…] carried out at a relatively inconspicuous place – in any case, the effort to avoid allowing them to coincide with a clear formal caesura is recognisable’,59 a direct reference to D 459/2 which must rest on the conviction of Schubert’s authorship. The placement and type of recapitulatory modulations are entirely characteristic of Schubert; additionally, the departure from the exposition through the addition of an extra accompanying line in the left hand of the transitional passage between the second and third theme groups in bars 192–194 in the recapitulation, provides convincing musical evidence that Schubert composed the movement. An ‘unnecessary’ intervention in a transitional passage (bars 192–194), which is simultaneously of no harmonic or structural import and a significant departure from the original model present in the exposition, is extremely improbable when considered as the work of an imitative completer, intent on following the structure and form of the exposition as closely as possible. It is plausible that another manuscript of the movement must have existed, as the manuscripts used for the last three movements of Klemm’s Fünf Clavierstücke are also lost (with the exception of the last eight bars of D 459A/3) without casting doubt upon the authorship of the movements. Finally, support for the theory that Schubert himself composed the movement lies in the unusual title of the 1843 edition, which describes the pieces not only as ‘from his estate’ but also ‘undoubtedly guaranteed as authentic, legally obtained compositions’.60 If the following movements contained a completion by ‘someone from the publishing house’ or ‘an accomplished musician’ known among musical circles in Leipzig,61 the declarations of the authenticity of the Fünf Clavierstücke appear exaggerated, even insofar as the composition of recapitulations may have been routine for Schubert and

59

60 61

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 74. ‘Ansonsten wird aber […] die Transposition in der Regel an einer relativ unauffälligen Stelle vorgenommen – jedenfalls ist das Bestreben erkennbar, sie nicht exakt mit einer klaren formalen Zäsur zusammenfallen zu lassen […]’. ‘Aus seinem Nachlasse. Unzweifelhaft als ächt verbürgte, rechtmäßig erworbene Compositionen’. Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 148. ‘[…] jemand aus dem Verlag […] einen versierten Musiker […]’.

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his contemporaries.62 The balance of probability appears to fall on the side of accepting D 459/2 as a completed and authentically Schubertian movement. V. Musical Justifications for the Scherzo as a Title for D 459/2 After considering the musical and formal indications which emphasise the aspects of a sonata-allegro movement in D 459/2, it is constructive to approach the movement from the perspective of its scherzo characteristics. The musical impulses behind the publisher’s insistence upon a scherzo for D 459/2 are reliant upon a degree of self-identification, based upon its musical content and position in the cycle, of the movement with the genre of inner dance movements in the conventional cyclical sonata structure. Although the movement adheres largely to the formal expectations of a sonata-allegro movement, the melodic and rhythmic content, the thematic arrangement, and the metric impulses which define it raise an interesting possibility: taken together, they produce an impression far closer to that of a ‘traditional’ scherzo movement. Essentially, the movement sounds like a scherzo in terms of the aforementioned characteristics, even if its structure does not conform to the expectations produced by a combination of diverse elements which result in the content and distinct expressive components of a scherzo, but in the form of a sonata-allegro movement. The question of whether a sonata-allegro form may, simultaneously, occupy the category of scherzo and at what point the ternary form common in Schubert’s menuetts and scherzi crosses the boundary to the sonata-allegro is beyond the scope of this examination: however, the two formal models are distinct and entirely separate in all of the other piano sonatas. As it is probable that the title did not originate with Schubert, the movement is an example of formal experimentation in that it appears as a sonata-allegro movement with unmistakeable scherzo-characteristics rather than a true fusion of two disparate forms. 1. Rhythmic and Metric Elements of the Scherzo Model The primary identifying characteristics of the movement which lead to its absorption into the category of a scherzo are rhythmic and metric. The movement is dominated by a continually repeated metric unit: a half note followed by a quarter note, accented either on the downbeat or the third beat of the bar and capable of supporting a wide va-

62

It seems unlikely that Klemm would have allowed himself such freedom from the boundaries of strict accuracy in describing the provenance of the Fünf Clavierstücke and not continued by commissioning the composition of a true scherzo, whether with or without a trio, or omitting the ‘incomplete’ movement entirely, creating a more conventional four-movement structure rather than contenting himself with imposing an inappropriate title onto the sonata-allegro movement.

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riety of phrase-structures and larger metric periods. Often, it results in a lilting instability which is strongly evocative of a lighter dance movement, and the figuration serves as a strong connection to the fundamental characteristics of a dance movement, as a related rhythmic element has been associated for centuries with an individual movement present in many dance suites of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.63 Since its emergence as an inner movement in cyclical instrumental works in 1781 in Haydn’s Op. 33 quartets, the scherzo gained prominence as a standard dance movement with Beethoven, although its ‘[…] identifying characteristics, in addition to the traditional associations with a cheerfully ebullient dance reaching back into the seventeenth century, are particularly the relatively quick tempo, a markedly strict and succinct A–B–A form, the emphasis of rhythmic elements, and a playfully spirited […] disposition’.64 These characteristics, in the context of a regular and highly symmetrical phrase periodisation, remained stable in Schubert’s compositions. The persistent repetition of this figuration contributes to the emergence of a phrasestructure which is also typical of a scherzo or menuett movement and bears less resemblance to the longer, more elaborate structures expected of a sonata-allegro. The opening of D 459/2 is periodised into antecedent and consequent phrases and phraseelements which are distinguished by textural, rhetorical, or dynamic contrast. Welldefined periods of movement and stasis, present in the Allegro, are closely associated with Schubert’s dance movements.65 Essentially, D 459/2 produces the impression of a scherzo due to manifold musical characteristics involving a wide range of melodic, metric, and structural elements of the piece, all of which conform to the conventional expressivity of a short dance movement and diverge from the musical content of a traditional sonata-allegro. 2. Cyclical Placement and the Scherzo However, it would be hasty to conclude that the movement is entirely conventional in its adherence to divergent tropes of the formal aspects of the sonata-allegro model and the expressive content of a scherzo. The scale of alterations to the scherzo-model and

63 64

65

Meredith Little and Natalie Jenne, Dance and the Music of J. S. Bach (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), p. 156. Wolfram Steinbeck, ‘Scherzo’, in MGG Online, ed. by Laurenz Lütteken (Kassel etc., 2016) [accessed 29 May 2018]. ‘[…] kennzeichnenden Eigenschaften neben dem traditionellen, bis ins 17. Jh. zurückreichenden Bezug zum heiter-beschwingten Tanz insbesondere das vergleichsweise hohe Tempo, eine auffallend strenge und knappe A-BA-Form, die Betonung des Rhythmischen sowie eine spielerisch-muntere […] Anlage.’ The closest comparison is the scherzo of D 459A, in which the first two phrases (bars 1–4 and bars 5–8) are rhythmically symmetrical and follow a similar pattern of metric impulse and stasis which aligns precisely with the four-bar phrase-structure.

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the sonata-allegro model through the necessity of their coexistence expand from relatively small, apparently minor alterations to the internal metric emphases or phrasestructure of the movement, revealing internal tensions between form and content in the Allegro D 459/2 which have implications for the structure of the cycle as a whole. The placement of the movement as a second movement bearing unmistakable and clearly identifiable scherzo-characteristics is extremely unusual in any period of Schubert’s compositional activities. Schubert established his own cyclical conventions for sonata-form works early and remained remarkably consistent despite the many experimental approaches to the composition of sonatas and cyclical works; if the work contains a dance movement, it is almost invariably positioned as a third movement in the larger cyclical structure. The placement of the dance-movement was firmly established by 181466 and remained constant through the evolution and variation of Schubert’s compositional development.67 Although it is possible to view the divergences from this model, found in the String Quartet D 18 (1810–1811) or the Sonata in A major for violin and piano D 574, in which the dance movements appear immediately following the first movements as experimental departures from an established norm, it is unlikely that Schubert intended to conduct formal experiments on the basis of the inversion of his usual placement of inner movements. This conclusion is based upon the absence of a compelling change in the cyclical structures evoked by such reversals and the fact that they seldom occur. Additionally, Schubertian formal experiments are directed at conventions which he experienced as externally determined, and rarely affect those aspects of conventions which appear to have been considered as individual aspects of the form, such as the presence of the tonic and the dominant at the beginning and end of major key expositions. As a result of their deliberate structural placement as third movements, Schubert’s dance movements perform a vital role in the larger intra-movement structural narrative of his cyclical works, evoking contrast between the first, sonata-allegro movement and a second movement which is generally linked to the ‘slow-movement’ model, characterised by some combination of lyrical elements, a slower tempo, and a relaxation of the harmonic and thematic complexity and intensity inherent in his sonata-allegro first movements. The scherzo or menuett and trio is a ‘lighter’ movement, which for Schubert had its logical place after the formal demands of the sonata-allegro form and the subsequent slow movement. The consistency with which Schubert maintained the arrangements of the movements of his larger cyclical works throughout periods of intense formal experimentation and concentrated efforts to develop new structural pos-

66 67

Beginning with the string quartets D 94 and 112 (1811 and 1812), the symphonies D 82 (October 1813) and D 125 (1814–1815) and the piano sonatas D 157 and 279 (February and September 1815), the third movements are menuetts and trios. The last three piano sonatas, D 958–960, composed at the end of 1828 also have dance movements as their third movements.

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sibilities places the scherzo-characteristics of D 459/2 firmly in the realm of the subjectively expressive musical content rather than a formal innovation on the cyclical level. Although its divergence from the previously established cyclical model is unusual and indicative of an increased trend towards compositional experimentation, direct insights into the projected structural continuation of the D 459 sonata torso are not immediately apparent from the cyclical position of a movement with the expressive profile of a dance-movement contained within the structure of a sonata-allegro. The works present among Schubert’s early sonata-allegro cycles which contain a traditional dance-movement either conform to or strongly imply four-movement cyclical structures. The unusual formal and musical characteristics of D 459 raise the possibility of a projected three-movement structure, or perhaps an experimental inversion of the inner movements.68 An interpretation of the contradictory indications of cyclical position and musical content in D 459/2 as experimental approaches to a new formal paradigm are reinforced by the presence of three-movement structures in the sonatas in A minor (D 537, 1817) and A flat major (D 557, 1817) and the fragmentary D 625 in F minor (1818).69 The existence of completed works with similar formal arrangements renders it unlikely that the choice of an unconventional position for a movement displaying strong ‘scherzo’ characteristics in D 459 led to the abandonment of the sonata. As it is probable that the Allegro printed by Klemm originated in an authentically Schubertian manuscript, the autograph of D 459 appears to demonstrate the type of fragmentation seen in the preceding two sonatas D 157 and D 279: a cyclical construct in which the individual movements are complete, but formal closure for the overarching structures are lacking due to the absence of a finale movement. Neither the fivemovement structure of the first edition nor a complete two-movement sonata, which would have concluded with an alternative to D 459/2, appears to be fully applicable to the E major convolutes associated with D 459. The independence of the manuscript containing D 459/1 and D 459/2 has led to a general acceptance among more recent musicological discussion of a point of separation after the conclusion of the second movement,70 71 over an adherence to the discredited the five-movement structure of

68

69

70 71

It is possible that the two movements of D 459 represent a preliminary appearance of the cyclical arrangement found in the String Quartet in E flat major D 87, composed in 1813, and the Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major D 574, composed in 1817. In both of these pieces, the general scheme of the movements and their individual tempi and character are maintained, as the third movement is a slower, more lyrical movement (in D 87 an Adagio and in D 574 an Andantino). This sonata, only recorded in a contemporary Abschrift, consists of three movements, of which the second is a scherzo and trio. Questions regarding a potential slow movement and its placement are discussed in D 625 I, 2: D 505, pages 266–268 and D 625 I, 3: Formal Models: Three- and FourMovement Cycles, pages 268–269. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 272. Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 135.

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the 1843 first edition.72 However, the existence of the D 459 manuscript does not exclude the possibility that Klemm’s source for the complete Allegro D 459/2 might have included additional movements. VI. D 459A: An Unknown Sonata? 1. Allegro patetico D 459A/3: Manuscript and Associated Works The manuscripts which contained the three pieces of D 459A, printed in 1843 as an Adagio in C major, a Scherzo and Trio in A major, and an Allegro patetico in E major are lost, with the exception of a conglomerate manuscript (MHc–154) consisting primarily of the Menuetts D 41 but also containing a fragment of the Allegro patetico D 459/3, the Andantino D 348, and the Adagio D 349. This manuscript was evidently subjected to later damage, as several of the Menuetts (Nos. 9, 10, 19, and 24–30) which were notated before the other works in the conglomerate are missing. Later menuetts in the collection occupy only the front of the individual pages, leaving the backs of the pages blank for later compositions. It is possible to estimate the missing pages of the manuscript with reasonable precision, as the extant menuetts occupy one full side of a page73 indicating that at least ten pages are absent from the original manuscript, although there is some dispute among the researchers who have examined the manuscript, Reinhard van Hoorickx and Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, as the latter states that only nine pages are missing.74 The last eight bars of the Allegro patetico are notated on the reverse side of the page containing Menuett No. 21, signifying that it is probable that the preceding 97 bars were at one point present on some of the missing pages of the manuscript, as Schubert’s working process does not contain any record of piano sonata movements in which the opening is absent. An entirely different work is present on the reverse side of the Menuett No. 20, which immediately precedes the eight-bar fragment of the Allegro patetico: the beginning of a fugue (D 41A) in pencil and a partial superimposition of the Wiegenlied D 498 in a version for piano without text in Ferdinand Schubert’s handwriting.75 It is therefore obvious that the largest portion of D 459A/3 which is missing could not have been present on the page immediately preceding its concluding eight bars. The implications of this internal dissociation of manuscript notation of D 459A/3 are far-reaching, as they bring the coherence and integrity of individual movements

72 73 74 75

Költzsch, pp. 10–11. Reinhard van Hoorickx, ‘Two Essays on Schubert. I: The Schubert’s Variations Opus 10. II: Ferdinand and Franz Schubert’, Revue Belge de Musicologie, 24 (1970), 81–95 (p. 89). Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 134. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 293.

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contained within the manuscript into question as well as rendering conclusions which rely upon a logical and chronological organisation of the works contained within the MHc–154 manuscript-convolute more open to doubt.76 An examination of the manuscript MHc–154 offers a rough chronology of the composition of the three fragmentary compositions for solo piano contained within the manuscript and the types of fragmentation present in the Andantino D 348 and the Adagio D  349, based upon the direction of composition in the context of the D  41 Menuetts and the presence of a V. S. notation (volti subito, indicating the continuation of the composition on the reverse of the page) at the end of the extant portion of D 349 and its absence at the conclusion of the fragmentary D 348. The presence of three compositions, D 348, D 349, and D 459A/3, of which D 349 and D 459A/3 are composed in ‘parallel’ on the obverse and reverse of the pages (D 459A/3 and 349 run in the same direction as the menuett progression). D 348, on the reverse of the Menuetts Nos. 23 and 22 respectively, running against the direction of the other works, provides significant insights into not only the possible connections between the works but also the order in which they were composed. It is likely that the last seven Menuetts, Nos. 24–30, were already detached from the extant manuscript in 1816 when Schubert began to compose the Andantino and that the beginning of a new compositional process is marked by the use of the empty last page of the manuscript and a change in the direction of composition. D 348 is therefore provisionally dated as earlier than the Allegro patetico or the immediately following Adagio D 349, because D 349 is continued on a new and substantially different sheet of paper which is detached from the unified Menuett manuscript MHc–154 and this would not be necessary if D 348 were not already present in the conglomerate. An obvious progression from the closing bars of D 459A/3 to D 349 and the beginning of the latter in the middle of the third stave of a page otherwise occupied by D 459A/3 excludes the possibility that the Adagio might have been composed before the Allegro patetico, and therefore the process of notating the three piano works associated with the conglomerate manuscript began with D 348, continued with the complete notation of D 459A/3 and was subsequently furthered by the notation of D 349.77

76

77

The existence of the last eight bars of D 459A/3 in this manuscript is therefore an almost certain indication that the preceding material was also present, most probably on the reverse sides of the Menuetts 9, 10, and 19. Considering the density of handwriting in Schubert’s other Niederschriften from the period, it is plausible that the three empty pages would have provided sufficient space for the composition of 105 bars, as the Niederschrift of the Allegro D 459/2 occupies three staves on the lower half of one page, a full following page and a further three staves on the concluding page of the manuscript and is, at 142 bars, longer than the missing 97 bars of the Allegro patetico D 459A/3. As a result the fragmentation of D 348 recorded in this conglomerate manuscript is that of an abandoned and incomplete composition, as a continuation would have been possible on the next blank leaf, the reverse of the Menuett No. 21, before the notation of D 459A/3.

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The alteration in the direction of composition and the ‘collision’ between D 349 and D 348 imply that Schubert returned to the same manuscript at a later point, having either forgotten the presence D 348 or not realised how little space remained in the manuscript. A continuation of D 349, concluding with the aforementioned V. S., is present on a separate sheet of paper, which was used for an early draft of the lied Sehnsucht D 516. As D 349 breaks off at the end of a page upon which a volti subito sign occurs, indicating that Schubert intended the composition to continue on a now-absent next page, the likelihood of its completion or at least continuation on a further unattached manuscript leaf is high, creating a distinction between the compositionally incomplete D 348 and the status of D 349 as a fragment of transmission.78 If the conglomerate manuscript contains fragments of a cyclical work, it presents the Allegro patetico, D 459A/3 in the NGA, as a first movement of an as yet unknown sonata in E major in which the fragmentary Adagio D  349 would be a slow second movement,79 but due to the damage to the menuett conglomerate, it is not possible to discover whether D 459A/3 bore the title Sonate, conforming to all other extant Schubert autographs in the genre. This potential ‘new sonata’ in E major may be identical with the work referred to by the entry in Aloys Fuchs’s catalogue consisting only of the words ‘detto … detto … E*. detto’. 2. Chronology and Ownership of the Manuscript of the ‘Unknown Sonata’ The information contained in Fuchs’s catalogue is insufficient to define D 459A/3 and D 349 as the opening movements of a hitherto unknown sonata fragment, and due to its ambiguity the ‘detto’ entry has been the origin of diverse interpretations. It is possible that the reference is instead to the E flat major sonata D 568, of which the D flat major variant was composed in June of 1817 (this is a possible interpretation of the second ‘detto’ in the catalogue).80 However, the autograph of D 568 was most probably no longer in the possession of Ferdinand Schubert and therefore not subject to the process of cataloguing, because it was published in 1829 by Pennauer. As Fuchs’s

78 79 80

It may also be tentatively stated that the draft of D 516 was already present on the reverse of the page used for the continuation of the Adagio D 349, as Schubert’s V. S. sign is an indication that the page should be turned over for the continuation of the composition. Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 135. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 473.

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catalogue was compiled with the assistance of Ferdinand Schubert, it seems unlikely that he would be unaware of the location of the D 568 manuscript.81 82 Furthermore, it is unlikely that the E major sonata of the catalogue is a mistaken reference to a sonata in another key, as in two documents of 1830 referring to the completed works which were sold by Ferdinand Schubert to the publisher Anton Diabelli & Co., there is no reference to an E major work with which the new E major fragment might have been confused.83 Further indications that Fuchs’s unknown sonata must have been incomplete are present in Ferdinand Schubert’s correspondence with the publisher Whistling in 1842: Vienna, 27. January 1824 [recte 1842] In answer to your valued inquiry of the 22nd of this month, I hasten to inform you sincerely that I am no longer in a position to make arrangements regarding the piano and song compositions of my brother Franz, because I have entrusted them entirely to the art dealer Herr Diabelli; however, I am still in possession of several fragments of piano sonatas and similar.84

The completed sonatas sold to Diabelli and the sonatas composed after 1817, which do not appear in the catalogue presumably on the grounds of their earlier publication and sale, may therefore be excluded from consideration. The most probable alternative is therefore that the catalogue refers to an E major sonata of which the first movement is the Allegro patetico. However, it is possible that the reference to the new E major sonata refers not to the conglomerate manuscript of D 41 and D 459/3, but to a further manuscript which then served as the engraver’s model for the printing of D 459A/3,85 the fifth movement of the Klemm edition. The existence of this manuscript, which presumably contained a complete D 459A/3 and may also have contained D 349,86 is based upon the supposition

81 82 83 84

85 86

Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 137. The possibility that it refers to the first version of the Sonata in E flat major D 568 would require the assumption of a further error on Fuchs’s part, as the earlier related sonata (D 567) is in D flat major. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, pp. 445–48. Including the sonatas in A flat major D 557, B major D 575, A minor D 537, A minor D 784, and D major D 850, with the sole right of publication. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 462. ‘Wien, am 27. Jänner 1824 [recte 1842] Ihrer werten Anfrage vom 22. d. M. zufolge beeile ich mich Ihnen ergebenst anzuzeigen, daß ich zwar über die Klavier- und Lieder-Kompositionen meines Bruders Franz nicht mehr zu disponieren habe, weil ich dieselben sämtlich der Kunsthandlung des Herrn Diabelli allhier überließ; dafür aber noch im Besitze […] einiger Fragmente von Klavier-Sonaten u. dgl. bin.’ Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 137. Bisogni, p. 76.

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that the currently existing conglomerate only contained an incomplete version of the first movement of the new E major sonata and was therefore never sent to Klemm.87 However, as there is no precedent for an unfinished sonata-movement fragment in which only the conclusion is present, it is highly unlikely that D 459A/3 was incomplete in the Menuett manuscript. It is therefore important to discover whether this conglomerate manuscript containing D 459A/3 and two slow movements (MHc–154) was in Ferdinand Schubert’s possession at the time of the compilation of the Fuchs catalogue in the 1840s. Indications regarding the provenance of the manuscript until its publication may be found in notations on the manuscript itself, Ferdinand Schubert’s 1839 necrology,88 and the discoveries of Reinhard Van Hoorickx regarding the use of material from the original Menuetts D 41 in Ferdinand Schubert’s Hirtenmesse.89 The Hirtenmesse was composed in 1833 and Ferdinand Schubert used parts of the Menuetts or Trios 4, 6, 12, 13, and 22 for movements of the mass.90 Van Hoorickx notes that one of the Menuetts (the fourth) contains a pencilled notation of the word ‘Gratias’, which led to his recognition of the extent of Ferdinand Schubert’s reliance on the menuetts and trios for his Hirtenmesse.91 Of interest to the study of D 459A/3, the Adagio D 349, and the Andantino D 348 is the date of Ferdinand Schubert’s composition: the Menuett manuscript was in his possession for the 1833 composition of the mass. However, Ferdinand Schubert’s 1839 necrology states that the thirty Menuetts (D 41) which Franz wrote for his brother Ignaz ‘are lost’.92 Six years after Ferdinand made notes upon and copied material from the manuscript MHc–154, it had been completely lost and is therefore decisively excluded as the manuscript of the unknown E major sonata in Fuchs’s catalogue, compiled in 1840.93 Finally, the presence of the signature ‘Nicolaus Dumba’ on several pages of the manuscript94 serves to distinguish the two manuscripts of the E major sonata, as Dumba, whose substantial collection of Schubert manuscripts and autographs is now in the Wienbibliothek, was born in 1830,

87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 138. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 45. Hoorickx, ‘Two Essays on Schubert. I: The Schubert’s Variations Opus 10. II: Ferdinand and Franz Schubert’, pp. 89–90. Hoorickx, ‘Two Essays on Schubert. I: The Schubert’s Variations Opus 10. II: Ferdinand and Franz Schubert’, pp. 89–91. Hoorickx, ‘Two Essays on Schubert. I: The Schubert’s Variations Opus 10. II: Ferdinand and Franz Schubert’, pp. 89–91. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 45. ‘[…] sind verlorengegangen’. Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 138. In pencil on the bottom right corner of the Menuetts Nos. 4, 5, 7, 11, 13, 16, 22, and 23, the fugue fragment D 41A and the page containing the Allegro patetico fragment and the opening of the Adagio D 349 and its conclusion on the last page of the manuscript.

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which means that the manuscript MHc–154 containing the Menuetts could not have been directly obtained from Ferdinand Schubert in or before 1839.95 3. An Unusual Compositional Process in the new E major Sonata, D 459/3 and D 349 Although it appears probable that the unknown E major sonata referred to in Ferdinand Schubert’s catalogue had at least some movements in common with the remaining sonata fragments contained in the convolute, there are several indications within the Menuett manuscript, specifically small but significant divergences in handwriting and ink between D  459A/3 and D  349, which contradict the portrayal of the compositional process which produced these works as unified and relatively continuous. The connection between the two movements rests solely upon the direct continuation from D 459A/3 to the following Adagio D 349, which is unusually pronounced even for Schubert’s often densely-written working manuscripts.96 In conjunction with the added sheet of paper containing the continuation of D 349, it appears clear that the unusual closeness of the movements is not necessarily due to a desire to emphasise a structural or cyclical connection between them, but may be attributed to a lack of space on the remaining pages of the manuscript. The first and most telling indication that D 349 is not an immediate continuation of the compositional process involving the notation of D 459/3 is a correction in the time signature; originally, the following movement was to have been in 3/4 time, before Schubert altered it to the 2/4 of D 349. This provides grounds for structural queries regarding the intended development of the sonata which are similar to those arising from the corrected time signature of D  459/2. Due to the placement of the opening bar (after approximately the first third of the third stave) and the presence of the tempo-marking before the brace which contains the first bar of the Adagio, it is probable that the correction to the time signature was entered after the tempo, offering an unusual perspective on the construction of a cyclical form. For Schubert, the first movement was to have been followed by a slow movement (Adagio) of some description, of which not even the time signature was decided as he began to compose the movement.97 These indices point to a planned continuation of the Allegro patetico with 95 96

97

Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 138. There are several examples of manuscripts for solo piano sonatas in which Schubert nonetheless begins a new movement at the beginning of a new page, regardless of whether the previous movement has been brought to a point of final structural closure: D 157, D 570, and D 459, but none in which the continuation occurs on the same stave. The ink of the correction is significantly darker than that of the preceding tempo-marking, clefs, and the original time signature, in which the ink is apparently identical to the conclusion of the

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a slow movement in 3/4, of which the intended key-signature, C major, was retained when Schubert returned to the manuscript and, after altering the time signature, continued the sonata with the composition of D  349 in 2/4. This is not to dispute the connection between the works, as it is plain that the Adagio is a slow movement belonging to a projected sonata cycle begun by the Allegro patetico, but to provide a more balanced view of their composition and Schubert’s probable working methods. From this examination of the process which links the two movements, it becomes clear that the Allegro patetico D 459A/3 was not conceived as a finale movement and its position in Klemm’s Fünf Clavierstücke arises from editorial intervention. 4. A Second E Major Sonata or Five Movements: D 459, D 459A, and D 349 Arising from the recognition that there are no musical or historical grounds to view the Allegro patetico as the fifth movement of a sonata structure and the presence of convincing arguments for its status as the first movement of a sonata (identical with the unknown and most probably fragmentary work mentioned in Fuchs’s catalogue),98 the connection with D 349 produces the following constellation: D 459 is a two-movement sonata fragment, as is the third piece of D 459A, known as the Allegro patetico, through its connection with D 349 in the manuscript MHc–154. However, the status and associations of the Adagio D  459A/1 with D  459A/3 and the Scherzo and Trio D 459A/2 remain undetermined. Klemm’s publication of the five movements may be discredited insofar as it is not a perfect execution of Schubert’s intentions, but a complete disregard of the edition would leave the modern Schubert researcher without any information regarding the last three pieces of the Fünf Clavierstücke. Although any conclusions based upon Klemm’s publication must be drawn with great care and should be founded primarily upon the musical material of the individual movements, it is possible that the material of the Fünf Clavierstücke is able to provide further insights into Schubert’s structural and compositional thought. However, it is advisable to be aware of the limitations of Klemm’s edition in advance: the titles of the movements of which there are no original

98

Allegro patetico, whereas the corrected time signature conforms to ink in the following notation. Further evidence that D 349 was composed later than D 459A/3 are slight but visible differences in not only the quality and colour of the ink, but also in the pen and the execution of the notation. The new pen is significantly thinner in the downward strokes, (visible in a comparison of the dynamic markings between the Allegro patetico and the Adagio) and appears to be sharper, as there are visible scratches from the nib visible in the paper. Finally, there is a slight but noticeable backwards slant in the notation of D 349 which is not evident in the preceding eight bars of the Allegro patetico or in the manuscript containing D 459. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 473.

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manuscripts must be considered a matter of grave doubt. In particular, the title Allegro patetico invites the conjecture that it might be a further editorial intervention in the manner of the re-titled Scherzo/Allegro D 459/2.99 Apart from the incompatible terminology, it is recorded that the titles of Schubert’s dances were invariably chosen by the publishers without Schubert’s consent100 and therefore probable that a similar process to that current during his lifetime continued after his death. Possible connections between the Scherzo and Trio D 459A/2 and the Adagio D 459A/1 and the Allegro patetico D 459A/3 remain speculatively based upon the first printing of 1843. VII. D 459A: Intrinsic Cyclical Connections Asserting a cyclical link between the three pieces of D 459A in the absence of a manuscript and against the indications that D  459A/3 and D  349 are two movements of a fragmentary sonata appears unproductive; however, there are compelling reasons to examine the potential for interconnections between the three pieces. Firstly, Schubert’s compositional process was not always a directly linear fulfilment of an established plan and the fragmentary sonatas for solo piano offered an opportunity for formal experimentation, a circumstance which strongly implies the possibility that no final, teleologically driven idealised complete form of the E major conglomerate exists to be discovered. Secondly, there are harmonic and motivic aspects of the three D 459A works indicating that they were not conceived as isolated piano pieces, but contain elements of a united cyclical form. 1. D 459A/1 and Implications of a Harmonically Driven Cyclical Connection The most obvious musical implication of a connection to a larger cyclical structure present among the three pieces comprising D 459A emerges at the conclusion of the Adagio D 459A/1. The structure of the movement conforms to the exposition-recapitulation form101 already prevalent as a slow-movement model at the beginning of

99

Among the other piano works (including cyclical works such as D 899, 935, and 946, fragmentary single compositions such as D 346, and completed isolated ‘character pieces’ such as D 817, as well as the body of work for piano duet), there are no purely emotive or descriptive Italian terms used as work-titles or instructions regarding the tempo or execution of the works. 100 Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 422. 101 Beth Shamgar, ‘Schubert’s Classic Legacy: Some Thoughts on Exposition-Recap. Form’, The Journal of Musicology, 18 (2001), 150–69 (p. 151).

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the nineteenth century102 103 but differs still further from the established form in its choice of tonality for the second subject material, making use of a refinement which was popular in the middle of the eighteenth century to introduce harmonic contrast and emotional affect into the movement104 through the appearance of the parallel minor at the beginning of the second subject area. Furthermore, Schubert expands the conventional sonata-allegro structure of the exposition through the inclusion of a third theme group in E flat major, resulting in a three-key exposition and establishing the principle of mediant relationships, here referring to the tonalities which emerge from the C major–C minor duality, including E flat major and A minor, which will be incorporated into the final modulation to the tonic in the recapitulation. Additionally, an independent third theme group provides another layer of harmonic and structural complexity to the emerging exposition-recapitulation form. The resulting structure of D 459A/1 is a synthesis of the sonata without development and the implementation of a further complication in the formal implications of the tonality of the second and third theme groups. In the Adagio, the submediant (in this case in the minor mode, as A minor) appears in the recapitulation (beginning with the upbeat to bar 79) before reaching the tonal closure common to such ‘Minor Mode Modules’105 and returning to C major in the third theme group in bars 88 and 89. The keys chosen for the second theme group in the exposition are still more distant, as the group appears in C minor from the upbeat to bar 24 before modulating to E flat major, with the entry of the third theme group in bar 33. The purpose of Schubert’s harmonic dramaturgy for the Adagio via mediant relationships is formally loaded: this becomes evident in the coda, which begins analogously to the re-transition to the exposition in bars 49–52. Schubert makes use of the modulatory possibilities inherent in the transitional material to expand the harmonic palette of the movement, including a new tonal area with no apparent instigation or connection to any musical or formal elements contained within the Adagio itself: E major.106 The distance of the E major tonality from the tonic is further emphasised by the Phrygian inflection of the F natural, marked with an accent, on the second beat (bars 106 and 111). The Phrygian inflection is not a conventional example, as the half tone step occurs in the melodic line: however, it is used to establish a diminished seventh as a pre-dominant harmony (bars 107 and 112) which then leads to the dominant 102 103 104 105 106

Hepokoski and Darcy, pp. 322–23. Caplin, p. 216. Hepokoski and Darcy, pp. 141–42. Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 141. The sudden entrance of the new harmony is underlined by the manner of its presentation: after the first upbeat figuration which fills out a rising fifth from G to D, providing a dominant harmony introducing the C major tonic, the second repetition of the same figure one octave lower is followed not by the expected repetition of C major, but by the unprepared entrance of an E major chord on the first beat of bar 106.

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of the movement, in a manner common to Mozart and Beethoven, and allows the construction of mediant relationships.107 This deliberate emphasis of an extra-tonic harmony during the coda, which is expected to confirm the already achieved tonal closure108 attains greater prominence through a passage with a reversal of the registers: the upbeat to C major is lower and the upbeat to E major is higher. After the final occurrence of the startling E major harmony in bar 111, there remain only three bars for the final confirmation and reconciliation with the tonic of C major.

Fig. 26 D 459/2 bars 104–111

The repeated appearance of an E major harmony is unexpected due to its distance from the tonic, but it has been carefully prepared by Schubert’s tonal structure in the preceding 105 bars of the Adagio and is the realisation of an embedded harmonic structure. The C minor second theme group in the exposition (from the upbeat to bar 24) acts as the origin of harmonic differentiation which arises from the contrast between tonal areas of the exposition, in which the second and third theme groups are set in C minor and E flat major, and the recapitulation, in which they are transposed to A minor and C major, creating a mediant-based harmonic duality. The tonal constellation of the exposition is contrasted with that of the recapitulation, in which the seeds of the E major harmony of the coda are sown.

107 Michael Raab, ‘Phrygische Wendung und Mediantik. Der Wanderer und die Fantasie’, Musiktheorie, 13 (1998), 131–43 (pp. 137, 139). 108 Through the transposition of the second theme group and the appearance of its second half in bars 89–105.

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2. Unusual Recapitulatory Structures in the Adagio D 459A/1 The recapitulation, although it ultimately conforms to the established method of attaining tonal closure through a transposition of the second theme group into a key more closely related to the tonic, takes the unusual step of including an extended and harmonically distant modulatory passage in the second half of the first theme group (bars 65–78): the C major tonic of the recapitulatory entry (bar 53) is destabilised by an echo of its melodic, rhythmic, and thematic content in the parallel minor (bar 65) before referring to F minor in bar 69. Schubert’s harmonic plan for the recapitulation has little in common with the aims of a conventional classical sonata movement: this is in part because of his use of a ‘constellation’ of harmonic areas to evoke structural tension,109 which is particularly appropriate in this slow movement due to the absence of the development section. The expansion of the recapitulatory function is a complete inversion of the iteration of the sonata-without-development form: instead of truncating the recapitulation after the entry of the main theme,110 Schubert ‘develops’ his recapitulatory material and therein extends it. The placement of a last outburst of harmonic experimentation and the evocation of distance through the incorporation of destabilising tonalities places an unusual formal and structural significance on the recapitulation and casts the overarching structure of the movement in a new light. The lack of a development section and its concomitant harmonic excursus results in an increased developmental weight placed in the two parallel second theme groups in the exposition and recapitulation, and the difficulty of producing a convincing experience of return and reconciliation rather than a repetition of expositional material,111 which is achieved without the added harmonic and motivic tension associated with the function of the development. The modulations before the entry of the second theme group in the recapitulation of D 459A/1 are a result of three formal imperatives: avoidance of an exact repetition of the expositional material, production of an effective contrast between the first and second theme groups in the recapitulation as well as preparing for the entry of the latter in the appropriate minor key, and finally, transposing the E flat and C minor centred tonal areas of the exposition into the tonic-centred tonal areas of the recapitulation.112 The transition provides a final conclusion to this harmonically driven formal tension and, through its resolution and the modulation to A minor, prepares for a recapitulatory experience of resolution with the opening of the third theme group. 109 Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 123. 110 Caplin, p. 216. 111 Caplin, p. 216. 112 It is significant that the last iteration of the (varied but recognisable) primary thematic material in bars 73–78 leads from A flat major to A minor: this is an example of the fundamental structural tension between the E flat or C minor tonal area and the E natural or C major centred area.

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Fig. 27 D 459A/1 bars 72–80

However, if the resolution of the harmonic tension which sustained the movement until the final statement of the third theme group in C major were complete and universal, the function of the coda would be ancillary. In fact it is a further consequence of the dual harmonic structure which Schubert created through a deliberate placement of C minor and A minor as opposing tonal centres in the exposition and the recapitulation. The A minor entrance of the second theme group in the recapitulation serves a vital purpose: in the exposition and in the recapitulation, the second theme group is supported by four bars of a dominant pedal, over which the tonic and dominant harmonies alternate.113 The E natural dominant pedal of the recapitulatory second theme group in A minor (bars 79–82) resonates once more in the coda as an independent harmony, dissociated from its earlier contextualisation as a tonal element establishing A minor and therefore dissociated from the latter’s links to the tonic. Through the E major harmony which is anchored subversively in the tonal reconciliation, beginning with the A minor reiteration of the second theme group, the recapitulation evades a convincing sense of harmonic closure and the harmonic necessity of the coda is established, drawing the individual tonal areas of the movement into a cohesive and overarching structure in which the defining formal principles are essentially harmonic mediant-relations and therefore bear only a limited resemblance to those of a conventional sonata without development form, although the Adagio conforms outwardly to the tonal and motivic plan of such a form. The reinterpretation of the sonata without development form is expressed on various compositional planes: not only the broad harmonic plan of the movement, but also through the use of small motivic elements which gain a structural significance due

113

C minor and G major sevenths in the exposition and A minor and E major sevenths in the recapitulation.

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to their function and recurrence at pivotal, structurally definitive moments. The primary element involved in this process is the scale ascending through a sixth (first appearing in bar 49), with the function of providing a transition and modulatory passage from the E flat major close of the third theme group to the beginning of recapitulation in C major (bars 52–53).

Fig. 28 D. 459A/1 bars 49–52

Here the motive is associated with an anticipatory experience of transition to a point of harmonic closure and reconciliation. It is the second appearance of the motive which incorporates it into a broader structural context: the recapitulation is not only altered harmonically and structurally in terms of the tonal areas and the phrase periods, as discussed earlier, but also thematically varied or ornamented by the incorporation of the rising scale, this time as an introductory upbeat for each new phrase period (bars 56, 60, 64, 68, 72). The rising scale motive brings variety to the recurrence of the primary thematic material in the recapitulation. The latter half is harmonically and tonally the most experimental and distant from the tonic of C major, and acts in a reversal of its previous reconciliatory function, initiating a progression away from the stability of the newly attained tonic recapitulation. With no impending tonal closure present at the opening of the second subject in the recapitulation, a stronger experience of tonal ‘recapitulation’ occurs with the final modulation from A minor to C major at the beginning of the third theme group (bars 87–89). This is the second recapitulatory modulation to C major, and it has a formal significance which arises from the increased harmonic distance evoked through the modulations of the first theme group and the incorporation of the A minor tonality of the second theme group into their distance from the tonic. It is the latter aspect of the modulatory phrases in the first theme group which grant the entrance of the third theme group in the tonic its significance: the modulation at the structural moment of recapitulation, introduced by the recurrence of the primary thematic material after the conclusion of the third theme in the exposition (bars 49–52) and the following transition is, objectively considered, more distant than that of the transition between the second and third themes in the recapitulation. The former must span the distance between E flat major and C major, whereas the latter is only a step to the tonic from

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its relative minor. However, the tonal experience of return at the third theme group in the recapitulation is, due to the peak in harmonic tension and greater tonal distance from the tonic attained in the first theme group, much stronger than at the return of the first theme. D 459A/1 is an early example of a continuing fascination and experimentation with modes of formal and thematic return or recapitulation which may be described as ‘dissociated’ in the sonatas for solo piano. The various elements of recapitulatory experience, including the tonal recapitulation and the thematic recapitulation, are no longer simultaneously present and equally prominent, but deliberately separated from one another. This dislocation of recapitulatory elements is indicative of an evolution of the musical concept of ‘return’ and ‘reconciliation’, and allows new structural possibilities to emerge through reinterpreting and expanding the boundaries of the sonata-allegro model. The extent of the effects of Schubert’s use of harmonically parallel structures created through mediant and submediant frames of reference, interconnected through sporadically incorporated allusions to formally significant tonalities and creating formal integrity and structural tension, are most evident in their necessary consequence: the E major harmonies in the coda. Having successfully dissociated the relative minor, at the point of its appearance as the tonality of the second theme group in the recapitulation, from its connection to the tonic, it leaves a fundamental tonal and formal openness and ambiguity in the movement which requires an expression. This openness may also be considered as an aftershock of the unexpected harmonic ‘development’ contained within the structural moment most dedicated to return and stability, the recapitulation. The recognition of the untenability of a general and overarching tonal closure for the movement is expressed in the E major harmonies of the coda, an echo of the tonal disruption of the recapitulation which has not found a musically convincing possibility of dissipation and reconciliation into the C major tonic. 3. Cyclical Implications of the E major Modulations in the Coda of D 459A/1 The function of the coda is twofold: it expresses unusual and divergent characteristics of the internal harmonic structures of the movement, but the tonal distance and unexpected appearance of an E major harmony in the coda is a potential indication of the cyclical structure for which D 459A/1 might have been intended, a cyclical work in E major. While strongly rooted in the intersection of form and harmonic content within the movement, the coda of D 459A/1 reaches beyond the boundaries of the movement and draws it into a larger harmonic and tonal constellation. The harmonic inflection of the coda has a dual implication, depending on the perspective from which it is viewed. On the enclosed, internal structural scale of the Adagio it is a departure

Resonances Between E major and C major as Tonal Centres

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from the tonic centre of C major, whereas considered as part of a larger cycle, the E major harmonies are not a departure, but a true ‘return’ to the overarching tonal centre of the work, reinstating the original expressive function of the rising scale as a motive indicative of approaching reconciliation and return. Klemm’s association of the movement with an E major cycle, although its five-movement structure must be subject to grave doubts, is therefore musically implicit in the harmonic structure of D 459A/1 and a logical extension of an understanding of the harmonic ‘anomalies’ in the coda. VIII. Resonances Between E major and C major as Tonal Centres The tonal implications of the coda regarding the place of D 459A/1 in a larger cycle and the extrapolation of its compositionally-defined function as the slow movement of an E major cyclical work are mirrored within the Adagio D 349, also in C major. 1. Similarities in the Harmonic Plans of D 349 and D 459A/1 The movement is fragmentary, but the extant 84 bars conform to a projected ternary form: regardless of structural differences, there are striking similarities in the tonalities chosen to evoke harmonic tension in the two Adagios, both of which create a sense of connection between the internal tonic of C major and a proposed E major cyclical tonic. The primary similarity between the two slow movements in C major is the incorporation of a strong E major element (first appearing in bars 7–8 and more extensively from bar 75) into the tonal plan as a factor to create distance and tension. Additionally, in both movements it acts in opposition to tonalities centred upon the parallel minor, setting four sharps against three flats. The strong harmonic link between C major and E major is presented earlier in D 349 than in D 459A/1, but also more gradually.114 Although the similarities in the harmonic areas chosen by Schubert to create structural tension are conditioned by mediant relations and based on an opposition between the parallel and relative minor keys of the tonic, expressed directly through C minor and indirectly through E major (in its function as the dominant of A minor, bars 5–8), the differences in tonal plans of the two Adagios are a result of their divergent structures.

114

In contrast to the abrupt harmonic shifts in the coda of D 459A/1, the E major harmony of the seventh bar of D 349 is the result of a measured and logical progression over a series of dominant harmonies; first the tonic and its dominant, G major, followed by the relative minor, A minor, and its dominant, E major.

166

D 459 and D 459A

In contrast to the harmonic tension which is expressed in the coda of D 459A/1, the E major tension in the Adagio D 349 acts in direct opposition to the C major tonic due to its integration into the opening bars of the movement and its placement in the context of the A flat major departure from the tonic in the middle section of the fragment. It is therefore one of the motivating forces creating distance and harmonic tension in the middle of the projected ternary structure. Resonances of an overarching tonic embedded within the harmonic structures of a slow movement appearing in the same manuscript provide compelling arguments for a harmonic cyclical link between D 459A/3 and D 349. 2. E major Mediant Relations in C major Movements Schubert’s reliance on harmonic tension based upon tonal areas defined by mediant relations is clear in the two Adagio movements associated with the E major cyclical works of 1816. However, their relevance to his approach to defining structures within sonata-allegro forms and those which display similar formal arcs based upon the evocation of distance and return extends beyond these slow movements and is definitive in the evocation of structure and formal coherence in later sonatas. The interconnected tonal planes, which emerge from a structure of mediant relations and their potential for enharmonic modulations to bring apparently distant tonalities into contact (in the case of the C major and E major centred movements, A flat major and E major), are implemented in the two Adagios as the basis for divergent structures. The versatility of these harmonic processes is apparent in the modes of evoking a direct oppositional relationship between two tonal areas: in D 349 the middle section is harmonically distinguished from the opening through the departure from the tonic, and D 459A/1 is characterised by subtle references and cyclical interconnection, centred upon an unexpected function of a non-tonic harmony in the coda. An arrangement of harmonic planes in which the C major tonic functions as a harmonic ‘resting point’ between the two contrasting areas is a defining formal principle of both Adagios and reflects the increasing significance of the mediant and submediant,115 116 in dual forms. These submediant and mediant harmonic realms create opportunities for direct connections based upon enharmonic shifts, most prominently the reinterpretation of A flat as G sharp, enabling associations which bypass the harmonic necessity for a modulatory passage through restatement of the tonic.117

115 116 117

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, pp. 56–57. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 354. Further incidences of the established harmonic dialectic between C major and E major are present in D 613/2, which relies on a modulation to E major to provoke tension against the harmonic

Resonances Between E major and C major as Tonal Centres

167

3. Implications of Cyclical Forms: D 349 and D 459A/1 as Alternate Movements As the first identifiable isolated pieces for solo piano occur much later in Schubert’s compositional development, in the last two years of his life, it is plausible that D 459A/1 and any further movements originating in or around the year 1816 without a manuscript connection to a sonata or other cyclical form may have been intended as sonata movements. Isolated first movements are invariably identified by Schubert’s practice of providing even his draft and working manuscripts with a title, but this does not apply to potential later movements. If D 459A/1 was composed in the context of an E major cycle, it must be associated with either of the contemporaneous E major sonatas: the two-movement fragment D 459 or the new E major work consisting of the Allegro patetico and the Adagio D 349. An element of revision and reflection in Schubert’s compositional process is clearly visible in some manuscripts, and in combination with the abrupt cessation of composition in the second movement of D 459 and his observed practice of progressing in an orderly fashion from the beginning of the work,118 suggests that the Adagio D 459A/1 was composed as a second movement for the Allegro patetico sonata, replacing D 349. A recollection of the altered time signature at the beginning of the manuscript of the Adagio D 349 is illuminating: the original time signature was a 3/4 bar, later corrected to 2/4, and it is unlikely to have been an accidental continuation of the time signature of the preceding movement, as is the case with the alteration of D 459/2, as the Allegro patetico is in 4/4. It is possible that Schubert originally intended to follow the Allegro patetico by copying from the manuscript of D  459A/1 (now lost), but subsequently changed his mind and instead composed D 349.119 Although it remains the only autograph source related to the three pieces of D 459A, the manuscript (MHc–154) in which the Allegro patetico fragment appears is not an ultimate proof of Schubert’s intentions for the nascent work, but a single captured moment of the compositional process as part of a progression, rather than its final expression. The possibility that Klemm’s inclusion of the Adagio D 459A/1 in the Fünf Clavierstücke due to its appearance in a later manuscript with the Allegro patetico, re-

118 119

expansion which draws the tonic of C major into the context of its parallel, as well as other related tonalities which recede still further from the tonic. The E major entry of the third theme group relies, as in the Adagio D 349 on the enharmonic reinterpretation of a sustained A flat as a G sharp, produces a contrast between a new element and the established C minor and A flat major tonal and thematic area without traversing the tonal centre of the tonic. The exception to this practice is the abandonment of sonata-allegro movements such as D 613/1 and 2, D 571, D 570/1, D 625/1, and D 459/2 at the point of recapitulation. The tenability of D 459A/1 and D 349 as alternative slow movements is supported by the appearance of the manuscript of D 349 which is, like the preceding Allegro patetico, a relatively advanced Niederschrift.

168

D 459 and D 459A

placing D 349 of the Menuett manuscript MHc–154 cannot be definitively excluded, as it is apparent that the engraver’s copy of the Allegro patetico cannot be identified as the Menuett manuscript and must therefore have been lost.120 The content of the engraver’s manuscript remains unknown, but it is probable that D 459A/1 was originally notated either with D 459A/3 or the two movements of D 459, leading Klemm to include it as part of a five-movement sonata, either by reversing the order of the Allegro patetico fragment in order to produce cyclical closure, or by discarding D 349, which may have been incomplete when he received the manuscript. 4. Implications of Cyclical Forms: D 346 and D 349: A Sonata in C major There are several indications which provide interesting possibilities regarding Schubert’s compositional engagement with the sonata cycles surrounding the D 459 and D 459A conglomerate and a possible association of D 459A/1 with either of the works. The unusual number of single movements for solo piano which are also incomplete or fragmentary and originate in or around the year 1816 is significant, still more so when the shared tonality, C major, is taken into account. In addition to D 349 and D 459A/1, two further works in C major, the Allegretto D 346 and the Andantino D 348, can be approximately dated to 1816 based upon the characteristic development of Schubert’s handwriting.121 In the context of the comparative scarcity of such movements or isolated works in Schubert’s compositional lifetime, this is an unusual predominance of isolated movements sharing a single tonality. The proliferation of C major movements opens two possibilities: the first, that Schubert was occupied with the place and form of a slow movement within a sonata cycle and composed various alternatives for the E major works of the same year, is supported by the alteration of the time signature at the opening of the Adagio D 349. The two fragmentary slow movements in C major, D 348 and D 349, and the completed D 459A/1 may have been composed as experimental alternatives, either for D 459 or as slow movements for the new E major sonata beginning with the Allegro patetico, compatible with the position of D 349 in the fragmentary manuscript.122

120 Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 138. 121 Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, pp. 205–206. 122 The Andantino D 348 is a less promising possibility for an alternative slow movement, as given the order of the Menuett manuscript (MHc–154) it was almost certainly composed before D 459A/3 and D 349 were added to the manuscript and is therefore the result of an independent working process not associated with the Allegro patetico sonata.

Resonances Between E major and C major as Tonal Centres

169

The second formal possibility, that of a C major sonata, is based upon a third C major movement, the Allegretto D 346. Also considered a possible finale for D 279,123 it is a fragment of substantial length (261 bars) and appears to follow the model of an elaborate sonata rondo form. The presence of two C major movements with contrasting structures which fulfil the formal and expressive demands of two movements of a sonata cycle, the slow movement and the finale, raises the theoretical possibility of a further unknown sonata in C major which was apparently never notated within one manuscript. The connection between D 346 and the three C major slow movements D 348, D 349, and D 459A/1 is limited to a shared tonality and date of composition. However, Schubert’s consistent practice of tonal contrast between the outer movements of the piano sonatas and the slow movement is an argument against a formal link.124 5. D 506: A Finale for the Allegro Patetico Sonata Another complete but unattached movement in E major has been suggested not as a slow movement but as a potential finale for one of the E major sonata fragments originating in 1816: placed after the Allegro patetico D 459A/3 and the Adagio D 349, the Rondo D 506 in E major,125 also brought into connection with D 566 ( June 1817)126 would produce a cyclically complete sonata. Regarding the Allegro patetico D 459A/3 as an opening movement of a second E major sonata or sonata fragment produces contradictory indications based upon the musical content and subjective impression or interpretation of elements such as the tempo marking; the tone and character of the movement are aptly described as ‘valedictory’127 and conform to the model of virtuosic finale movements in the piano sonatas composed between 1816 and 1823. The altered textural aspects of the Allegro patetico also fall within the realm of expected differentiation and the trope of the faster, more extroverted closing movement.128 123 See D 279 VII, 2: Possible Finale Movements: D 346, pages 109–110. 124 Multiple two-movement fragments or strongly coherent two-movement sections of larger fragments (D 157, D  459, D  566, and D  840) demonstrate that harmonic contrast is not invariably present between sonata movements. There are no cases in which a conventional slow movement is composed in the underlying tonic of the piano sonata, although several further exceptions to the principle of tonal contrast are present among earlier works. For example, the Sonata in A flat major D 557 is unusual as its first movement is in A flat major, but the second and final movements are both in E flat major. 125 Bisogni, p. 76. 126 See D 566 III, 1: D 506, pages 185–186. 127 Rieppel, p. 92. 128 The break from the more linearly independent writing of the preceding movements of D 459 and D 459A and the emphasis on an arpeggiated figure executed by both hands in unison, producing

170

D 459 and D 459A

The absence of a manuscript of the Allegro patetico allowing a more exact date of composition and establishing the movement as a first movement cuts in both directions: it is possible that ‘new evidence’ puts the date of the D  459A pieces and the Adagio D 349 closer to June 1817129 and therefore strengthens their associations with D 506. The assertion that the two movements of D 459 are also more accurately dated to June 1817130 is definitively disproven by Schubert’s Reinschrift of the first movement and the following Niederschrift of the Allegro: the date given under the title of the Sonate is ‘August 1816’ and it appears to be the result of preliminary compositional work given the clarity of the opening pages. Furthermore, it is not possible to state with certainty whether the unusual tempo and character marking Allegro patetico, unique among Schubert’s compositions for the piano, stems from Schubert’s musical intention and legitimises the view of the sonata as inspired by Beethoven’s ‘Pathetique’ Sonata Op. 13 in C minor, which itself would strengthen the three-movement model of a sonata-allegro, a slow movement and a closing rondo,131 or is merely a further example of Klemm’s editorial interference in the manner of the expressive indications which were widely popular at the time. There are difficulties with the suggestion of a three-movement Patetico sonata: Schubert’s engagement with Beethoven’s works had never shown itself in a title, tempo-marking, or other interpretative indication. Instead, a close adherence to the musical material, thematic development, or melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic elements of a particular composition by Beethoven present themselves in the more experimental of Schubert’s fragmentary sonatas (for example, D 566 in E minor). Finally, the Beethovenian influences in their most prominent form are confined to pieces which remained unfinished during Schubert’s lifetime.132 That Schubert was capable of departing so far from his previous compositional fascination with Beethoven’s sonata-allegro form movements and sonatas for the piano in order to compose a movement with no discernable connection to a stated inspiration is a possibility so unlikely as to be definitively excluded.

129 130 131

132

unaccompanied and unelaborated octaves as the primary thematic element of the last movement, is echoed in the finale of D 625; similarities in the thematic and textural construction of the last movements of these sonatas are immediately apparent. Rieppel, p. 101. Rieppel, p. 101. Rieppel, pp.  93, 100–101. ‘Virtually everything about this movement [D 459A/3]  – its sonataallegro form, the proximity of the Adagio that could serve as a second movement on the same manuscript paper, and, not least, its own rather advanced rhetoric – seems to mark it as the first movement of an entirely different sonata. This, due to its unusual tempo marking, I prefer to call Schubert’s “Pathetique”.’ ‘Because the Rondo [D 506], Allegro patetico and Adagio were written within the same brief period, it is indeed likely that they were connected. It is my contention, then, that the Rondo D 506 is the finale to Schubert’s own Pathetique.’ A notable exception is the opening theme of D 958/1, which consists of a remarkable harmonic parallelism of the theme of the Thirty-Two Variations in C minor WoO 80.

171

Resonances Between E major and C major as Tonal Centres

A chronological association of the Allegro patetico sonata and the Rondo is unlikely, as the latter is generally considered to have been composed in close proximity to the three movements of D 566 in the summer of 1817.133 Additionally, the completed sonatas and piano works left in Ferdinand Schubert’s hands, among which the Allegro patetico sonata in three complete movements would have been present,134 were given to Diabelli for publication by the year 1842.135 Diabelli also owned the manuscript of the Rondo D 506, as is demonstrated by his publication of the movement following an arrangement and transposition of the Adagio in D flat major D 505 as the ‘Adagio und Rondo (E-Dur) für das Pianoforte componirt von Franz Schubert Op. 145. Nachgelassenes Werk’ in 1848.136 That Diabelli had obtained a completed Allegro patetico sonata consisting of three movements and decided instead to remove the last movement and combine it with an Adagio in an unrelated key can be definitively excluded. Finally, the completed manuscript of the Allegro patetico which must have served as the engraver’s copy in preparation for the publication of the Fünf Clavierstücke137 was evidently separate from D 506, as they were simultaneously in the possession of competing publishers. A connection with D 506 is rendered highly unlikely on the basis of the historical disposition of the various manuscript parts. Eventuated by the common tonalities present among the proliferation of unattached single movements composed in 1816, it is possible to discern several nebulous potential forms in which the extant fragments might be integrated as single movements continuing either of the E major sonatas of 1816, or as elements of an unknown C major work. Table 6 Three Potential Sonata Structures Sonata

I.

II.

III.

E Major (D 459)

D 459/1

D 459/2

D 459A/3

E major (Allegro patetico)

D 459A/3

D 349 or D 459A/1

Rondo D 506

D 348 or D 349 or D 459A/1

Rondo D 346

C major

However, none of these conjectural structures can be certainly established on the basis of the extant manuscripts: nonetheless, the absence of an intrinsic musical connection between the Andantino D 348, the Allegretto D 346, and the E major sonatas excludes the former movements from an internal connection with the convolute surrounding 133 134 135 136 137

Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 297. An unfinished slow movement followed by completed finale is without precedent among Schubert’s piano sonatas. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 462. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 297. Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 138.

172

D 459 and D 459A

D 459 and D 459A and it is probable that both Adagios, D 349 and D 459A/1, were intended as slow movements of an E major sonata. IX. Cyclical Interconnections and the Fünf Clavierstücke Without the manuscripts used for the publication of the Fünf Clavierstücke, the precise nature of the interconnections and cyclical links between the five published movements and the Adagio D 349 remains uncertain. Based on the extant material, the fivemovement piano sonata has been superseded by the emergence of two fragmentary sonatas in E major, each with two movements: D 459 and the Allegro patetico fragment containing either D 459A/1 or D 349. The result is a conglomerate which remains formally undefined; its existence in the present is bounded by uncertainty regarding its authenticity, identity, and component parts. It is therefore vital to distinguish the structural possibilities of the two sonatas into two categories: those objectively established even at the fragmentary or nascent stage of composition and evident primarily from the manuscripts but also indicated by contemporary accounts including Fuchs’s catalogue, and the nebulous and multiple formal projections inherent in the material of the six individual movements comprising D 459, D 459A, and D 349, as the status of the fragmentary works is now inseparable from its history of reception and publication. 1. Inherent Implications of Cyclical Structure and Alternate Movements Structural potentialities and projections arising from the two individual E major sonatas contained partially within the Fünf Clavierstücke allow a deeper understanding of the process of Schubert’s compositional development: the meagre information obtainable from the extant manuscripts and editions increases the necessity for examination of inherent structural and cyclical implications. The composition of alternate movements such as the Adagios D 349 and D 459A/1, allowing a flexible evolution throughout a cyclical sonata structure containing multiple formal possibilities, played a substantial role in the emergence of the two E major fragmentary sonatas: D 459/2 may have been an experimental alternative with a tentative connection but no established place in a finalised cyclical form.138 It is almost certain that the Scherzo D 459A/2 was composed as a movement of a piano sonata, based upon its genre characteristics and musical content. Due to the key signature of A major, the absence of any other sonatas from the approximate date of composition (1816) for which it might be an appropriate

138

Költzsch, p. 11.

Cyclical Interconnections and the Fünf Clavierstücke

173

movement, and the impossibility of its association with any other known work for solo piano, it is extremely likely that it originated in the compositional efforts which led to the two fragmentary E major sonatas of 1816. A perspective which considers the fragments not as failed works, but recognises the strength and dynamism of fragmentary structures which are capable of sustaining multiple implications without succumbing to the demands of objectively realising a single idealised completion, is enriching and constructive as a basis for a musicological approach. This leads to the recognition that the strength of the fragmentary structures implicit in the movements combined in 1843 as the Fünf Clavierstücke is responsible for the astonishing longevity and tenacity of the construct. The unifying stylistic characteristics of the pieces,139 which provide indications allowing the individual movements without an extant autograph to be provisionally dated to 1816, are striking and largely responsible for the conviction with which the Fünf Clavierstücke were accepted as a unified cyclical work. The key signature and tonal emphasis of all of the movements imply a central connection to an E major cycle, as exemplified by the tonality of the two ‘first movements’, the Allegro D 459/1 and the Allegro patetico D 459A/3 in sonataallegro form. 2. Musical connections between D 459A movements Further support for the intrinsic links between the movements of the Fünf Clavierstücke arises from a close inspection of the main motivic units of the Scherzo D 459A/2 and the Allegro patetico D 459A/3, although these connections do not cross the boundary between the two catalogue numbers, D 459 and D 459A. The foundational motive of the opening theme of the Allegro patetico is based upon an arpeggiation of the tonic chord. The primary motivic elements of the opening of the Scherzo and the Trio D  459A/2 are also derived from an arpeggiated tonic chord, also executed by both hands in unison.

Fig. 29 D 459A/2 Scherzo bar 1 139

Badura-Skoda, ‘Vorwort’, p. VII.

174

D 459 and D 459A

Fig. 30 D 459A/2 Trio bars 1–4

Fig 31 D 459A/3 bars 1–3

The tenuous link between the two movements rests upon the recognition and interpretation of the primary motivic element of the first theme group in the Allegro patetico as a rhythmically more complex and inverted variation of the rising sixth arpeggio outlined in the Scherzo. In the absence of a manuscript or record linking the Scherzo D 459A/2 to a sonata, its motivic connections with the Allegro patetico movement are significant. As Schubert’s compositional process for cyclical works was characterised by chronological progression through the movements and the manuscript of D 459A/2 is lost, it seems most probable that it would have appeared after the slow movement (either D 459A/1 or D 349) in a manuscript which may have served as the publisher’s copy for the Fünf Clavierstücke. If the Adagio D 459A/1 had replaced the Adagio D 349 as a slow movement for the fragment in this potential later manuscript, the Fünf Clavierstücke might have emerged through a relatively simple process of combining the two sonata fragments and inverting the order of the movements in the latter, now known as the Drei Klavierstücke D 459A. 3. Five-movement Forms and Tonal Arrangements Although the internal musical content of the two E major sonata fragments does not indicate a connection between them in the form of a completed cyclical work, there is a prominent example among Schubert’s chamber music works for a five-movement structure which is all the more relevant due to a similarity in the tonal arrangement of

175

Cyclical Interconnections and the Fünf Clavierstücke

the individual movements:140 the Quintet in A major D 667, which differs from the Fünf Clavierstücke model as it has two ‘slow’ movements, the second and the fourth. Each of the quintet movements has a tonal parallel in the structure of the Fünf Clavierstücke and only a reversal of the second and third movements of the Quintet (which follows Schubert’s typical form of a sonata-allegro movement followed by a slow movement) is required to produce an absolute harmonic symmetry. The placement and expressive identity of the movements in the Fünf Clavierstücke bears strong similarities to the socalled ‘Forellenquintett’. The first movements, in E major and A major respectively, are sonata-allegro movements; the second movement of the Fünf Clavierstücke is also in E major, which in the five-movement quintet structure is a parallel to the Scherzo third movement, also in the tonic of the first quintet movement, A major. The slow movements are in C major and F major respectively, and the Scherzo D 459A/2 is replaced by the theme and variations in the ‘Forellenquintett’, in D  major, before both cycles return to the tonic of the first movement. Table 7 Cyclical Harmonic Structures in D 459 and D 459A and D 667

D 459 and 459A

‘Forellenquintett’ D 667

1st Mvt.

2nd Mvt.

3rd Mvt.

4th Mvt.

5th Mvt.

Allegro moderato: E major

Allegro:

Adagio:

E major

C major

Scherzo: Allegro A major

Allegro patetico: E major

Allegro vivace: A major

Andante:

Scherzo: Presto A major

Thema: Andantino D major

Allegro giusto: A major

F major

The quintet was probably composed in 1819,141 but certainly after the composition and subsequent abandonment of the sonata fragments of the Fünf Clavierstücke. However, Klemm’s original edition was received as cycle of independent piano pieces in the style of the Impromptus until the end of the nineteenth century, undermining a connection with the ‘Forellenquintett’ on historiographical or philological grounds. The quintet was published in 1828 as Op. 114 and it is therefore possible that the structural impulse for the Fünf Clavierstücke was derived from the ‘Forellenquintett’, as a matter of expediency, enabling Klemm to produce an unusual but acceptable structure from the limited number of fragments he had obtained, or an attempt at editorial authenticity or legitimacy in taking an example from Schubert’s established composition.

140 Badura-Skoda, ‘Vorwort’, p. V. 141 Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 388.

176

D 459 and D 459A

In conclusion, the coincidences required to produce five movements which happen to mirror tonal construction and to a large part also the cyclical structure of the authentically five-movement ‘Forellenquintett’ are numerous and cast Klemm’s publication of the Fünf Clavierstücke in a new light. X. Conclusion: Musical Plausibility as a United Work It is possible that without the editorial engagement of Klemm’s 1843 publication of the fragments, D 459 and D 459A might never have been presented as a unified construct. However, the persistence of the Fünf Clavierstücke structure is convincing enough to have survived more than a century and a half from the date of first publication and although disputed by modern musicological thought,142 143 continues to find adherents among musicians and is reproduced in modern performing editions. 1. Coexistence of Formal Possibilities In light of the ontological difficulties associated with the assumption of a theoretical or potential existence of a stable and concrete ‘complete’ structure which was not fully notated and in conjunction with the truly unusual number of individual movements originating from 1816 which demonstrate a harmonic or tonal connection to an E major centre, a new perspective on the structural potential of the fragmentary conglomerate surrounding D 459 and D 459A arises, centred upon the self-evident fluidity and flexibility of Schubert’s compositional process regarding the E major works of 1816. Both the musical indications and the philological evidence regarding possible cyclical projections for the two fragmentary E major sonatas, D 459 and the Allegro patetico, are drawn into consideration, but instead of an affirmative answer to the question of whether uniting the maximum number of possible movements under a single Werkbegriff should also be considered as the most authentic musical intention,144 it is possible to consider each of the formal projections (involving potential slow movements, two-movement fragments, and even a five-movement cycle) individually, without excluding the other potential formal projections or denying their validity. Rather than ascribing strict formal boundaries and attempting to identify cyclical works through a process of collating individual movements, the movements exist as flexible elements

142 Bisogni, p. 76. 143 Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 130. 144 Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 24.

Conclusion: Musical Plausibility as a United Work

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of an emergent and fluid structure, containing multiple valid potential constructs without being limited to one particular ‘solution’. This approach has two benefits; first, it avoids an approach to the study of fragmentary works which considers their incomplete status as a problem to be alleviated and similarly avoids the implication that they require a solution, which is often impossible or at the least largely speculative. Secondly, it enables a recognition of the uniquely expansive richness and variety of fragmentary works in their aesthetic and formal individuality. Finally, a less static and completion-oriented approach is an accurate reflection of the status of the limited manuscript evidence available. Rather than ascribing a mistaken sense of absolute objectivity and permanence to the Niederschriften and Entwürfe, which in Schubert’s compositional process would almost certainly have been subject to further revision and alteration in the course of their completion and later preparation for publication, it is possible to consider them as limited but revealing productions of a particular stage of the emergence of a composition or movement. This interpretation of the musical and formal indications of the manuscripts allows for the acceptance and integration of apparently contradictory structural projections into a constellation of possibilities while removing the impulse towards an exclusive and limiting conviction of the completist aspirations of a ‘final form’ for the works in question.

D 566 The Sonata in E minor D 566, composed in June 1817, consists of three complete movements: a Moderato in E minor, an Allegretto in E major, and a Scherzo and Trio in A flat major. At first glance, the sonata appears to conform to the model of cyclical incompletion current in the preceding two works. However, the reception of the sonata has been marked by overwhelming similarities of the first two movements to the E minor sonata Op.  90 of Ludwig van Beethoven. The structural implications arising from the Beethovenian influences provide a foundation for proposing an alternative twomovement structure. A three-movement completion resulting from the inversion of the final two movements has also been suggested, as well as a four-movement re-unification involving the Rondo D 506. The following examination of the sonata approaches the multiplicity of inherent formal projections and evaluates them based upon an analytical and philological approach. Before approaching the fragmentary status of D  566, its conspicuous similarities to Op. 90 are considered on the basis of Schubert’s oftendiscussed musical and personal connections with Ludwig van Beethoven, with the aim of producing a more nuanced reflection of the degree to which Schubert was dependent upon Beethovenian models and the manner in which he approached these inspirational works. I. Schubert’s View of Beethoven as a Composer Schubert’s piano music contains occasional echoes of Beethoven which vary greatly in their substantiality. Between the transmuted ‘schicksalsmotiv’ which appears as an ostinato in D 840/1 and the similarities of the opening movements of the Sonata in E minor D 566 to the two-movement structure of Beethoven’s Op. 90, the spectrum of possibilities in which a dedicated observer might discover shades of Beethoven interwoven in Schubert’s music is extremely broad. This has led to considerable discussion about Schubert’s relationship to Beethoven’s music as well as to Beethoven himself and the effect or influence the musical and personal contacts may have had on his own

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compositions.1 2 Schubert’s acquaintance with Beethoven’s music began at least as early as his time in the Stadtkonvikt in Vienna3 and continued throughout his life. One of his last wishes was to hear Beethoven’s string quartet in C sharp minor Op. 131, which was performed for him on 14 November 1828, five days before his death.4 His great admiration for Beethoven has been documented5 by his contemporaries,6 7 although it was occasionally leavened by a more critical appreciation of his style. In his diary after the celebration of Salieri’s fifty years in Vienna, Schubert wrote: […] how each strives to give the best to his celebration, in all these compositions simply nature with her own expression is to be heard, free from all bizarrerie, which governs most of our composers and is almost solely the work of one of our greatest German artists, from this bizarrerie, which combines, confuses the tragic with the comic, the pleasant with the revolting and the heroic with howling, the holiest with the harlequin […].8

Schubert is clearly referring to Beethoven, although it is probable that some of Salieri’s influence is present. Schubert expressed an equal or greater admiration for Mozart9 and for his teacher Salieri,10 but the possibilities of the reflections of Beethoven to be discovered in Schubert’s works provoke far more speculation and research than Schubert’s connections with other composers and sources of influence in combination. The dominance of Beethoven as a musical figure in Vienna at the beginning of the nineteenth century is difficult to overstate, but the view of Schubert as a blank and 1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8

9

10

Maynard Solomon, ‘Schubert and Beethoven’, 19th-Century Music, 3 (1979), 114–25. Edward T. Cone, ‘Schubert’s Beethoven’, The Musical Quarterly, 56 (1970), 779–93. Spaun states that Schubert played the second violin in the orchestra, which met every evening and was able to perform works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven ‘in a successful fashion’, and Holzapfel writes that among the works of Beethoven performed were the first two symphonies and many overtures, including Coriolan and Leonore. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, pp. 24, 68. ‘auf eine gelungene Weise’. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 344. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 34. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 47. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 77. Deutsch, Franz Schubert: Die Dokumente seines Lebens, p. 45. ‘[…] wie jeder sich strebt, zu seiner Jubelfeyer das Beste zu liefern, in allen diesen Compositionen bloße Natur mit ihrem Ausdruck, frey aller Bizarrerie zu hören, welche bey den meisten Tonsetzern jetzt zu herrschen pflegt, u. einem unserer größten deutschen Künstler beynahe allein zu verdanken ist, von dieser Bizzarrerie, welche das Tragische mit dem Komischen, das Angenehme mit dem Widrigen, das Heroische mit Heulerey, das Heiligste mit dem Harlequin vereint, verwechselt […]’. Deutsch, Franz Schubert: Die Dokumente seines Lebens, pp. 42–43. ‘This will remain a bright, light, beautiful day through my whole life. Quietly, as if from a distance, the magical sounds of Mozart’s music resonate after me. How unbelievably strongly but so softly was it deeply, deeply impressed on my heart through Schlesinger’s masterly performance.’ ‘Ein heller, lichter, schöner Tag wird dieser durch mein ganzes Leben bleiben. Wie von ferne leise hallen mir noch die Zaubertöne von Mozarts Musik. Wie unglaublich kräftig u. wieder so sanft ward’s durch Schlesingers meisterhaftes spiel ins Herz tief, tief eingedrückt.’ Deutsch, Franz Schubert: Die Dokumente seines Lebens, p. 44.

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receptive surface for impressions of Vienna’s strongest musical personality is an overly simplistic one. After the 1821 performance of the Erlkönig D 328 by Johann Michael Vogl, Schubert was a person of rising musical importance and some standing in his own right11 and his works were known to Beethoven, who enquired after him during his illness in 1823.12 Schubert’s early views of Beethoven, at times critical, are transmuted into a deep respect,13 approaching shyness in their personal and social contacts.14 In the eyes of his contemporaries he later attained an equal status as a composer capable of profound innovation.15 It would appear, then, that Schubert deliberately avoided open competition with Beethoven even as he desired to emulate him. Schubert could not, and did not, become a frank disciple of Beethoven. Indeed, one may characterise much of his career as embodying his unwillingness to yield to Beethoven’s influence, in a conscious attempt to maintain his musical independence.16 This view of Schubert’s reception of Beethoven’s works and his compositional career gains new dimensions in the light of the imitative nature of D 566. 1. Imitative Composition in Schubert’s Early Works The resonances of Beethoven found in Schubert’s music often stem from the assumption, already open to critical discussion at the beginning of the twentieth century, that Beethoven was the originator of the tropes of which he made use,17 that he was solely responsible for inventing the divergences from established formal models present in his works,18 and as a result any later recurrence of similar structures or parallels in motivic or harmonic construction must necessarily be references to the great master of Vienna: Among these masters, I refer to Schubert’s four predecessors in the field of this formal genre: Philipp Emanuel Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. As this work particularly addresses Schubert’s treatment of the problems of the sonata form, it will be necessary to examine only the position of his predecessors to these problems in the most important

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Solomon, ‘Schubert and Beethoven’, p. 116. Solomon, ‘Schubert and Beethoven’, pp. 118–119. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 150. Walther Dürr, ‘Wer vermag nach Beethoven noch etwas zu machen? Gedanken über die Beziehungen Schuberts zu Beethoven’, in Beethoven Jahrbuch, ed. by Hans Schmidt and Martin Staehelin (Bonn, 1977), ix, 47–67 (p. 54). Dürr, ix, p. 56. Solomon, ‘Schubert and Beethoven’, p. 124. Adolf Bernhard Marx, Ludwig van Beethoven. Leben und Schaffen, 5th edn (Berlin: Otto Janke, 1901), ii, p. 495. Marx, ii, p. 496.

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fundamental characteristics, as the origins and first developmental period, reaching back to the Neapolitan School, have no further influence for Schubert’s approach to this formal genre. It is self-evident that a number of Schubert’s compositions display the influence of his predecessors and his most renowned contemporary, Beethoven.19

However, it is improbable that two composers could have created works which demonstrate no parallels or similarities while working and living in the same environment. Similarities between Schubert and Beethoven, including the cultural life in which both participated and the implications of the shared historical and aesthetic context in which they were active, are neglected in favour of presenting some of Schubert’s works as deeply dependant on Beethoven’s models, at times to the point of epigonism.20 Although it is clear that Beethoven was also acquainted with some of Schubert’s compositions, the direction of influence is examined only insofar as it appears to originate with Beethoven, considered to be a more dominant musical force. The result is an unnecessarily narrow view of Schubert’s works; their interest and content is reduced to that which may have been derived from Beethovenian sources, often without due consideration of the fascinating divergences which emerge, or an examination of what the source of inspiration or structural models may reveal about Schubert’s music in itself. The temptation to project what is known of Schubert’s biography and his deep personal interest in Beethoven’s music exactly onto his own compositions, as if Schubert the man and his compositions are a unified entity, should be avoided, particularly in the light of contemporary accounts that Schubert’s admiration for Beethoven, although undisputed, was not so overwhelming as to overshadow other composers and works.21 19

20

21

Salzer, pp. 90, 98. ‘Unter diesen Meistern sind die vier Vorläufer Schuberts auf dem Gebiete dieser Formgattung: Philipp Emanuel Bach, Haydn, Mozart und Beethoven, gemeint. Da nun vorliegende Arbeit sich speziell mit Schuberts Behandlung der Sonatenformprobleme zu befassen hat, wird es notwendig sein, nur in den wichtigsten Grundzügen auf die Stellung seiner Vorgänger zu diesen Problemen einzugehen da die Entstehung und erste Entwicklungszeit der Sonatenform, die bis in die neapolitanische Schule zurückreichen, für die Stellung Schuberts zu dieser Formgattung ja keinen weiteren Einfluß haben. […] Es ist selbstverständlich, daß eine Reihe von Schuberts Werken den Einfluß seiner Vorgänger und seines größten Zeitgenossen Beethoven erkennen läßt.’ The distinction between a deliberate imitation and an unconscious echo of a musical inspiration is of importance. In the early string quartets, Schubert is seen to have incorporated external influences as defined structural models. An example is found in the finale of the Quartet D 32, in which Schubert drew upon the Symphony in C minor Hob. I:78 by Joseph Haydn. See Reiser, pp. 96–116. In the case of D 566, Schubert’s approach to external influences is more nuanced: the sonata is not a direct structural copy of the Beethoven work, but due to strong resemblances in its larger formal elements and details of motivic construction, it is also not an example of an unconscious resonance. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p.  421. ‘Schubert wird als ein außerordentlicher Verehrer Beethovens dargestellt; das ist nun ganz richtig, indem er von den Schöpfungen dieses großen Meisters ganz begeistert war; allein er verehrte Mozart ebenso hoch, und so unerreichbar ihm Beethovens Sinfonien schienen, so zog er doch den “Don Juan” dem “Fidelio”, so gut ihm

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Similarities and imitations are more revealing when examined in the context of Schubert’s compositional development and the work as a whole. Even the works which are largely indebted to Beethoven demonstrate their own integrity and individuality, and this, juxtaposed with a thorough consideration of the significance of the work which served as a model, reveals far more than a reductive superimposition of a single model. Such examples are more prominent among Schubert’s early compositions, and his sources of inspiration are not limited to the works of Beethoven. These superficially imitative works include two lieder, in which the opening bars demonstrate a striking similarity to works composed on a much larger scale. 2. Echoes of Other Works in Schubert’s Lieder The two lieder An den Mond D 193 and An die Sonne D 272 are, in their opening phrases, almost direct copies of Beethoven (the Sonata Op. 27 No. 2, first movement) and Mozart (the overture of Die Zauberflöte). It is clear from the title of the second lied alone that Schubert did not select his model at random, but that it was the result of an attempted synthesis between the poem he chose and the musical expression he wished to achieve. In the case of An den Mond this connection is nebulous: Ludwig Rellstab’s remarks, which gave Beethoven’s C sharp minor sonata its popular name ‘Mondscheinsonate’, were not made until after Beethoven’s death. Perhaps Schubert himself made an extra-musical connection to the content of the poem, as the coincidence in arriving at the same ‘programmatic’ reading is striking; therefore, it is possible that D 193 may be partly responsible for the origins of the Beethoven title.22 If this is the case, the choice of text in both lieder reveals an interaction on the level of extrinsic associations. The association with the works of Beethoven and Mozart is deliberately underlined and, in the latter case, perhaps even directed by his acquaintance with the light-worshippers surrounding Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte. The opening bars of the lieder produce an auditory shock, further emphasising the idea that Schubert, contrary to some contemporary chronicles,23 was not hesitant to demonstrate the extent of his reliance upon external inspiration. It is difficult to know what to make of Schubert’s musical

22 23

dieser auch gefiel, weit vor, und die Ouvertüre zur “Zauberflöte” stand ihm höher als die schönen Ouvertüren zum “Fidelio”.’ Schubert-Liedlexikon, ed. by Walther Dürr and others, 2nd edn (Kassel etc.: Bärenreiter, 2013), p. 129. See Ebner’s description of Schubert’s wish to destroy Die Forelle after Holzapfel had drawn his attention to a similarity in the accompaniment to a section of Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture (according to Edward Cone in ‘Schubert’s Beethoven’ S. 779, bars 64–65, parallel to bars 19–20 of the Overture). ‘Schubert agreed immediately and wanted to destroy the song, which we forbade and so saved this superb song from ruin’. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 55.

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inspiration, which would have been known to audiences of his time, but it is clear that he did not attempt to conceal the sources. The placement of imitative compositional elements is also significant: each of the lieder opens with the most recognisable citation of the source and, due to the demands of the differing structures, diverges soon afterwards.24 This may be a demonstration of youthful enthusiasm or a sign of extraordinary self-confidence; Schubert was eighteen when he composed An den Mond and An die Sonne in the summer of 1815.25 Even in later years, Schubert was not inclined to disavow these lieder: An den Mond was one of the comparatively few works published during his lifetime,26 by Thaddäus Weigl in Vienna in 1826.27 This precedes Rellstab’s comments on the Beethoven sonata: it is theoretically possible that the ‘moonlight’ association originated with Schubert’s choice of text. Schubert’s bold declaration of his sources of inspiration is extraordinary and has an unusual effect on the experience of the listener. In the case of An die Sonne, a knowledgeable audience, without the title of the poem, a programme, or the ability to understand the German text, would be able to draw certain conclusions regarding the song and its content from the first bars of the prelude. Schubert has created a direct and fundamental link between the content of the text and the content of the music which rests upon shared cultural references. The musical ideas are not copied, but used deliberately as a reference to a common ideal. Schubert builds on the shade of Mozart deliberately and, without such determination in programmatic association, follows a similar process with the Beethoven sonata: not as an example to emulate, but as a foundation on which additional layers of content and meaning rise within his own creation. II. Compositional Background and Publication History Schubert’s experiments with form and emulation continued and remained centred on the possibilities of the piano and its engagement with form and expression through imitation and harmonic reflection. D 566 is an example which makes it difficult to ig24

25 26 27

In the case of An die Sonne, the opening chords of the Overture are reproduced faithfully in the same key, E flat major. The addition of a sixteenth note before the first chord is the only significant divergence from Mozart’s opening. An den Mond is further removed from Op. 27 No. 2, but a strong relationship is present in the rising triplet figuration set over an octave accompaniment and the harmonic structure of the introductory measures, in particular the suspension over the dominant at the beginning of the third bar. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, pp. 132, 169. The earliest manuscripts of An den Mond have no prelude, and therefore some of the strongest links to Op. 27 No. 2 are absent. Before Schubert died in 1828 he published 181 lieder, from a total of more than 600. Deutsch, Franz Schubert: Die Dokumente seines Lebens, p. 601. As part of a set of three, including Der Schmetterling D 633 and Die Berge D 634. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 132.

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nore the depth of Schubert’s receptivity and suggestibility when confronted with Beethoven’s compositions, as it deliberately invites a comparison to Op. 90 on a structural, harmonic, and thematic basis, on a scale which permeates two full movements of the work. It is significant that the two lieder with imitative beginnings were composed much later than the works which inspired them: An den Mond D 193 in 1815, fourteen years after the Sonata Op. 27 No. 2 (1801), and An die Sonne D 272 in 1815, more than twenty years after the 1791 premiere of Die Zauberflöte. The intersection of a proposed form inherent in Schubert’s musical construction and the expectations of possible forms evoked by the clear references to Op. 90 produces an extrinsic complicating factor when attempting to interpret the variety of structural readings28 created through the ambiguously fragmentary nature of D 566. The surviving autograph material reveals a certain confusion regarding the nature of the sonata and Schubert’s compositional intent regarding the surrounding piano sonatas. In 1817 Schubert began to devote more of his attention to the piano sonata and began a new system of numbering. Although preceded by three piano sonatas composed in 1815 and 1816,29 Schubert numbered the working manuscript of D 566 with the roman numeral I and dated it ‘Juni 1817’.30 The existing Reinschrift31 with the same title and date contains only the first movement, suggesting a possible point at which Schubert interrupted his work on the sonata, and several small indications regarding its structural possibilities. The original autograph consisted of three movements,32 and the harmonic structure of the sonata as it stands demonstrates an obvious divergence from the expectations linked with a completed sonata form at the beginning of the nineteenth century. That the concluding movement might take the form of a scherzo and trio is unlikely enough, but simultaneously setting the close of the sonata structure in an enharmonic mediant of the preceding E major and E minor movements is a degree of eccentricity beyond the limits of probability. The sonata’s publication history and the loss of the autograph have added to the ambiguity surrounding its structure. The first movement, Moderato, appeared alone as part of the AGA in 1888 in Volume X, Sonaten für Pianoforte. The second movement appeared in 1907 as Allegretto für Klavier, printed by Breitkopf und Härtel33 edited by Erich Prieger, the owner of the manuscript34 and associated documentary evidence35

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 23. D 157: February 1815, D 279: September 1815, and D 459: August 1816. Piano sonata clusters might be a better term, as the dispute over the unity of D 459 and possibility that it is two or three fragmentary sonatas has not yet been satisfactorily resolved. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 328. ISIL DE-1, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv. Bauer, p. 13. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 328. Bauer, p. 14. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 463.

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with no mention of its position as the second movement of Sonata I. The Scherzo and Trio appeared for the first time in 1928 in Die Musik, introduced in an article by Adolf Bauer. The three extant movements received their first performance shortly afterwards on the 12th of October 1928 in Munich, played by Joseph Pembauer.36 Bauer presented the movement as the third of a planned four-movement sonata which remained incomplete, and reproduced the scherzo from the working manuscript, which is now lost and was last known to be in the possession of Hella Prieger in 1945.37 The renewal of interest in lesser known, fragmentary, and unpublished works of Schubert coincided with the centenary (1928) of Schubert’s death. III. Cyclical Incompletion If D 566 was intended to have four movements it is lacking a finale, as stated by Schubert’s brother Ferdinand in an 1842 letter to the publisher Whistling in Leipzig.38 This is likely, as the group of sonatas begun in 1817 which follow Schubert’s new system of numbering also demonstrate a strong attachment to the structural return of the tonic in the last movement;39 four of the five sonatas adhere to this principle.40 1. D 506 The immediate ‘solution’ for the fragmentary status of D 566 appears to be to search for an unattached composition in an appropriate key which was composed in the summer of 1817, which demonstrates the metric and expressive characteristics of a finale movement. The only apparent possibility is the Rondo D 506, which itself has a complicated publication history rivalling that of D 566. It was first published as a work-chimaera in combination with the Adagio D 505 by Anton Diabelli in 1848. His rights to publish and distribute the works are confirmed by a document titled ‘Erklärung der Erben Schuberts über Diabellis Verlagsrechte’, dated by Deutsch to the beginning of 1830, which mentions the two pieces in their original keys.41 For publication, D 505 was transposed from its original key of D flat major into E major and the two pieces were combined. The possibility that the Rondo was intended as a last movement to this sonata was 36 37 38 39 40 41

Bauer, p. 16. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 328. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 463. See D 537, D 575, D 567, and D 571/570 (both fragments from the summer of 1817). The exception is D  557: the last existing movement is in the dominant, E flat major, but demonstrates characteristics of Schubertian finales (a sonata-allegro or rondo movement in 6/8 with thematic similarities to the closing movement of D 664 in A major) and is in a strongly related key. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, pp. 447–448.

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raised by Ludwig Scheibler, and Kathleen Dale, with the support of Ludwig Scheibler and Gerald Abraham,42 published it in this form in London in 1948. D 506 is not convincing as a concluding movement for D 566, disqualified due to myriad similarities to the second movement and to its length, which partly accounts for the insubstantiality of the movement when considered the closing element of a sonata structure. Schubert’s rondos are not notable for their compact formal construction: ‘Schubert always had trouble controlling the rondo. It is to his finales, and especially to his rondo finales, that his reputation for rambling redundancy is due’.43 The theme of the Rondo bears a strong resemblance to the theme of the second movement: the predominance of the rhythmic motive of a quarter-note followed by two eighthnotes, the placid E major key, and the tempi (allegretto for both movements) may be indications of a possible connection between the Rondo and the sonata, but also grounds for its exclusion.44 Two extremely similar movements of substantial length may be considered as effectively destructive to a coherent form on a larger scale, as they bring a disruptively obvious degree of self-reflection into a form which succeeds based on the tension created by an evocation of distance and the resulting return, both within the conventions of a sonata form movement and throughout the sonata itself. In his sonatas, Schubert incorporates reiteration in a more subtle manner than would be the case if D 506 was the misplaced closing movement of the E minor sonata. The later sonatas often rely on a sophisticated technique of interweaving motives and themes to produce a sense of coherence between movements which is not necessarily reliant on a conscious recognition of the recurring material. The earlier works are not without similar connections,45 but an obvious repetition of the character, motivic and rhythmic content, and even the tempo and time signature would produce a redundancy instead of an advanced structural linkage. 2. Rondo Structures in D 506 The proportions of the proposed structure in four movements are unusual. The first movement is relatively short (97 bars long) and is dwarfed by the following Allegretto, which is 227 bars long. The longest movement of the sonata is the Scherzo and Trio (266 bars long without repeats, but including the return of the Scherzo) and D 506 (290 bars). Although this rondo is one Schubert’s more condensed examples, its comparative length in conjunction with the Scherzo and Trio produces a structure which

42 43 44 45

Cone, ‘Schubert’s Beethoven’, p. 792. Cone, ‘Schubert’s Beethoven’, p. 787. Cone, ‘Schubert’s Beethoven’, p. 792. The E major harmonies which demonstrate potential associations of the third movement (in C major) of D 459, for example.

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is heavily weighted towards the last two movements and simultaneously unable to provide sufficient musical innovation, content, and momentum to support the resulting emphasis on the concluding movements. This is partly due to the structure of the movements themselves, as the recursive and predictable form of a scherzo and trio is not well-suited to architectonic structural functions in the context of the established sonata model. Instead, the weight of thematic development and the genesis of harmonic structures which sustain the cycle are emphatically laid upon the first movement46 and finale.47 One need only contrast the significance of a moment of recapitulation in a sonata-form movement, bringing as it does a sense of vast harmonic distances covered and tensions resolved, and the miniature, sheltered world of the scherzo and trio, in which attempts at achieving any significant distance or escape are encircled and appropriated by the inevitability of the ultimate return. D 506 presents similar problems of recursiveness, albeit in a different form. The Rondo has a clearly defined structure: written in two halves, the second of which is a close repetition of the first apart from transposed episodic content, followed by a third appearance of the theme and a short coda. This formal model is established in Schubert’s works as a slow movement sonata-without-development or exposition-recapitulation form,48 although its appearance in D 506 is unusual. Interpreting the structure and determining its departure from the formal models of the sonata-without-development or the rondo is a more complex undertaking: the second part of the structure emerges when the rondo theme recurs in its original form (bar 140), introduced in the manner of a moment of recapitulation. The perceived structure at this point conforms to the expectations of a traditional sonata-form and the titular rondo has been undermined and its episodic structure subverted by a formal paradigm reliant on gradual progression between motivic areas, rather than strictly-defined areas delineated by contrasting thematic material. It is most apparent in the motivic continuity of the episodic writing, including continued development of apparently incidental accompanying figuration which then attains increased thematic weight in later episodes.49 In the second part of the movement, the dominance of the sonata structure is both strengthened and subverted by the recurrence of each of the episodes of the first part, or exposition. In their first appearances, the recapitulatory iteration of the episodes

46 47

48 49

Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 98. The dance-movement in a classical sonata is part of a form which, in the eighteenth century, was defined by the sonata-allegro and its direction towards ‘[…] exploiting the new taste for simplicity, clarity, and independently defined periodic structure […]’. The strict formal plan of a scherzo or menuett and trio remains integrated into the larger cyclical structures as a remnant of an older tradition: the newer formal paradigm involves the reinterpretation of the ‘trio’ as a formallyweighted section incorporated into a freer structure, casting the rigidity of the conventional dance movement into stark relief. Rosen, Sonata Forms, pp. 132, 143. Shamgar, p. 152. Caplin, p. 231.

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implied a thematic and harmonic development leading to the recapitulatory reappearance of the rondo theme. The second appearance is not only a repetition: instead, the episodes are incorporated into a process of harmonic reconciliation, retrospectively casting the first appearances (bars 1–139) as expositional material. In the second part of the movement, interpreted as a recapitulation, each episode modulates from its original key into a key which is more closely linked to the tonic of E major. Emergent from this repetition, two parallel structures are apparent: a rondo structure which seemed viable until bar 140, at which point the strength of the recapitulatory moment undermined its plausibility, and a sonata structure which suffers a similar process of decay due to the repetition and concomitant trivialisation of the formal tension evoked by harmonic and motivic removal. Resulting from the completed repetition of the episodic material, an ontological tension between two possible structures arises. At the end of the movement, the impulse of distancing and return inherent in a conventional sonata-allegro movement also has vanished. The process of formal crystallisation, by which experience and memory unite to create a coherent structure in order to regulate and, to a certain degree, appropriate or subdue the musical content and its meaning, has been doubly negated. 3. D 506: A Sonata-Without-Development and a Rondo D 506 diverges substantially from both the traditional models50 of a rondo (ABACA) and that of a sonata-rondo (ABACABA) in several respects, most prominently in its treatment of the episodic material and in the harmonic plan. The episodes of D 506 do not reflect a ‘[…] series of chained lied forms’,51 or essentially a rounded binary form;52 instead, they are organised sequentially and at times occur simultaneously, allowing individual motivic elements to attain a flexibility of formal function, acting interchangeably as primary thematic material or accompaniment. The formal plan of the movement is not a series of lied forms, but a sequence of independent thematic areas: the titular rondo appears only in the reiteration of a variant of the primary theme (A), accompanied by a further variant of the episodic material which immediately preceded it (C), which severely undermines the principle of contrast which is common to both the rondo53 and the sonata-rondo. Additionally, the absence of a development is sufficient to remove the sonata-rondo from consideration as a formal model for D 506, 50 51 52 53

Caplin, p. 231. Adolf Bernhard Marx, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition. Praktisch-theoretisch, 7th edn (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1868), iii, p. 95. ‘[…] Folge an einander gereihter Liedsätze’. Adolf Bernhard Marx, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition. Praktisch-theoretisch, 7th edn (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1868), i, p. 77. Arnold Schönberg, Fundamentals of Musical Composition, ed. by Gerald Strang, Reprint (London: Faber and Faber, 1987), p. 190.

189

Cyclical Incompletion

and reveal its status, evident in the third return of the primary thematic material, as a ‘sonata-rondo mixture’, based upon an inflected sonata-without-development model.54 Table 8 Motivic Content and Sonata Structure in D 506 1– 24

Bar

25– 49

50– 70

88– 111

112– 129

130– 139

140– 163

164– 188

189– 208

Exposition

Sonata Structure Motivic Area

71– 87

A

B

b

C

a+ c

210– 226

227– 250

251– 268

269– 272

273– 280

Recapitulation D

B1 *

A

B

b

C

a+c

coda D

B1*

A

*B1 contains only the opening fifths of the original motivic area.

There are several indications that D 506 is not a normative construction, even within the formal flexibility of the sonata-rondo models. Gradual shifts and repetitions of motivic material across structural boundaries are highly uncharacteristic, and the treatment of the coda is also unusual for a rondo movement; it is not harmonically necessary, as the tonal resolution of the movement has been established by the repetition of the primary thematic material. In addition, the coda is not a ‘tight-knit’ reiteration thematic material in the form of the exposition:55 instead, it is an ornamental figuration which prolongs the tonic without adding thematic stability or closure. Simultaneous presentation of two formal models, the exposition–recapitulation sonata-movement and the rondo, which are both revealed to be untenable, brings them into conflict with one another, and as a result both are leached of significance and left as pale shadows, almost incapable of exerting a narrative and organisational function for the movement. The crystallisation of a form, in this case a frame of reference used to bring order to musical material so that it becomes capable of transmitting a coherent experience of content and structure, is eviscerated and reduced to its externals: form for the sake of form, without being sustained by internal content. It is no longer clear that the episodes are directed or, in the deepest sense of the word, meaningful. Their previous, apparently inevitable formal functions as discursions from a central thematic pole or as bringers of distance before a recapitulation have been voided, the first by the ‘false recapitulation’ in bar 140 and the second in their repetition. After this dual negation of the link between musical content and the formation of structure, the last return of the theme is enigmatic in its banality. The obvious presence of the familiar theme is juxtaposed with its sudden rootlessness: there is no compelling opportunity of removal, as the concepts of distance, tension, and reconciliation

54 55

Caplin, p. 186. Caplin, p. 186.

281– 291

coda

190

D 566

rely on a temporal unfolding of memory and experience which generates a meaningful structure. Without the process by which structure and form can be perceived, the final ‘return’ itself becomes trivial and the presence of the theme serves only to illustrate its autarchical existence, the ultimate liberation from the formal expectations which should dictate its presence. 4. D 506: Implausible as a Conclusion for D 566 The fundamental rejection of the principles by which structures are formed and sustained presents serious problems with the presence of D 506 as a plausible completion to D 566, although knowledge of Schubert’s intentions for the sonata lacks certainty, which cannot be alleviated by a painstaking process of documentary analysis, motivic examination, and biographical research. A careful study of the alternatives and the fragments themselves must be the basis of any supposition. However, as any conclusion would be at best a persuasive argument rather than an indisputable solution, it is possible to allow the proposed structure to speak for itself. The musical construction and content of the Rondo may be considered as equally valuable evidence of Schubert’s intentions as the quality and kind of the manuscript paper, the biographical and historical evidence of the dates of composition, and the implications of the existing fragments and their key signatures, and in this context the Rondo, due to its primary compositional emphasis on dismantling the understanding of structural coherence, is unsuited as a movement of a sonata. From this realisation it is possible to suggest that Schubert’s intentions for the sonata may have included a rondo as the closing movement, but not a rondo which is not only unsatisfying as a conclusion, but also capable of exerting its structurally detrimental influence over the preceding three movements. In this case, the Rondo has either no connection with the sonata or exists as an experimental or alternate second movement, in which position its structurally destabilising characteristics might have been negated by following movements, or became so obvious that Schubert removed the movement and replaced it with the current D 566/2. The ambiguity of the compositional history and the lost manuscripts of the sonata make it difficult to obtain indications regarding Schubert’s intentions, assuming that a concrete intention for the work was present. However, the idea that such intentions were fixed and unchanging is a temptation for musicologists: the unquestioned assumption is that there is a certain answer to what form Schubert intended D 566 to take, and that either D 506 belongs to it as a fourth movement,56 57 or it is an entirely 56 57

Franz Schubert, Sonata in E Minor. Piano Solo. [Including the Rondo D. 506. With a Portrait.]., ed. by Kathleen Dale (London: British & Continental Music Agencies, 1948). Költzsch, p. 7.

Alternate Structures

191

unconnected piece which has been erroneously placed at the end of an incomplete sonata.58 59 The possibilities of Schubert’s own uncertainty regarding the structure of his sonatas, including the consideration that the place of the Rondo might have been unclear to him or have changed in the process of composition, are neglected in the search for a definitive solution to the fragmentary nature of the music. IV. Alternate Structures In the absence of a four-movement completion through a ‘reunification’ with D 506, there remain equally compelling structures which are to some degree supported by the documentary evidence. Three formal possibilities present themselves: the first is that the sonata is incomplete as it stands in three movements, either because Schubert did not compose a fourth movement or due to its subsequent loss.60 Secondly, it is possible that the second and third movements should be reversed, producing a closed cyclical structure in three movements. Finally, it is possible that the Beethovenian inspiration in Op. 90 provided the model for a two-movement structure in which the Scherzo is an extraneous and unconnected movement. A comparison of the two versions of the first movement shows that work on refining the finished movements of the sonata continued even as he continued to compose further movements. The lost autograph apparently did not provide any further insight: accounts of musicologists who were able to view it do not provide a single answer as to whether the sonata was ever completed.61 1. Cyclical Incompletion In this projected structure, the sonata has an opening sonata-allegro movement in E minor (4/4), an Allegretto in E major (2/4) also in sonata-allegro form, and a long scherzo and trio in A flat major and is therefore a three-movement fragment without harmonic closure. The hypothesis of the missing fourth movement rests on a dual assumption: that the three movements are presented in the correct oder, and also that the Scherzo and Trio belongs to the preceding two movements. Erich Prieger, the owner of the three-movement autograph, was of the opinion that the order of the movements was authentic and was supported therein by Hans Költzsch.62 58 59 60 61 62

Cone, ‘Schubert’s Beethoven’, p. 792. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 226. The manuscript which Ferdinand Schubert sent to Whistling in 1842 before its disappearance in 1945 had three movements, the first two of which showed a more polished composition than the following Scherzo. Költzsch, p. 5. Költzsch, pp. 5–6.

192

D 566

2. Transposition of the Scherzo and Allegretto Another structural possibility present in the three-movement manuscript is a transposition of the Scherzo and Allegretto, either unintentional on the part of Schubert himself, who was notorious for the disorder in which he kept his papers, by another owner of the manuscript after his death, or intentionally on the assumption that it would be clear where the Scherzo was intended to appear. Ludwig Scheibler felt that there were strong arguments for the reversal of the Allegretto and the Scherzo, therefore producing a completed sonata with a harmonically conclusive structure. He was convinced that the sequence of the movements in D 506 was incorrect in the manuscript, due to other examples of a finale (clearly indicated by the character of the movements in question) being composed directly after a first movement.63 The length and complexity of the Allegretto, but also its musical content and divergence from the expectations of a slow movement, are drawn upon to support the altered movement-sequence. Scheibler writes: ‘Further, the lively figuration of the development section speaks against the idea that the whole movement should be considered as the substitute for a slow movement; overall, in contradiction to the singing elements in the first and closing subjects, the movement’s character is mainly an active one […]’. When the Scherzo is placed in between the E minor and E major movements, the structure has parallels to that of D 625 and the choice of the enharmonic mediant seems plausible for a middle movement.64 Scheibler’s hypothesis diverges from the proposed missing fourth movement due to his emphasis on the experiential aspect of the structure and his engagement with the sonata as a piece of music to be performed and heard. Instead of beginning from a perspective of documentary and historical evidence, he searched primarily for a closed musical narrative which would be comprehensible and familiar to an audience. From this starting point, it is not difficult to find arguments for the reversal of the movements; the key-signatures, characters, and musical content of the three movements allow a rearrangement. Scheibler also refers to documentary evidence in the examples drawn from other fragmentary sonatas as a precedent for the three-movement structure, reversal of the finale and dance movement, and tonal plan of the resulting construct, based upon similarities to D 571/570, D 613, and D 625.65 Objective support for the transposition of the Scherzo is lacking, as the examples of D 571/570 and D 613 produced as proof of Schubert’s occasional habit of writing the

63 64

65

Scheibler, ‘Schubert, Franz, Allegretto [E] für Klavier’, p. 448. Scheibler, ‘Schubert, Franz, Allegretto [E] für Klavier’, p. 448. ‘Ferner spricht der lebhaft figurierte Durchführungsteil dagegen, daß der ganze Satz als Vertreter eines langsamen aufzufassen sei; überhaupt ist seine Haltung, trotz des Gesangmäßigen in Haupt- und Schlußsatz, eine vorwiegend bewegte.’ Scheibler, ‘Schubert, Franz, Allegretto [E] für Klavier’, p. 448.

Alternate Structures

193

first and closing movements of sonatas directly after one another are not parallels to the case of D 566 since they are not three-movement fragments, but comprised of only two movements (D 613) or assembled from separate manuscripts (D 571) The cyclical ‘completion’ of these sonatas does not rely on the direct transposition of two movements which appear in a single manuscript. The musical case for the E major second movement as a finale is based on a harmonic template of a conventional sonata and a desire to provide a completion, as it is difficult to find grounds which would make the reversal so clearly inevitable as to enable Schubert to write the movements in the ‘wrong’ order. 3. Echoes of Beethoven: A Two-Movement Sonata? The case against Scheibler’s insertion of the Scherzo between the second and first movements is further undermined by the striking resemblance of the first two movements of D 566 and Op. 90. Beethoven’s sonata begins in E minor and the first movement is followed by an E major second movement also in 2/4, in the case of Beethoven marked nicht zu geschwind and in D 566 Allegretto. The thematic resemblances between Beethoven’s second movement and Schubert’s are extremely strong:

Fig. 32 D 566/2 bars 1–3

Fig. 33 Op. 90/2 bars 1–2

In both cases, the theme is marked by a rhythmic element composed of a quarter note followed by two eighth notes. The melodic contours of both themes are strikingly similar: Schubert follows the line of Beethoven’s melody with few rhythmic distor-

194

D 566

tions, leading to an almost exact parallel. In addition, the sixteenth note figuration in the accompaniment of both movements shows a strong resemblance, and the harmonic accompaniment of Schubert’s theme is very similar to Beethoven’s. The repetition of the opening theme an octave higher, as in the Beethoven movement, does not occur at the beginning of the Allegretto, but is reserved for emphasis in bar 135, where the theme returns. With so many points of connection, it would be surprising if the character and atmosphere of Beethoven’s movement were lacking in Schubert’s Allegretto, but the lyrical gentleness of the opening theme is another similarity between the movements. In the Beethoven movement, the lyricism of the opening is followed by a contrasting episode marked by dense chords, strong rhythms, and larger intervals between the melodic elements (from bar 31). The Allegretto evinces a clear formal parallel and displays similar contrast from bar 30, disrupting the tranquil opening theme with a leap of two octaves in the right hand, over B major chords marked subito forte. The first movements of the two E minor sonatas contain less obvious but equally revealing resemblances: Schubert draws on Beethoven’s rhetorical flow following the dramatic opening statement in E minor, but instead of a direct melodic or rhythmic parallel, Schubert draws on the contrast between the forte E minor chords and their echo in piano in the opening bars of Beethoven’s sonata. Schubert spins out the piano passage further and uses the tension between the stasis and force of the opening E minor chord (forte) and the motion and fluidity of the following bars (piano) rather than illuminating the contrasting dynamic elements through one motive, as Beethoven does. The strict division of melodic and rhythmic elements into the sections produced by the dynamic construction of the opening phrase in Schubert’s Moderato movement is a distinct variation of the Beethovenian model. Schubert takes the contrasting elements of Beethoven’s opening further into isolation and his consequent separation of the rhetorical, mobile thematic elements from the static E minor statement is a deliberate attempt to expand upon the stark juxtapositions present in the Beethoven sonata while leaving his own mark on the process of thematic development. The obvious inspiration which Schubert received from Beethoven’s two-movement Op. 90 leads to questions about the authenticity of the incomplete three-movement structure. It strengthens the possibility that the Scherzo is also unconnected to D 566 and the first two movements are therefore not an incomplete piano sonata, but a completed structure in themselves, composed after Beethoven’s model. This increasingly prevalent view66 draws on the structure and character of the Allegretto of D 566 for support: ‘the finality of the minor-major succession suggests a two-movement work when supported, as in the present instance, by the elaborate sonata form and brisk tempo of the second movement. This is the unique case of a fully developed, formally divided

66

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 220.

Alternate Structures

195

sonata form among Schubert’s second movements.’67 Due to the loss of the manuscript containing all three movements it is not possible to determine whether the Scherzo was composed as a part of the sonata formed by the preceding two movements, but there are no completed two-movement sonata structures present among Schubert’s compositions for solo piano.68 It is unlikely that Schubert’s admiration for Beethoven was so strong as to influence him to produce an exact structural copy of a well-known work two years after its publication. If D 566 was intended to consist only of two movements it would be an unambitious replication of a preexisting structure, an epigonal shadow of a bolder work already known to the public. 4. Experimentation on the Basis of a Beethovenian Model Schubert’s piano sonatas of this period demonstrate an impulse to approach the limits of formal possibility, both within individual movements and regarding the overarching structure of the sonatas, which partly accounts for the quantity of fragments he left during the years 1815–1818. An ambition to expand the structural possibilities of the sonata in D 566, in comparison to its model for thematic and harmonic structures, Op. 90, is exemplified by a greater reliance upon motivic unity between the first and second movements.69 An interest in motivic unity or the restatement of motivic elements across structural boundaries70 is present in the earliest sonatas for solo piano and remained a consistent method of evoking structural stability and continuity. Schubert’s desire to bind disparate movements together through subtle motivic and rhetorical connections reaches its highest point in the late piano sonatas, but its origins are clear in the works of 1815–1817; however, the first and second movements of D 566 are the first appearance of motivic unity between movements which unambiguously belong to a single work.

67 68 69

70

Cone, ‘Schubert’s Beethoven’, p. 792. D 613 is a sonata consisting only of a first movement and a finale, but both movements are incomplete. Additionally, it has been suggested that the Adagio in E major D 612 may have been intended as a slow movement. Evident in the recurrence of the dotted eighth note and sixteenth note as a motivic element in bars 8–16 of the first movement and the dramatic use of a similar motive in bars 30 and 34 of the second movement. The unifying importance of the dotted rhythm is also apparent in bar 35 of the first movement when compared to bars 32 and 36 of the second movement: the connection is not a motivic repetition but relies on a related melodic contour and a similarity of the rhetorical emphasis, in which the dotted eight note–sixteenth note rhythm provides an impulse which dies away over the following three beats. Seen in D 157/1, as the close of the first theme group (bars 9–12) is restated in a new textural and rhetorical mode to provide the main thematic material of the second theme group (from bar 47). See D 154 and D 157 III, 2: Fluidity in Thematic Function in D 157/1, pages 68–69.

196

D 566

The exploratory nature of Schubert’s compositions for piano, particularly those in sonata form, leads to the conclusion that a simple reproduction of Beethoven’s sonata is too modest an ambition for D 566. Imitation of a successful model would not have satisfied Schubert’s desire to develop his structural capabilities and, considering the attention that he devoted to the piano sonata as an example of a formal convention which he was determined to make his own, it is probable that his deliberate engagement with Beethoven’s Op. 90 and its unusual formal characteristics is experimental rather than emulative. Departures from accepted harmonic and structural conventions abound in the piano sonatas composed between 1815 and 1817, whether fragmentary or complete: the three-movement sonatas D 557 (A flat–E flat–E flat) and D 567 (D flat–C sharp–D flat) composed in 1817 are examples of the more unusual harmonic constructions of the year. The sonatas composed in 1817 are united by their distance from conventional models, and more direct parallels to the extant structure of D 566 and its tonal openness are present in two earlier sonatas, D 157 and D 279. This may be due to their incompletion, as both sonatas are abandoned after the third movement, a menuett and trio, which in conjunction with the inconclusive key (the dominant in the case of D 157 and relative minor in D 279) leads to a similar fragmentary condition as D 566. Sonatas which conform entirely to conventional formal expectations are clearly in the minority: D  537 and D  575 have harmonically conventional structures which open and close with movements in the tonic. However, the first movements of both sonatas have recapitulations which begin on the subdominant rather than as a return to the tonic. To find a sonata which conforms, at least outwardly, to the conventions of a cyclical sonata as they were known at the opening of the nineteenth century among Schubert’s early works is difficult. It is therefore unlikely that Schubert would have made an exception for the relatively new and in itself unconventional two-movement form of Op. 90. V. Interpretative Approaches to the Fragmentary 1. Manuscript of the Scherzo and Trio The records of the autograph add to the conviction that the Scherzo was composed as a continuation of D 566. The manuscript, now lost, was described as eighteen pages long, of which four pages and two lines are occupied by the Scherzo.71 A detailed account of the size and shape of the paper and its water mark mentions no discontinuity in the paper between the first two movements and the Scherzo.72 It is impossible to tell

71 72

Bauer, p. 14. Bauer, p. 14.

Interpretative Approaches to the Fragmentary

197

whether the Scherzo directly followed the preceding movement or exists as its own isolated unit, but the consideration of the unity of the paper and the hand-ruled staves, twelve on each page drawn by Schubert,73 indicates that it is unlikely that the Scherzo was an unconnected piece which was coincidentally composed in the enharmonic mediant of the preceding movement. In the lost manuscript, a difference in the refinement and compositional progress of the three movements was apparent: the first two movements contain a number of corrections and improvements, whereas the Scherzo has almost none and ‘seems to have been written in one flow.’74 From this description, it appears that Schubert began a fair copy of the first movement before completing the sonata, or at least taking definite compositional steps to resolve its structural ambiguity after the third movement. From the lost manuscript it was clear that the sonata was incomplete; as early as 1842 Ferdinand Schubert sent it to Whistling for publication and described it as a piece ‘[…] which would be very valuable, if the last movement were not missing’.75 The careful attention to the correction and refinement of the first two movements stands in contrast to the rougher work of the third movement: Bauer’s list of the alterations which he made to the Scherzo before publishing it in Die Musik in 1928 is revealing of a work which was not yet consistently notated, particularly with reference to slurs and clefs.76 It is possible that its connection with D 566 is fatally undermined by the fact that it disrupts the intrinsic harmonic closure of the two-movement structure, which is reflected in its compositional status as a less polished work. However, it is equally plausible that Schubert’s interest in the sonata-allegro form meant that he devoted more of his attention to the formally demanding movements which provide the framework of the sonata structure and that the Scherzo, lacking the capacity to alter or further undermine it with any degree of significance, was composed with less interest before the experiment was laid aside. 2. Fragmentation in D 566 Among other insubstantial possibilities, the ambiguity of the form inherent in the fragment may be a cause of the divergence in the external refinements of notation between the Scherzo and the preceding two movements. The common thread of the analyses and descriptions of D 566 is that a single, concrete conception of the structure which was to be captured on the page exists, although they differ greatly as to what it might

73 74 75 76

Bauer, p. 14. Bauer, p. 15. ‘[…] in einem Fluss niedergeschrieben zu sein scheint.’ Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 463. ‘[…] welche eine sehr wertvolle Komposition wäre, würde nicht das letzte Stück mangeln.’ Bauer, p. 16.

198

D 566

be. Without exception, D 566 has been viewed as conforming to one objectively correct status, to be established through careful arrangement of the historical, biographical, and musical indications surrounding and contained within the sonata. The earliest accounts, spanning more than sixty years from its sale in 184277 to the reemergence and subsequent publication of the Scherzo in 192878 treat the apparently missing fourth movement as an inevitability, and the absence propels a search for material with which to close the gap: for example, D 506. So compelling is the need for a fourth movement, whether one had actually been composed or not, that it becomes the defining characteristic of the sonata: the intention of a fourth movement (in which all structural tensions are resolved and all harmonic openness is satisfactorily brought to a conclusion) appears as a distant utopian vision, brought into greater prominence by the inevitable comparison with the sonata in its state of fragmentary imperfection. Reversing the order of the Scherzo and Allegretto79 is a symptom of the same discontent with the fragmentary status of the three extant movements of D 566 as they stand; instead of interpreting the missing fourth movement as a solution to the problem of the sonata, the supporters of the reversal hypothesis accept a pragmatic solution. Only three movements exist, and from the three movements it is possible to produce a complete and relatively satisfying structure. Therefore, as the avoidance of fragmentary disturbances is paramount, the guiding intention on the part of the composer must have been completion at any cost. The experience of fragmentation in a musical context is conditioned by the temporal nature of the work, dually fraught with the weight of its fracture: not only the work itself is incomplete, but ‘where the writing stops, we are witness to a breach in thought. This broken music, echoing into a timeless void, challenges us to imagine the moment where idea and sound collapse […]’.80 The process of composition and therein the temporality of individual experience is disquietingly opened to question by the confrontation with fragmentary works, leading to an impulse to smooth over the fractures and restore a veil of formal integrity over the incomplete material of the composition. 3. Reduction of the Fragment to Evoke Completion It is significant that the third structural hypothesis, of a two-movement sonata on a Beethovenian model and an isolated scherzo, did not appear until significantly later: its first proponent was Edward Cone in 1970,81 followed by Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl in

77 78 79 80 81

Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, pp. 462–463. Bauer. Scheibler, ‘Schubert, Franz, Allegretto [E] für Klavier’, p. 448. Kramer, Unfinished Music, p. 20. Cone, ‘Schubert’s Beethoven’, pp. 791–793.

Interpretative Approaches to the Fragmentary

199

2003.82 Their view of the sonata as requiring action in order to allow it to realise its ‘true’ and complete form is common to the previously mentioned attempts to bring it into conformity with a widely accepted model, but their approach is subtly different. In the intervening years, increasingly nuanced views of Schubert, his compositional process, and his connections to other composers had developed, placing a greater weight on both the intrinsic musical content and an extrinsic referential interpretation of the work, continuing the unified musicological and experiential approach apparent in Scheibler’s reversal of the second and third movements. The strong resemblance of the two-movement structure to Beethoven’s Op. 90, although established in the early decades of the twentieth century,83 is of great significance for Cone and Lindmayr-Brandl and serves as the basis for their exclusion of the Scherzo in order to achieve a third possibility of completion. Cone states that even if one disagrees with the reasoning which led him to his conclusion that D 566 has two movements and is therefore complete, one may still consider the sonata more ‘viable in this form than in any other.’84 Cone recognised that the unfinished piano sonatas, in particular D 566, often remain in a state of ‘rawness’ which is demonstrated not only in their incompletion, but also through the presence of obvious mistakes made in haste85 and the comparative refinement of the indications of expression, articulation, phrasing, and dynamics.86 As little documentary evidence of sustained progress or development in the composition of individual fragments can be found, the view of Schubert as a transcriber of fullyconceived and completed intentions gained an unconscious resonance. In addition, Schubert’s early fame as a gifted composer of lieder and the entrenched view of Schubert as a composer of inspiration,87 best suited to smaller forms and doomed to struggle in the shadow of Beethoven when confronted with the difficulties of organising and fulfilling the structural demands of larger forms such as the piano sonata, continued to influence the reception of his fragmentary compositions.

82 83 84 85 86 87

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 220. Scheibler, ‘Schubert, Franz, Allegretto [E] für Klavier’, p. 448. Cone, ‘Schubert’s Beethoven’, p. 793. Bauer, p. 16. The revisions and refinements occurring between the composition of D 567 and D 568, for example. Költzsch, pp. 47, 78. ‘[…] und lassen all diese Werke zusammen auch offensichtlich als Ausfluß jener ungetrübten, heiteren und angesichts der herrlichen Natur erhebenden Gemütsstimmung erscheinen. […] Schubert tritt, wenn er “arbeitet”, an das “Thema” in bezeichnendem Realismus von außen heran; er hat einen “Einfall” und muß, wie er meint, auf Grund traditioneller Formgesetze, “etwas aus ihm machen”. Seine Erlebensart ist aber lyrisch-beschaulich, vegetativ, – romantisch!’

200

D 566

4. D 566 as a Formal Experiment and a Challenge This latter aspect of Schubert reception was reproduced in the twentieth century and reveals itself through an inclination to dismiss Schubert’s occasionally anomalous structures as a sign of deficiency or ineptitude. When Schubert is, after conventional models,88 more expansive and less directional in his thematic work, it is ascribed to his lack of compositional finesse and his inability to ‘control’ his own motivic development. The understanding of Schubert as a composer who struggled with problems of form remains present in Cone’s view of his deep reliance on Beethoven for structural rigour in his rondos. Where the parallels between the works (for example, the last movement of D 959 and the last movement of Beethoven’s Op. 31 No. 1) are not apparent, it is not to be read as a sign of Schubert’s divergence from a Beethovenian model, but a further sign of dependence: ‘where the two do not coincide they counterpoint each other.’89 Schubert’s unfinished piano sonatas bear witness to his quest for formal experimentation and his willingness to engage with a set of established conventions surrounding the idea of the sonata in novel and unexpected ways. Given his demonstrated interest in the unusual form of Op. 90, it is unlikely that an application of the very conventions that Schubert was attempting to subvert could produce even a hypothetically plausible ‘solution’ to the problem presented by the D 566 fragment. In light of the deliberate references to Op. 90 and Schubert’s determination to expand upon the structures of the two-movement form with the Scherzo, the often cited ‘Wer vermag nach Beethoven noch etwas zu machen?’90 gains a new context. It can be interpreted not as the words of a youthful composer unable to discern an individual path forward beyond an overwhelming artistic influence, but as a challenge. With the composition of D 566, Schubert did not attempt to evade the influence of Beethoven, but confronted it. Having begun with the structural and formal influences of Op. 90 in two movements, he continued with the composition of a further movement, perhaps with the intention of creating a new and individual work.

88

89 90

Conventional most notably in terms of their broad acceptance. The application of Beethoven’s rondo as a model for structural success is unjustified and ineffective in terms of analysing Schubert’s compositional structures. Schubert’s deliberate divergence from Beethoven is apparent in many works and is thrown into sharp relief by his occasional reference to Beethovenian models. Cone, ‘Schubert’s Beethoven’, p. 782. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 150.

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VI. Coexistence of Structural Projections Cone’s ‘viability’91 is reflected in Lindmayr-Brandl’s search for ‘tonal closure’.92 Although the perspective from which the sonata has been examined has shifted, from its concordance with the imprecise but unshakeable convention of a three- or fourmovement sonata to a process of examining threads of influence and confluences between individual works, the aesthetic imperative of completion or conclusion is still present. The implicit contradiction between viability and tonal closure on one side, whether in four, three, or two movements, and the Allegro–Allegretto–Scherzo structure of the fragment itself rests upon the idea that an intention has remained unrealised, that structural uncertainties in a musical work are problems to be resolved before they succeed in undermining the unity and integrity work itself, a reflection of the psychological aspects of the fragment-reception and the evident discomfort arising from an unfinished work. The sonata is viewed as least plausible, least successful as a composition, when in the form recorded in the original manuscript; intervention and alteration are necessary to bring it to realise its potential. The incomplete state of D 566 is indisputable, but the proposed solutions present several complications. First, they are almost equally plausible; each has weak points but ultimately produces a possible, if not entirely satisfactory, solution. When each structural hypothesis is presented as the sole interpretation of Schubert’s intentions for the sonata, it is difficult to accept any one without also accepting all of them. The confirmation of any of the structures excludes all other possibilities and therefore deprives the fragment of the openness and existence as an object of potentiality which are among its defining characteristics. The proposed completions and structures of D 566 arise to a degree from an act of interpretation of the sonata, a work which is caught in an early stage of creation, still coalescing and as yet relatively unformed. The aforementioned completions rely on their conformity with a purported ideal for validity: they are not presented as heuristic solutions, but derive aesthetic conviction from the suggestion that they represent a realisation of the composer’s intentions. The completions rest on the assumption that, even if the ideal form was not fully realised, it is possible to deduce its appearance from the part-manifestation that remains, often when taken in combination with historical and musical evidence drawn from the cultural and biographical environment in which the sonata was composed.93 This assumption is implicit in the proposal of a legitimate completion, essentially a negation of the fragmentary status of D 566, which is not proposed as an artistic or subjective suggestion of a possibility, but an indisputably ‘authentic’ solution to the structural uncertainty and openness of the fragment. 91 92 93

Cone, ‘Schubert’s Beethoven’, p. 793. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 220. ‘[…] tonartlichen Geschlossenheit […]’. Cone, ‘Schubert’s Beethoven’, p. 792.

202

D 566

The assumption that D 566 is an abandoned attempt at a defined form and that the incomplete state of the sonata is directional in a formal sense, led by a concrete intention which left traces in the remaining fragment, is unfounded. Structural ambiguity and openness are the strengths of the fragmentary sonata: ‘incompletion’ is no longer a suitable description, resting as it does on an external parameters and conventions and carrying with it the implied potential for a conclusion or consummation of the structural tensions released by the compositional process of the existing music. The fragmentary approach to D 566 allows for the simultaneous acceptance of all and none of the proposed solutions, whereas insistence upon a single structural projection as the only aesthetically and musicologically valid resolution of the incompletion of D 566 avoids recognising the impact of its status as a fragment as well as an incomplete work. The richness of the fragmentary aesthetic rests in the possibility of coexistence. In the absence of a predetermined compositional intention, all or none of the suggested projections for completion are inherent in the three extant movements and none can be decisively excluded. It is through the multiplicity of potential forms that D 566 demonstrates the essential divergence between an incomplete sonata and a fragmentary sonata; the latter is not defined by what is absent, but by the breadth of the formal projections which it sustains.

D 567 and D 568 The Sonata in D flat major D 567, composed in June 1817, is closely associated with the Sonata in E flat major D 568. Both sonatas share large quantities of musical material, similar to the first two piano sonatas, D 154 and D 157. A substantial process of revision and alteration, including the addition of a fourth movement to the E flat major sonata, results in the composition of two works which are more clearly separated than the E major sonatas of 1815. The two works are not only distinguished by their tonalities and divergent cyclical structures. D 567 is fragmentary, as the last bars of its final movement are not recorded in the autograph, but D 568 is complete. Given the musical connections between the two works and the process of revision and recomposition involved in the genesis of the later E flat major sonata, the fragmentary status of D 567 is cast in a new light. Musicological opinion is divided between a process of revision which directly followed the composition of D  567, in the summer or early autumn of 1817,1 and an association with the renewed period of intensive composition for the genre in 1825 or 1826.2 An approach to the two works which combines philological and analytical examination of the divergences between them and the formal effects of the transposition of the movements upon the harmonic structures of the cycle as as whole will be directed towards establishing the two sonatas as highly individual compositions based upon certain common elements. I. Compositional History 1. Manuscripts Records of the compositional process of D 567 are extraordinarily well-preserved. In addition to the Reinschrift (MHc–162), there are two autograph manuscripts which record an earlier stage of the composition of the first movement (MHc–14943 and MHc–86). This offers a rare opportunity to examine the process of revision, correc-

1 2

Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, pp. 328–30. Reed, pp. 485–86.

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tion, and the progression of the composition towards a state of ‘completion’. Although all manuscripts relating to D 568 are lost, a comparison with D 567 is made possible by the existence of the alterations present in the first edition, published by Pennauer in 1829.3 The two sonatas, which are closely related but not identical, present considerable difficulties in the research of fragmentary compositions, as the boundary between the individual compositions and the continuation of a single process of composition is not clearly defined. The question of when a work attains a level of autonomy, which sets it apart from the changes and variants resulting from a continuing process of composition or revision, is unavoidable.4 An unknown sonata in C sharp major dedicated to Anselm Hüttenbrenner, which ‘[…] Schubert himself could not play […] without difficulties […]’,5 is possibly identical with D 567 of 1817.6 The absence of any piano sonata in C sharp major and the possible association of the work with the year 18257 (arising from the suggestion that Schubert intended to sell it to a ‘foreign publisher’8, possibly Nägeli in Switzerland),9 renders any conclusion open to doubt. This only adds to the confusion regarding the known but undated revision of D 567 and the date of composition of D 568. It is highly unlikely that Hüttenbrenner made an error of the magnitude required to misremember the key of the D flat major sonata as its enharmonic reinterpretation, C sharp, especially after having played the sonata in question, and consequently it is possible that the C sharp major sonata is a piano sonata entirely unknown to the current Schubert research.10 11

3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 330. Returning to an earlier composition with the intent of completing or at least continuing it is not unprecedented among Schubert’s piano sonatas; the first examples of the genre, D 154 in E major and D 157 in E major are also closely related through the use of shared harmonic and thematic content. As both of the E major fragments remained unfinished, they do not present the ambiguous status regarding incompletion and fragmentation which is inseparable from the D flat major and E flat major sonatas D 567 and D 568. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 212. ‘[…] er sie selbst […] nicht ohne Antoß spielen konnte.’ Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 217. Hoorickx, ‘Thematic Catalogue of Schubert’s Works: New Additions, Corrections and Notes’, p. 168. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, p. 212. Van Hoorickx: ‘Thematic Catalogue of Schubert’s Works: New Additions, Corrections and Notes’, p. 169. Hoorickx, ‘Thematic Catalogue of Schubert’s Works: New Additions, Corrections and Notes’, pp. 168–69. The only known C sharp sonata for solo piano is a fragment in C sharp minor (D 655) of an exposition, composed in April 1819. See D 655 and D 769A II: D 655, page 333.

A Comparison

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II. A Comparison The differences between the two sonatas are significant; apart from the obvious transposition of the later version one tone higher, the D flat major sonata contains three movements, an Allegro moderato, followed by the Andante molto, and an Allegretto finale; but a menuett and trio (Allegretto) have been added to D 568 as a third movement, and the tempo marking of the finale has been altered to echo the Allegro moderato of the opening. 1. Cyclical Tonalities A substantial alteration has occurred to the larger harmonic plan of the original D flat major sonata, in which all three movements retain D flat as a common tonic note, in the slow movement through its enharmonic reinterpretation as the C sharp tonic of the minor mode. D 568, perhaps as a consequence of the additional menuett and trio movement, departs from the tonal constancy of its D flat major predecessor; the slow movement is transposed to G minor. It is not clear whether the transposition of the slow movement is an attempt to avoid the risk of ‘monotony’12 in the tonal character of the work, as the newly-added menuett and trio are also set in E flat major, a circumstance which does not add harmonic variation to the tonal plan of the sonata. Although four movements with the same tonic note would be unusual and avoiding a single cyclical tonic might have been the reason for the transposition to G minor, it is equally possible that the transposition is a concession to considerations of instrumental technique and legibility; movements in D sharp or E flat minor are extremely rare, not only among the compositions of Schubert.13 The emphasis of the formal plans of both sonatas remains one of tonal consistency and a certain degree of stasis. When examined in the context of the tonal constructions of the outer movements, particularly in the relations between the tonic of the slow movement in D 568, G minor, and the E flat major tonic of the sonata, the effect of the transposition does not render the harmonic plan more expansive and discursive. Instead, the transposition ‘[…] leads to the equalisation of the dissonant tensions which are active within the movement, in that the previous effectively dissonant keys take on a consonant function […]’.14 It is entirely in keeping with the internal logic of the 12 13 14

Költzsch, p. 7. ‘[…] monoton […]’. Exceptions include the Trio of the Sonata in E flat major Op. 7 of Beethoven, the Piano Trio Hob. XV:31 of Haydn, the Etude Op. 10 No. 6, and the second movement of the Sonata in B flat minor Op. 35 of Chopin. Later in the nineteenth century, the tonality was more widely used. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 28. ‘[…] führt die Transposition zur Egalisierung der in dem Satz wirkenden dissonanten Spannungen, indem vorher dissonierend wirkende Tonarten nun konsonierende Funktionen wahrnehmen […]’.

206

D 567 and D 568

revisions present between D 567 and D 568 that the achievement of tonal constancy and coherency is achieved in a more subtle and elegant manner in the later sonata. From the adherence to a single tonic in the major and the minor mode in the D flat major sonata, Schubert progresses to an apparently more distant tonality: however, the result of the transposition is to increase the unity of the harmonic content of the slow movement, while relinquishing the more superficial and illusory harmonic continuity produced by the adherence to a shared tonic note. 2. Thematic and Expressive Content The changes present within the movements which are common to both sonatas (the first, second, and last) affect multiple aspects of the composition, including rhythmic content, dynamic expressivity, textural and registral changes, and not least the composition of additional musical material, which is concentrated in the development sections of the outer movements.15 The rhythmic elements of the thematic content, specifically that of the first movement, are altered through an increased ‘rhythmic “point” or sharpness’ achieved through the use of dotted eighth and sixteenth notes to replace eighth notes and through the use of a vorschlag or other ornaments.16 Alterations in expression through the dynamic of conclusions and transitions are present,17 and D 568 exhibits more registral contrast (particularly in the closing group of the first movement and the development of the finale). The similarities and connections between the two works occur on a smaller scale than the differences; the thematic material of the Allegro moderato, Andante, and the finale (Allegretto or Allegro moderato) is closely related, and the divergences between the two sonatas are more accurately described as a process of variation and revision rather than resulting from the composition of new material. In this sense, D 568 displays characteristics of a ‘version’ of the earlier sonata, most strongly in the modes of revision and correction in the first movements and finales which are associated with the refinement and formal expression of the sonata-allegro principle in which a later variant in the material of the recapitulation is transferred to its previous occurrences.

15 16 17

Martin Chusid, ‘A Suggested Redating for Schubert’s Piano Sonata in Eb, Op.  122’, in SchubertKongress Wien 1978. Bericht, ed. by Otto Brusatti (Graz: Akadem. Druck- u. Verlagsanst, 1979), pp. 37–44 (pp. 42–43). Chusid, ‘A Suggested Redating for Schubert’s Piano Sonata in Eb, Op. 122’, pp. 38, 41. In bars 3, 11, 21, 27, and 54. The end of the first movement in D 568, bars 257–258 is marked pianissimo, as is the transition to the development (bar 112), in contrast to the parallels in D 567, in which the closing chord of the exposition in the seconda volta is marked fz (bar 111b) and the last chords of the movement are marked ff (bars 237–238).

A Comparison

207

This type of revision is also evident between the two manuscripts of D 567/1, in minor alterations and more prominently in the continuation of the second theme group.18 However, the revisions which are present between the recapitulation and exposition of the second, more advanced manuscript of D 567/1 and the recapitulation of D 568/1 appear contradictory in their underlying intent. The recapitulation of D 568/1 is marked from its opening bars (bars 159–185) by a number of deliberate variations, both melodic and rhythmic, to the original statement of the first theme, which is not compatible with the observed initiative towards symmetry and conformity between the exposition and recapitulation present in the two drafts of D 567. Although ‘[…] actually, this circumstance is consistent with the fact that in the experimental recapitulations of the subsequent period, the structural divergences are concentrated in the first theme group […]’,19 the alteration of the recapitulatory material between the second version of D 567/1 and D 568/1 and the profound change in the formal principle which informed the choice of varied thematic material rather than structural conformity does not support the view of a single and straightforwardly progressing compositional process which produced two versions of a single sonata, but a new approach to the previously composed material. The largest material differentiation between the two sonatas (excluding the additional Menuett and Trio of D 568) is found between the developments of the finale movements, a circumstance which is still more conspicuous due to overwhelming similarities of the exposition and recapitulation of both movements. 3. Developmental Material in the Finale Movements The development of D 567/3 draws its opening material from the conclusion of the exposition (bar 69), and the development of the finale of D 568 begins similarly, incorporating the closing material of the exposition, but ‘[…] the already loose association with the exposition is further obscured […]’.20 The figure is replaced by the new thematic material (from bar 78, and in sequence from bar 95) meaning that the developments of the finale movements of D 567 and D 568 consist of different musical material, but the process to which they owe their creation is a single coherent progression,

18 19

20

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 173. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 174. ‘Tatsächlich nämlich stimmt gerade dieser Umstand damit überein, daß Schubert auch in den experimentellen Reprisen der Folgezeit die strukturellen Abweichungen meistens auf den Hauptsatzbereich […] konzentriert.’ Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 230. ‘[…] wird diese ohnehin schon lose Zusammenhang mit der Exposition weiter verschleiert […]’.

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D 567 and D 568

characterised by an increasingly ‘obscured’ relation of the developmental material to its source at the close of the exposition. This creates a strong duality in the compositional processes between the first and finale movements of D 567 and D 568. The former are similar in terms of their musical material, but differ profoundly in the aesthetic and formal principles which are responsible for its arrangement. Connections between the two sonatas are complex and in part contradictory; a closer examination of the musical content and the compositional processes of the two works does not result in a direct revelation of an internal relation characterised by a straightforward progression from one work to another, nor indeed to an understanding of the two sonatas which is predicated upon a paradigm of improvement through revision and alteration. In fact, the processes of composition between the first movements and the finales are highly divergent in their aims, a dynamic which is a reversal of the material differences between the two sets of movements. III. Compositional Processes 1. The Influence of the Lied The two related sonatas are a unique case among Schubert’s instrumental compositions; the return to and reworking of a piece which is materially and formally complete, with the aim of attaining a degree of aesthetic ‘completion’ or culmination. An early and not fully expressed example of a similar process is present between D 154 and D 157; the latter shares some thematic content and elements of harmonic structure with the former, but the recomposition of D 568 engages more substantially with overarching revisions, affecting both thematic and formal aspects of the work.21 Although unprecedented among the instrumental compositions, this compositional method, involving one or more returns to previously composed material including revisions and refinements, has an established function in the composition of lieder, which gained an increasing prominence and exerted more influence upon the piano sonatas of 1817.22 The current of influence between the lieder and the sonatas for solo piano did not only flow in one direction: material and musical content originating in

21

22

Additionally, the E major sonatas of 1815 are both incomplete and were begun in one week in February, D 154 on the 11th and D 157 on the 18th, without the temporal removal present between the composition of D 567 and D 568. The latter sonata, D 157, is not a return to a substantially completed work in order to encompass certain parts of its harmonic and thematic content in an altered form, but it is a substantial expansion and is a process which draws upon elements of a fragment which was deliberately and finally abandoned. This does not appear to have been the case in the dissociative fragmentation of D 567. Költzsch, p. 90.

Compositional Processes

209

the piano sonatas was incorporated into subsequently composed lieder.23 Although incorporating material from both his own compositions in different genres and from works by other composers is not unknown among the piano sonatas of Schubert (in particular the influences of single, identifiable compositions of Beethoven are welldocumented,24 25 but also potential sources of influence regarding texture, form, and genre)26 the direct propagation of an established working process of composition and revision which is particularly associated with one genre in an entirely new context is nevertheless uncommon. Returning to the largely completed D 567 and making substantial formal and thematic alterations to all three of the previously composed movements while adding a menuett and trio is, in the context of the compositions of large-scale cyclical works, comparable to the processes of revision and alteration present among the versions of some of the lieder. This element of commonality between the works, based upon large areas of recognisably similar or identical thematic content and a similar harmonic plan, produces a ‘first version’ and a ‘second version’,27 a comprehensible derivation of the terminology used to refer to the various progressive iterations of a single lied which is partly applicable to D 567 and D 568.28 The revisions to D 567 produced a new sonata; however, there are unmistakeable similarities in the processes of the lieder, most strikingly the absence of an unambiguous and readily identifiable property of being complete or ‘finished’29 at any point in the process of recomposition. The process of returning to a single composition, altering and expanding it, might extend over several years. The most well-known example of the variations and versions which result from this apparent disinclination to abandon a work which has not yet reached its full aesthetic capacity is the lied Die Forelle D 550, composed in two versions from the end of 1816 to July 1817,30 the same year in which D 567 was composed. Revisions and alterations to Die Forelle continued over three more versions composed over the next four years, with the last known version of

23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30

Költzsch, p. 11. Költzsch, pp. 95, 124, 127. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 118. Richard Kramer, ‘Gradus Ad Parnassum: Beethoven, Schubert, and the Romance of Counterpoint’, 19th-Century Music, 11 (1987), 107–20. Walburga Litschauer, ‘Vorwort’, in Werke für Klavier zu zwei Händen. Klaviersonaten I, ed. by Walburga Litschauer (Kassel etc.: Bärenreiter, 2000), p. VI. However, in the absence of a stable and constant textual element and in light of the substantial divergences between the two sonatas, not only in terms of their content and form but also the compositional impulse and formal approach which informs the divergences, the terminology of two versions of a single work is nonetheless reductive. Kramer, Unfinished Music, p. viii. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 319.

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D 567 and D 568

the song bearing the date ‘Oct. 1821’,31 and the process of revision found in Die Forelle is similar to that resulting in D 567 and D 568. Like the two sonatas, there are substantial divergences not only in the material of the five Forellen, but also in the formal conception of the various versions. In the changes between the first and second versions of D 567/1, formal priority is given to the retrospective achievement of conformity in ornamentation and thematic content between the recapitulation and the exposition. The distance from this principle of formal orientation which occurs between the notation of the second version of D 567 in 1817 and the resumption of composition with the new sonata D 568, is present in the exposition and recapitulation. An alteration to the approach to recognisable and repeated thematic content as an expression of the sonata-allegro model is associated with aspects of a change in the formal understanding of the work itself. Therein, material divergences are secondary effects rather than the principal result of changes between versions, and this is also apparent among the iterations of Die Forelle.32 Most significant for the interpretation and study of the compositional process which connects D 567 and D 568 is the absence of a single, constantly present idea with a teleological direction which guides the revisions of the lied. Like the two sonatas, the changes between the five versions of Die Forelle are not easily categorised or reduced to an objectively measurable progression towards an ideal and ‘complete’ version, but express a desire for a continuing process of variation and experimentation with the extant material. Neither the view of Schubert as a conscientious reviser of his own works nor the impression of a composer who ‘lack[ed] self criticism’ and did not often engage in correction or revision is accurate: In the case of Die Forelle […] his basic conception of the song remained the same, but he surely made important alterations […] This seems to reveal a composer not averse to change, whose conception of his work refused to become static.33

This includes the most valuable element of the example of the revisions in lieder (not confined to Die Forelle) which exist in more than one version or variation, and the characteristics which set the lieder apart from the two piano sonatas. The ‘basic conception’ of the sonatas in D and E flat major did not remain the same, as is evident

31 32

33

Frank C. Campbell, ‘Schubert Song Autographs in the Whittall Collection’, Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, 6 (1949), 3–8 (p. 4). Campbell, pp. 5–6. The most substantial alteration is the addition of a ‘[…] five measure piano prelude before the entrance of the voice […]’ which is not present in any of the other four versions or either of the first two printed editions, although a six-bar introduction appears at the beginning of the printed edition produced by Diabelli in 1825. The appearance of any introductory measures in a manuscript in Schubert’s handwriting is an indication that Diabelli did not invent the introductory bars himself, but that Schubert revised his ‘original’ conception of the lied at least four years before the publication of the Diabelli edition. Campbell, p. 6.

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from the transposition, the change in cyclical structure, and the composition of a substantially new development in D 568/4.34 Alterations in the foundational levels of the structure and the handling of motivic and thematic content lie at the heart of the new approach present in the later E flat major work. The description of Schubert as a composer not only open to change without being preoccupied with achieving a direct and linear progress, but capable of maintaining an open and fluid conception of his own work is central to the understanding of not only D 567 and D 568, and also the genesis and content of the fragmentary piano sonatas in their totality. Avoidance of stasis in the aesthetic conception of his compositions and the primacy of formal openness in the fragmentary piano sonatas are deeply connected with the ability to avoid the temptation towards a superficially satisfying evocation of formal closure or completion if the work, in terms of its formal model and the aesthetic content upon which the former depends for realisation, is not fully convincing and coherent. 2. Versions of the Slow Movement The ‘particularly intensive’35 engagement with the material of D 567 and D 568 is not confined to the process which resulted in the manuscripts containing the two related sonatas in D flat and E flat major. The compositional process through which the slow movement originated and was associated with the first of the two sonatas provides further insights regarding the process of composing a sonata for solo piano. The slow movement, in addition to the C sharp minor version present as the second movement of D 567 and its G minor transposition in D 568, exists in a fragmentary autograph known as the ‘Autograph of Three Masters’36 due to its successive use by Beethoven with the lied Ich liebe Dich so wie Du mich WoO 123; Schubert for the notation of at least the first sixty-three bars of a version of the Andante molto slow movement of D 567 and D 568, in D minor, marked Andantino; and Brahms, in whose handwriting a date is entered upon the manuscript. It is possible that the Beethoven manuscript was given to Schubert by Anselm Hüttenbrenner,37 who was acquainted with both composers; it is a touching, if perplexing indication of Schubert’s absent-mindedness and immense capacity for carelessness in the organisation and care of his own papers and possessions, that he not only used the outer two leaves of the manuscript (now in the possession of the GdM in Vienna) to sketch the first known version of the D minor slow movement

34 35 36 37

See D 567/568 II, 3: Developmental Material in the Finale Movements, pages 207–208. Litschauer, ‘Vorwort’, p. XIII. The Autograph of Three Masters: (Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms), ed. by Otto Erich Deutsch (London: Chiswick Press, 1942). Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 329.

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later transposed and incorporated into D 567 and D 568,38 but that the remaining staves are used ‘for teaching purposes’,39 and in addition for ‘a child’s exercise on the names of notes’.40 Considering that the study of compositional processes is not only of interest for Schubert research, but also central to the study of the musical fragments and vitally necessary to understanding and ordering their typologies, the autograph of the D minor version of the slow movement of D 567 is a record of an unusual divergence in an established process. It was invariably Schubert’s habit to start with the first movement of the sonata, notate this movement until its conclusion or until the arrival at a significant formal juncture (most commonly the recapitulation) and then to continue with the cyclical composition according to the order of the movements. There are no examples in which an internal movement is present within a united manuscript in a position other than that which it appears intended to occupy in the ‘final’ version of the work. However, there are two additional examples41 of a movement incorporated in a piano sonata which originated before its notation as the movement of a sonata in the context of a manuscript containing a stage of the compositional process which is identifiable as a multi-movement, cyclical work. The first is the Menuetto D 279/3, which exists in slightly different form42 (now known as D 277A) and without the Trio of the D 279 movement and was composed on a separate manuscript which has now been lost.43 Secondly, the Trio of D 568 may have originated in connection with the Scherzi D 593, composed in November 1817. A variant of the Trio of the second Scherzo (although the tonality of A flat major is retained) appears in D 568/3, creating a direct association between D 568 and an element of dissociation in the compositional process.44 The position of the ‘Autograph of Three Masters’ version of the slow movement of D 567 and D 568 in D minor in Schubert’s working process displays distinct similarities to that of the Menuetto D 277A, as both movements exist in slightly varied versions, physically dissociated from the manuscript in which they function as movements of a sonata. Due to the uncertainty regarding the compositional chronology, D 593 is excluded from the following comparison. The two dissociated movements were almost certainly notated and composed before the versions which are incorporated into the

38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 329. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 329. G. A., ‘Review. The Harrow Replicas. The Autograph of Three Masters (Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms)’, Music & Letters, 25 (1944), 53–54 (p. 54). In addition, a variant of the opening bars of the third Menuett of D 380 appears in the opening bars of D 557, but the formal context of the earlier work is divergent. Deutsch, Der intime Schubert. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 172. As the date of notation of D 568 is unknown, it is possible that the Trio originated in the sonata and was later incorporated into D 593. Based upon the example of D 277 and the possibility that D 568 originates in 1825–1826 renders it more likely that D 593 preceded it. (See Reed, p. 486.)

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sonatas; this conclusion is not based upon the dating of the manuscripts, and in fact appears to be directly contradicted by the date on the Beethoven–Schubert–Brahms autograph.45 Revisions present between the unattached versions and the movements incorporated into piano sonatas reveal a clear progression; the ‘final’ versions present in the sonatas are indubitably the product of a process of refinement and represent a continuation of the compositional process in a new context. The slow movement of D 568 is a third iteration of the original construct, following the ‘Autograph of Three Masters’ and the version present in the Reinschrift of D 567. In addition to the fact that the movement is notated as a fragment in the Beethoven manuscript46 and that the latter versions in D 567 and D 568 are complete, which is an independent confirmation of the position of the D minor version at the beginning of the compositional process, the alterations present between its fragmentary form in D minor and the C sharp minor slow movement of D 567 are maintained across the transposition to G minor and the 182647 composition of D 568.48 The consistency of the revisions across the two sonatas indicates that the D minor version of the slow movement was composed before the versions incorporated into the larger cyclical works. The question of intention regarding the composition of these single movements becomes paramount; it is possible that Schubert departed from the observable model of sequential composition of the movements of cyclical works, which is particularly relevant in considering the genesis and function of the large number of unattached pieces or sonata movements composed in 1816 and 1817.49 The first aspect of these queries is that of the chronological placement of the compositional processes: in the case of the D flat major and E flat major sonatas, whether the slow movement fragment notated on the Beethoven autograph predates the June 1817 composition of the sonata. The first extant manuscript of D 567 is dated ‘Juni 1817’, and an approximate chronological placement of the Beethoven autograph can be made from an entry in the manuscript in a handwriting which belongs ‘to neither Schubert or Beethoven’50 and is probably that of Anselm Hüttenbrenner: ‘the immortal handwriting of Beethoven. Received 14. August 1817.’51 Therefore, if Hüttenbrenner gave Schubert the manuscript, this must have occurred after the 14th of August. Based upon these dates, it appears that D 567/1 must 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

Költzsch, p. 8. Tellingly, it breaks off at the entrance of the recapitulation, foreshadowing the shorthand notation and the ‘recapitulatory crisis’ which expanded to encompass the sonata-allegro first movements of the sonatas for solo piano composed in the latter half of 1817 and 1818. Reed, p. 483. G. A., p. 54. Both the added bars, now 19–25, and the alteration of the tempo marking from the corrected Andante to Andante molto are consistent across the later two versions of the movement in D 567 and D 568. Allegretto D 346, Allegro moderato D 347, Andantino D 348, Adagio D 349, Rondo D 506, Klavierstück D 604, and perhaps the Adagio D 459A/1, for which no manuscript exists. Költzsch, p. 8. ‘[…] keinesfalls Schubert oder Beethoven […]’. Költzsch, p. 8. ‘Des unsterblichen Beethoven Handschrift. Erhalten den 14. August 1817.’

214

D 567 and D 568

have been composed first, and the composition then continued in the form of a draft of the second movement, in the key of D minor instead of C sharp minor, in August after the receipt of the Beethoven manuscript. However, the content of the three manuscripts, including the Reinschrift version of D 567, renders this chronology untenable: the ‘complete’ version of the sonata with three movements, including a completed version of the slow movement, is also dated June 1817. As the completed version contains alterations to the slow movement which are constant between D 567 and the later E flat major sonata, the D minor version of the slow movement notated on the Beethoven manuscript must have preceded the incorporation of the variant versions in the two completed piano sonatas, the first of which was composed in June 1817. Reconciliation of the compositional progression through the three transpositions of the slow movement and the contradictory information provided by the dates on the manuscripts is a complex problem without an obvious solution: explanations include a possible error in the date entered on the Beethoven autograph, the existence of a still earlier manuscript of D 567 which is now lost, as Schubert was known to mark his manuscripts with the date upon which he began the composition and not the date of conclusion,52 the misidentification of the handwriting as Hüttenbrenner’s, or the rearrangement of the proposed chronology and assumption that the August 1817 date must have followed the use of the manuscript for the composition of the Andantino. Any combination of these possibilities might explain the apparent contradiction between the appearance of an earlier notation of a single movement which bears a date later than the work in which the movement is included in a later version; the most significant information presented by the confusion of dates and compositional progression is that the established view of Schubert’s process in the notation and composition of piano sonatas was not always as clearly defined and as orderly as it appears from many of the extant manuscripts. Contrary to the expectations evoked by its brevity, the first version of the slow movement of D 567 is significant and provides a wealth of insights regarding the compositional processes of the fragmentary sonatas composed in 1817 and 1818. The movement in D minor, present in the Beethoven autograph, is the first sonata movement to display a particular characteristic which became prevalent and formally decisive among the following sonatas: it is abandoned at the beginning of the ‘recapitulation’, or return of the opening material. This modality of fragmentation, characterised by a break in the composition at a formally significant caesura, became increasingly prevalent among the sonatas for solo piano. 52

Paul Badura-Skoda, ‘Possibilities and Limitations of Stylistic Criticism in the Dating of Schubert’s “Great” C Major Symphony’, in Schubert Studies. Problems of Style and Chronology, ed. by Eva Badura-Skoda and Peter Branscombe (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 187–208 (p. 187).

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215

IV. Fragmentation and Incompletion in D 567 1. Reception of the ‘Fragment’ D 567 The reception of the two versions in terms of a comparison is surprisingly consistent, and extremely unusual in the context of the status of D 567 as a fragment: a marked preference for the D flat major ‘version’ is omnipresent. ‘When Brahms saw the D flat major sonata, he was greatly pleased, as the E flat major version did not appeal to him at all […]’;53 additionally, the ‘[…] beautiful, dark resonances of the piano […]’ in the C sharp minor slow movement of D 567 were considered to be almost entirely absent in the G minor slow movement of D 568,54 and the E flat major sonata was viewed as ‘slightly unsophisticated’.55 The D flat major version was invariably considered to be the more aesthetically valid of the two in comparisons at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Studies of D 568 considered it either as a ‘later revision’ or an arrangement,56 although other perspectives emphasise a more autonomous reading of D 567 and D 568 as distinct manuscripts and therein individual works of which large parts of which are identical.57 Nonetheless, an emphasis upon the D flat major version as the ‘original’ remains. None of the early responses to the two sonatas contains a reference to the fragmentary status of D 567. The ‘first version’ of the sonata was unpublished until its appearance in the AGA in 1897,58 and was issued as it exists in the manuscript, with a fragmentary last movement. This is an apparently unconscious reversal of the assumption, conditioned by the aesthetic-philological connection between beauty and completion which persisted into the twentieth century,59 that the fragmentary and incomplete sonatas are less accomplished, in some manner ‘lesser’ compositions when compared to the completed works.60 61 Between the fragmentary D 567 and the completed D 568, this dynamic is reversed: D 567, in its status as an earlier composition, regardless of its 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

Költzsch, p. 7. ‘Als Brahms die Des-Dur-Fassung sah, war er ganz selig, denn die Es-Dur-Fassung gefiel ihm gar nicht. (Freundliche Mitteilung von Herrn Hofrat Mandyczewski.)’. Költzsch, p. 7. ‘[…] schönen dunklen Klavierklang […]’. Ludwig Scheibler, ‘Franz Schuberts Einstimmige Lieder, Gesänge und Balladen mit Texten von Schiller’, Die Rheinlande: Verband der Kunstfreunde in den Ländern am Rhein, September 1905, pp. 270–71 (p. 271). ‘[…] ein wenig verbackfischt […]’. Scheibler, ‘Franz Schuberts Einstimmige Lieder, Gesänge und Balladen mit Texten von Schiller’, p. 271. Költzsch, p. 7. ‘Noch während des Druckes der G. A. kam aber ein Autograph einer Sonate in DesDur zum Vorschein, dessen drei […] Sätze mit dreien der viersätzigen Es-Dur-Sonate im großen und ganzen identisch sind.’ Edited in part by Eusebius Mandyczewski; Brahms may have had the opportunity to examine the manuscript through his friend’s connection with the preparations for the Schubert edition. Ostermann, pp. 18–19, 47. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 47. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 114.

216

D 567 and D 568

incompletion, is regarded as being a more aesthetically valid expression than the later ‘revision’. This elevation of the fragmentary occurs in the absence of any reference to its incomplete status, perhaps because of the completed later ‘version’. If D 567 and D 568 are considered to be essentially the same composition in two different key signatures, then the ‘completion’ of the latter can be transferred without any difficulties beyond the routine transposition one tone lower to the earlier composition, and the ‘complete’ D 567 is judged by its merits as a work without the distraction of a fragmentary deficit in the context of the aesthetic ideal of completion. 2. Physical Fragmentation in D 567 Based upon unusual physical and formal characteristics of the fragmentary manuscript of D 567, it is probable that the sonata represents another type of fragment than the other incomplete and unfinished piano sonatas. Until 1817 the fragmentary piano sonatas were internally complete and evince a cyclical incompletion which takes the form of one or more missing movements. The Reinschrift of D 567 (MHc–162) is the first piano sonata manuscript to contain a movement which is incomplete;62 the finale breaks off at the end of bar 167, at the bottom of the twenty-fourth page of the manuscript and shortly before the beginning of the coda or the end of the movement. A movement which is broken off apparently at random, rather than coinciding with an important formal transition, is unusual among the fragmentary piano sonatas.63 The Reinschrift64 of D 567 is carefully executed: in light of the polished notation and attention to legibility, an incomplete finale is unexpected and unusual. Furthermore, the stage of composition which leads to incomplete movements has produced no other example of a fragment for solo piano in which only the last movement is incomplete, and it is the only ‘unfinished’ movement that is abandoned at the end of a page, and still more tellingly, on the last page of a single manuscript.

62

63 64

Individual movements, assuming the pieces were conceived as part of a sonata cycle, surrounding D 459 and D 459A conglomerates, are internally incomplete. Of the Andantino D 348 and the Adagio D 349, the manuscript latter displays a type of fragmentation which is physically similar to that of the finale of D 567. See D 459 and D 459A, VI: D 459A: An Unknown Sonata? pages 151–158. Of the seven sonata movements which are incomplete, six are in sonata-allegro form (D 571, D 570/1, D 613/1, D 613/2, D 625/1, and D 625/3, the finale). These movements (excluding D 625/3) are abandoned at or shortly before the entry of the recapitulatory material. It has title and date in the heading, empty intervening staves on all of the pages which offer enough space to include them. The neatness of the handwriting in conjunction with the method of deleting mistakenly entered notes with a sharp object are also unambiguous indications of the status of the manuscript and would be conclusive even in the absence of the preceding manuscripts of the first movement (MHc–14943 and MHc–86).

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217

3. Indications of Continuation There are certain indications present in the manuscript which support the thesis of a ‘fragment of transmission’, in which the process of composition was completed but the manuscript is in a fragmentary condition and there are no further sources for the work,65 due to subsequent loss or destruction of a part of the finale. The Reinschrift MHc–162 consists of two distinct paper types:66 it is logical to conclude from the insertion of another type of manuscript paper that the attachment of a further sheet in order to notate the very last bars of the finale would have been the most probable ‘solution’ to what appears to have been a miscalculation of the length of the remaining bars of the finale.67 Finally, marked variations in the shading and intensity of the ink throughout the manuscript indicate that Schubert’s working process was not concluded at the end of the last page of the finale: the ink becomes noticeably lighter and more translucent as the bar continues.68 It appears likely that an immediate continuation made it necessary to avoid a possible transfer of still wet ink. Although not invariable due to natural inconsistencies in writing with pen and ink, similar effects are often apparent at the ends of those pages which do not coincide with the end of a movement,69 after which the compositional process continued uninterrupted. The last page of the manuscript conforms to this interpretation: although no blotting would be necessary if the finale were to continue on another page, its presence at the conclusion of the manuscript indicates that the direct continuation of the compositional process was likely, based upon a method of treating the ink which otherwise preceded the resumption of composition on a new page.

65 66

67

68 69

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 45. The outer leaves of the manuscript consist of five sheets of the same paper, each ruled with twelve staves, which are folded in half to produce ten pages of which both sides are used for the notation of the sonata. Before the tenth and last page of the original sheaf, two further leaves of a different type, bearing only eight staves, have been inserted. The manuscript closes on the reverse of the tenth page of the original paper. The fold of the first paper-type is still clearly present, and although torn the first and last page of the manuscript are attached to one another. Two extraneous leaves were inserted as pages 8 and 9. The addition of a new sheet of paper at the conclusion of the autograph would explain the absence of the V. S. (volti subito), which is present at the end of all of the pages which contain a movement intended to continue on the next sheet except the front of the last page (10); a subsequent page containing the conclusion of the finale would lie next to the last fold of the manuscript MHc–162, and no turn would be required. This is characteristic of ink which as been blotted before it has completely dried; the lighter and more translucent it appears, the wetter it was when blotted. Such as the obverse sides of pages 7 and 8, upon which the second movement is notated, or pages 3, 4, and 5, which contain the first movement.

218

D 567 and D 568

4. Aesthetic and Functional Incompletion D 567 is an example of a fragmentary piano sonata which is not the result of an abandoned process of composition. Therefore, it is not associated with an aesthetic crisis evoked by the intersection of the formal model of the sonata and its most characteristic element, the sonata-allegro movement, and the artistic determination of original and expressive musical content within the boundaries of the conventionally established forms. Instead, it is probably the result of a historical accident; its status as a fragmentary work is not associated with what is absent, but in the fact that too much material is present. The conclusion that D 567 is not fragmentary in the sense of recording an unfinished process of composition places D 568 in a new light. The return to D 568 after a pause of unknown length is no longer the attempt to complete a work earlier left unfinished; it appears as a deliberate revision of a formally complete sonata with the evident intent of substantially revising the extant material. Although it was formally completed, Schubert’s return to the composition and the integration of large parts of its thematic material and harmonic structure into a new sonata implies a certain dissatisfaction with the state of the original source, D 567, and indicates a state of ‘incompletion’ which is associated with compositional intention rather than formal closure. Whether the merits of D 567 are sufficient for it to stand on its own as an aesthetically completed composition is not a matter which can be finally resolved by a study of the sonata or a discussion of its position in Schubert’s compositional oeuvre, but must retain an element of the experientially-conditioned aspects of an individual approach to the work. It is evident from the return to the material that the process of composition, although probably formally concluded with the notation of the requisite material for cyclical completion, was insufficiently conclusive for Schubert. 5. The Conclusion of a Compositional Period D 567 represents the conclusion of a phase of composition of sonatas for solo piano which is primarily defined by cyclical incompletion through the absence of a concluding movement, but in which the movements themselves are complete. It is also a starting point for another transition, the shift to more complex key signatures which is then reflected in the predominance of minor-key sonatas in the following years, although the earlier sonatas D  537 (A minor) and D  566 (E minor) of 1817 demonstrate that Schubert’s compositional development is marked by a process of gradual shifts rather than sudden and drastic changes. Its earliest drafts, specifically the D minor version of the slow movement, anticipate the formal model of fragmentation which follows in July 1817 with the composition of D 571/570. With its formal and expressive connections and similarities to the two completed sonatas of 1817 (D 537 and D 557) and its tentative experimentation with a compositional process strongly associated with

Fragmentation and Incompletion in D 567

219

formally-conditioned internal fragmentation of sonata movements, D  567 stands at the intersection of two compositional tropes in the genre of the sonata for solo piano. It is a conclusion to the period in which cyclical incompletion dominated the composition of fragments, to be followed by sonatas which display a similar type of internal fragmentation to the first version of its slow movement, broken off at the return of the opening material.

A Fruitful Crisis: 1817–1818 I. Compositional Evolution in a Chronological Context In the preceding studies of the sonatas composed between 1815 and 1817, which are characterised by cyclical fragmentation and an absence of compositionally incomplete movements, it became apparent that a strictly linear development in which later works are definitive advances upon earlier compositions is not an accurate description of Schubert’s compositional evolution. The seven fragmentary sonatas of the first period of engagement are defined by diverse formal and expressive tropes, united by their adherence to an overarching model of fragmentation (with the exception of D 567) and by an exploratory approach to the sonata-allegro in a cyclical context. A purely chronological grouping of the sonatas revealed divisions and categories which are not reflected in the clear distinctions between types of fragmentation present in the sonatas themselves, but are nonetheless relevant to the understanding of Schubert’s compositional process as it relates to the sonata for solo piano. A caesura between 1815 and 1816 separates D 154, D 157, and D 279 from D 459 and its conglomerate, which is marked by a proliferation in unattached pieces with potential associations to fragmentary cyclical works. A second caesura, from August 1816 until March 1817, separates the fragmentary E major works from the first completed sonata, D 537. From 1817, the composition of piano sonatas continued with some regularity until at least 1819, after which the longest pause in occupation with the piano sonata occurs, extending until the composition of D 784 in April 1823. The absence of a strictly linear development continues in the three sonatas composed from July 1817 until September 1818; nonetheless, certain decisive alterations to the approach to the piano sonata are visible on a larger chronological scale of comparison, and it is these distinctions, both in formal and expressive approach and in the type of fragment which results, that have led to the distinction between the first and second group of sonatas. Although an examination of the fragmentary works displays a clear break in the compositional style occurring in July of 1817, Schubert composed more solo piano sonatas in 1817 than in all of the preceding years. The six sonatas composed in 1817 are D  537, D  557, D  566, D  567, D  571/570, and D  575, of which three are complete and a fourth, D 567, was probably also finished, leading to the description of the year as a Klaviersonatenjahr. It is possible that a change in his personal circumstances was

Compositional Evolution in a Chronological Context

221

partly responsible for the increase in the compositions for the piano: in 1817, Schubert moved temporarily into the house of his friend Franz von Schober, spending the months of March until August in the company of a six octave piano. As he had no piano at the house of his parents in Himmelpfortgrund and could not afford to rent his own instrument,1 it is notable that the period spent at Schober’s house coincides exactly with the beginning and end of the compositional period encompassing the six sonatas of 1817. 1. Analogous Modalities of Innovation The changes in Schubert’s piano sonatas are best expressed as a gradual shift, occurring broadly across the years 1817–1819, and apparent in its effects upon diverse aspects of the intersection of form and content in the internal structures of sonata-allegro movements as well as the more expansive structures between the movements of a cyclical work, which do not always parallel each other exactly. It is therefore unproductive to set a precise date at which the ‘new’ type of composition begins and the old is abandoned, as this is rarely a clearly defined moment. Caution is necessary regarding an unquestioning acceptance of a straightforward narrative of ‘revolution’ and therefore it appears more constructive and revealing to consider the sonatas which follow D 567 as elements of a continuing process of evolution and renewal, which is inherent in the works themselves. While it is articulated in different formal and musical aspects, depending upon the individual work, this process evinces a fundamental engagement with the confluences of form and content in the genre of the sonata for solo piano. Expressed in the development of a new modality of instrumental expression, which distinguishes the sonatas composed before July 1817 from those which follow, and a departure from the practice of assigning pianistic textures specifically to the structural function of ‘development’ rather than thematic statement, the change in approach is profoundly ‘pianistic’.2 However, it is notable that D 664, probably composed in 1819,3 marks a return to the homophonic and polyphonically-influenced ‘string quartet’ writing of the earlier works. D 664 also reverses the departure from the three-movement model of early 1817 evident in the four-movement structure of D 575, composed in August of the same year, and which finally superseded the three-movement model in 1825. The predominance of a fluid compositional approach to the sonata-allegro model which is capable

1 2 3

Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, pp. 153, 155. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 70. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, pp. 173, 183. In addition to documentary evidence, it is unlikely that D 664 in A major was composed in 1823, the year in which Schubert composed D 784, rendering its chronological placement in 1819 a more convincing conclusion.

222

A Fruitful Crisis: 1817–1818

of drawing upon a partial return to an earlier formal modal and expressive paradigm is confirmed by D 784 (February 1823), which unites the three-movement model of the earlier sonatas with the textural and motivic innovations of the 1817 and 1818 fragments. 2. Manuscript Chronologies In examining chronologies of composition and groups of works, Schubert’s indications regarding the numbering and therein the validity or tenability of the fragmentary sonatas as individual works is of the highest importance. This is made substantially more challenging by the absence of many of the autograph manuscripts and the presence of contradictory indications in some of the extant works. The first sonata to bear a number is D 279 (September 1815), titled Sonate I, establishing the precedent of expunging previous and definitively abandoned works from a newly-defined system of numbering.4 The next sonata, D 459 (August 1816) returns to the convention established in D 154 and D 157 of noting a genre-title without numerical indications, which is once more disrupted in D 537 (5te Sonate, March 1817) and D 566 (Sonate I, June 1817). By 1817 the numbering of sonata manuscripts no longer followed a purely chronological and numerical procedure, if such an intention were ever present. The complexities of the numerical titles of the piano sonatas emerges in March 1817, with the sudden appearance of a 5te Sonate. The effects of an individual system of cataloguing works is only apparent with the proliferation of numerical variants in 1817. The reflections of the numerical titles of the sonatas of 1817 is relevant to Schubert’s assessment of the fragments, and a comparison of the manuscript indications and dates at this juncture may be revealing. Table 9 Table of Piano Sonatas 1815–1818 Sonata

Date

Title and Numerical Indication

D 154

11 February 1815

Sonate

D 157

18 February 1815

Sonate

D 279

September 1815

Sonate I

D 459

August 1816

Sonate

D 537

March 1817

5te Sonate

D 557

May 1817

Sonate

D 566

June 1817

Sonate I

4

See D 279 I, 1: Sonate I, pages 86–87.

‘Jahre der Krise’

223

Sonata

Date

Title and Numerical Indication

D 567

June 1817

Sonate II (corrected on an earlier manuscript, MHc–14943, from Sonate X)

D 571

July 1817

Sonate V

D 575

August 1817

Sonate (on a contemporary Abschrift: Sonate VI)

D 613

April 1818

Sonate

D 625

September 1818

Abschrift: Sonate von Franz Schubert. September 1818.

Based upon this table, it is difficult to discern an ordered system: if D 459 and the surrounding conglomerate do not contain a second E major sonata,5 D 537 is indeed the fifth piano sonata,6 and the decision to begin a new compositional stage in 1817 known as the ‘Klaviersonatenjahr’, with D 566 might have been retroactively intended to encompass the two preceding sonatas, D 537 and D 557. It is possible that the numbering of the six sonatas of 1817, of which the last two are Sonate V and Sonate VI, demonstrates a propensity towards a collection of six works based upon an eighteenth century model.7 However, as D 566 was composed in the month preceding the beginning of Schubert’s work on D 571/570, it appears that at the very least, Schubert was capable of rapid alterations in his system of numbering compositions and that no system comprehensible to outside observers emerges from the contradictory titles and numerical arrangement. II. ‘Jahre der Krise’ It is significant that the year of the piano sonata, in which the first completed works were composed, directly precedes the ‘years of crisis’, roughly defined as extending from 1818, when Schubert left the house of his parents and his position as a teacher in his father’s school, until 1823, after the beginning of a serious illness which forced Schubert to leave Vienna for two years. This period is marked by a decrease in compositional activities in a number of previously prominent genres, including lieder and, from the end of the year, piano sonatas.8 The preceding year, 1822, was marked by a social 5 6 7 8

Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Die “wiederentdeckte” unvollendete “Sonate in E” D 459 und die “Fünf Klavierstücke” von Franz Schubert’, p. 135. Counting D 154 and D 157 as distinct sonatas: the same result is obtained by counting two E major sonatas surrounding D 459 and excluding D 154. Krause, ‘“So frei und eigen, so keck und mitunter auch so sonderbar”. Die Klaviermusik’, p. 385. Walther Dürr, ‘Franz Schuberts Wanderjahre’, in Franz Schubert. Jahre der Krise 1818–1823, ed. by Werner Aderhold, Walther Dürr, and Walburga Litschauer (Kassel etc.: Bärenreiter, 1985), pp. 11– 21 (pp. 12, 18).

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A Fruitful Crisis: 1817–1818

withdrawal and a concomitant reduction in the number of performances of his work, a hiatus in the development of his compositional career through semi-public and private concerts9 with a large number of attendees at which his works had become increasingly well-known in the preceding years.10 In conjunction with the compositional dynamic which produced increasingly brief fragmentary sonatas for solo piano and a general decline in works composed for solo piano or piano duet, Schubert devoted himself to the composition of works on a larger scale,11 including operas and symphonies, and inclined towards more elaborate and complex instrumentations. The function of the earlier piano sonatas may have been preparatory, as the genre lends itself to the exploration and establishment of new formal models and structural elements, due to the relative ease of notation and the similarities present between a piano score on two staves and the particell notation which formed a vital part of the early stages of genesis of works with a more expansive instrumentation.12 1. A Break with Tradition The ‘years of crisis’ are not only biographically defined and distinguished by an interest in composing for the stage on a large scale, but are marked by significant changes in Schubert’s compositional ambitions independent of genre: A change in Schubert’s compositional process is nevertheless clearly recognisable: approximately within the time from 1817 to 1820, a decisive improvement in mastery of form, but primarily, as we will see, a series of entirely characteristic methods of formal shaping establish themselves. Nearly all of the works composed before the aforementioned period display in part an entirely stereotypical treatment of form (I recall my words regarding the ‘outer form’), in part a striking awkwardness in structure and form […].13

9 10 11

12 13

Elizabeth Norman McKay, Franz Schubert: A Biography (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), p. 165. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, pp. 125, 155. Beginning with the composition of the Singspiel Die Zwillingsbrüder D 647 in January of 1819 (almost directly following the conclusion of the last piano sonata of the experimental years 1817–1818 in autumn of 1818), and continued with Die Zauberharfe D 644, the unfinished opera Sakuntala D 701, Alfonso und Estrella D 732, and Fierabras D 796 in October 1823. These years of increased interested and compositional activity in the realm of vocal music led not only to the composition of masses, oratorios, and operas, but also the genesis of Schubert’s first large-scale lieder cycle, Die schöne Müllerin in October and November of 1823. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 125. Salzer, p. 97. ‘Eine Wandlung in der Kompositionsweise ist jedoch bei Schubert deutlich zu erkennen; ungefähr innerhalb der Zeit von 1817 bis 1820 beginnen eine entschieden größere Beherrschung der Form, vor allem aber, wie wir sehen werden, eine Reihe ganz charakteristischer Arten der Formgebung sich einzubürgern. Fast alle Werke vor dieser eben erwähnten Zeitspanne zeigen eine teils ganz schablonenhafte Behandlung der Form (ich erinnere an meine Worte über die “äußere Form”), teils eine große Unbeholfenheit in Satz und Form […]’.

‘Jahre der Krise’

225

As Schubert deliberately altered his formal conceptions and the paradigm by which the increasingly individual musical material of the 1817 and 1818 sonatas was ordered, it is logical that the most visible effects would appear in the most regimented movements: the change in compositional approach and the formal elucidation is centred upon the sonata-allegro model. As the form which in all of its conventionality must place the most obstacles in the way of Schubert’s individual compositional expression, the sonata form – as a schema of the first movement of the cyclical sonata – was passed down to him as a self-determined formal vessel of the formal impulses of the classical period […]. His characteristic as a ‘Romantic’ is, however, to erode the inherited classical foundation from within, viz. outwardly to maintain the old facade to a high degree.14

In the context of the fragmentary sonatas for solo piano, the assertion that the approach to form is conditioned by the use of stereotypes or clumsiness is a misunderstanding of a significant compositional development. The approach to form in these experimental works is neither an unquestioning ‘Romantic’ acceptance of its determinative function nor inability to compose original structures, but the emergence of a new paradigm of the relations between form and material content in which the external contours of the extant formal ‘vessel’, the sonata-allegro movement, are maintained in a nominative function, placing the weight of formal activity upon the internally-generated harmonic and motivic structures of the movements in question. The ‘classical foundation’ of form is not subverted and retained as an empty shell by the procedure of reinvention; in the fragmentary sonatas of 1817 and 1818 a procedure of revivification is evident, in which an established model gains individual characteristics and an innovative new direction. If the musicological teleology in the generation of historical narratives is directed at propagating the formal achievements of selected classical composers, it is true that Schubert does not continue the ‘[…] developmental line of which the course is marked by the names of Ph. Em. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven […]’15 and it is the realisation of the futility of attempting to do so which is present in the apparent moments of dissociation between formal model and expressive material in the three fragmentary piano sonatas composed between July 1817 and September 1818.

14

15

Költzsch, p.  75. ‘Als die Form, die in all ihren Gesetzlichkeiten Schuberts Gestaltungsdrang die meisten Hindernisse entgegensetzen mußte, war ihm die Sonatenform, als Schema des Hauptsatzes der zyklischen “Sonate” – im weiten Sinne – überliefert worden, als selbstgesetztes formales Gefäß der Gestaltungskräfte der klassischen Zeit […]. Seine Eigenart als “Romantiker” ist es aber, das überlieferte klassische Fundament von innen heraus zu zersetzen, d. h. nach außen bis zu einem hohen Grade noch bewußt das alte Gehäuse zu wahren.’ Salzer, p. 125. ‘[…] der Entwicklungslinie ergibt, deren Verlauf mit den Nam Ph. Em. Bach, Haydn, Mozart und Beethoven […]’.

226

A Fruitful Crisis: 1817–1818

2. A New Beginning These years and the fragmentary piano sonatas which emerge from them represent a crisis in the sense of a ‘critical phase of development’,16 ‘both a break and a beginning’, in which the past is left behind and a search for new possibilities begins.17 The ‘[…] growing indifference […] to the traditional requirements of the harmonic structure […]’18 is apparent in the 1815 sonatas and is already focused on the unusual harmonic strategies employed in their recapitulatory passages. In the sonatas composed from July 1817, Hinrichsen’s thesis that the guiding principle of the sonata-allegro movement in Schubert is that of a series of tonal planes in complementary arrangement rather than a constellation of opposition and resolution19 has attained sufficient strength and independence as to be fundamentally incompatible with the demands of conventional recapitulatory structures. In his observations, the exposition and recapitulation are related to one another through a system of ‘complementary equivalences’20 instead of the conventionally established paradigm of a single formal arc of tension and resolution: ‘the recapitulations are largely without radical changes in compared with the expositions’21 but not as a sign of compositional stasis. A profound rethinking of the formal function of the recapitulation renders substantial alterations to its material unnecessary. The evolution of a distinct harmonic trend in Schubert’s engagement with the sonata-allegro movement is centred upon the recapitulation and occurs independently of the status of individual sonatas as fragmentary or completed works. Among the piano sonatas composed from 1817, beginning with D 537 (March 1817) and concluding with the composition of D 664 (probably 1819), the first movements of the nine22 sonatas composed during this period are almost entirely non-conventional in their recapitulatory processes, particularly regarding the harmonic structures of the recapitulation, or

16

17 18 19 20 21 22

Walburga Litschauer, ‘Zum Begriffswandel des Wortes “Krise”’, in Franz Schubert. Jahre der Krise 1818–1823, ed. by Walther Dürr, Werner Aderhold, and Walburga Litschauer (Kassel etc.: Bärenreiter, 1985), pp. 138–39 (p. 138). ‘[…] entscheidende Wendung […]. Wichtiger Abschnitt eines […] Entwicklungsprozesses […]’. Dürr, ‘Franz Schuberts Wanderjahre’, p. 18. ‘[…] Bruch und Anbruch zugleich […]’. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 83. ‘[…] als Indizien einer wachsenden Indifferenz Schuberts gegen die tradierten Erfordernisse des Harmonieverlaufs […]’. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 123. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 96. ‘[…] komplementäre Erscheinungen […]’. Salzer, p. 124. ‘[…] die Reprisen zum großen Teil gegenüber der Exposition keine durchgreifenden Veränderungen aufzuweisen hatten […]’. Counting D 567 and not D 568, due to the inconclusive date of the latter completion and omitting D 655 and D 769A, as they do not contain recapitulatory processes.

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abandoned at or shortly before the recapitulatory entry.23 A modality of creating formal arcs through use of parity is expressed in the three-key exposition, which becomes prominent during this period: it attained its zenith in the years 1818–1821, in which it was present in the majority of the sonata-allegro form movements composed. Through its incorporation of harmonic areas and modulatory paradigms conventionally associated with the development, it is a step away from the tonal duality of the conventional exposition,24 which produces another layer of formal effects which are fully realised in the arrangement of the harmonic structures of the recapitulation: How does Schubert construct the recapitulations of those expositions which use the three-key system? The difficulty lies in the problem of transforming the three keys with their associated thematic entities into a single key. It is entirely natural that in these cases the master could not fulfil the original purpose of the recapitulation; it would have been impossible to express all of these appearances of the exposition in the language of a single key due to the simple fact that a load too great for a single tonality would have resulted.25

In the three fragmentary sonatas D 571/570 in F sharp minor, D 613 in C major, and D 625 in F minor, the problem of the recapitulation in the context of a new concept of harmonically and motivically delineated form is directly approached and ultimately resolved. The ‘crisis’ is a fruitful and productive event:26 it is characterised by fragmentary sonatas which contain innovative formal and musical modalities. These include the principle of harmonic complementarity in the generation of structure,27 a new approach to instrumental composition conditioned by the textural range of the piano, and a novel mode of evoking structure and creating motivic significance through consistency in the generative elements of thematic content and motivic unity across structural boundaries.

23

24 25

26 27

The sole exceptions are D 566, which is dominated by a Beethovenian model and therefore demonstrates an experimental excursus on a different plane more closely associated with musical and thematic content, and D 557, which nonetheless displays an unconventional harmonic structure on a larger scale than that of its sonata-allegro first movement. The sonata expands its tonal plan and places the apparently unavoidable moment of compositional revolt against harmonic and structural-tonal completion at the finale of the sonata, which is in E flat major. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, pp. 89, 118. Salzer, p. 121. ‘Wie gestaltet Schubert die Reprisen derjenigen Expositionen, die das Dreitonartensystem verwenden? Die Schwierigkeit bestand in dem Problem, drei Tonarten mit ihren dazugehörigen thematischen Gebilden in eine Tonart zu verwandeln. Es ist ganz natürlich, daß der Meister in diesen Fällen der Urbestimmung der Reprise nicht entsprechen konnte; wäre es doch unmöglich gewesen, alle diese Erscheinungen der Exposition nun in der Sprache einer einzigen Tonart auszudrücken, aus dem einfachen Grunde, weil sich dadurch eine zu große Belastung einer einzigen Tonalität ergeben hätte.’ From a conversation with Thomas Seedorf. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 123.

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A Fruitful Crisis: 1817–1818

III. A New Type of Sonata Fragment The three sonatas, D 571/570, D  613, and D  625, as well as belonging to a period in which the experiments with harmonic structure and formal models are characterised by adventurous tonalities and the predominance of minor keys among both the complete and fragmentary sonatas,28 are set apart from their predecessors by the appearance of internally fragmented movements which are abandoned at structurally significant junctures. All of the sonata-allegro movements with the exception of D 625/3 are abandoned at or shortly before the point of recapitulation. Although this model of fragmentation is recorded in manuscripts of sonatas which are later completed, such as the earlier notated versions of D 575/1, it is not the case that this type of incompletion is synonymous with a complete notation of the essential musical material: ‘Yet the incompletion of the draft until before or at the beginning of a recapitulation or a refrain should be understood as meaning a complete notation of the material!’29 In the light of changes in Schubert’s formal approach, the emergence of a new fragment type in which the fracture emphasises the formal culmination of the harmonic and structural impetus of the preceding material reveals the necessity of creating an entirely new paradigm of recapitulatory function, distant from the classically established model of tension and resolution. 1. A ‘Crisis of Recapitulation’ The ‘crisis of recapitulation’, so strongly associated with the sonata-allegro principle that all of the fragmentary solo piano sonatas composed after the summer of 1817 until 1823 contain at least one movement which demonstrates this type of incompletion, has its origins in a the first draft of the slow movement of D 567, in which the recapitulatory process is relatively unburdened by the structural and formal significance of its resolutionary and reconciliatory function in the traditional model of the first movement. Discovering the first appearance of a model of incompletion which is definitive for the fragments of the middle period in a context which is distinct from its grave consequences for the integration and synthesis of form and content in the sonata-allegro model is startling if the recapitulatory absence in the sonata-allegro movements is deduced to be the result of a crisis in the approach to a conventional form. In D 575/1, an early manuscript records a break in the compositional process at the beginning of the recapitulation, which leads to its revision and final form as a transpositional recapitulation in the subdominant, in which all modulations affecting the to28 29

Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 145. Költzsch, p. 10. ‘Doch ist auch hier unter der Unvollendetheit der Entwurf bis vor oder in einen Reprisen- bzw. Refrainteil zu verstehen; das bedeutet vollständige Aufstellung des Materials!’

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nality of the second theme group may be avoided, therein undermining the established resolutionary function of the modulation: Such a recapitulation rejects the spirit of the sonata form, because due to the exact transposition of the exposition in the recapitulation, this formal element does not receive any artistic shaping. It owes its existence merely to a process of copying and transposition.30

One of the only two completed first movement recapitulations in the sonatas for solo piano composed during this period is that of D 575/1.31 It contains the only example of a subdominant recapitulation which may be described as conforming to the accusation of modulatory avoidance and representative of a fundamental denaturing of the recapitulatory function32 in that its recapitulation is an entirely unmodified transposition of the expositional material, and is not the result of compositional laziness,33 but the result of three distinct processes of revision.34 The only viable completion of a recapitulation during this period is based upon the negation of its established formal function as a moment of return and reconciliation, and this circumstance emphasises the compositional significance of the sonata-allegro movements in which the recapitulatory material is absent. The chronologically related appearance of fragmentary sonata-allegro movements which contain no recapitulation is indicative of a compositional development centred upon the most fundamental and iconic structural and formal element of the conventionally established sonata-allegro form.35 ‘The moment which defines sonata’36 is evaded, negated, and rendered powerless by the radical openness of the fragment, which is predetermined to reveal itself and destroy the aspirations of a form which finds its apotheosis and teleologically bounded identity at a moment of reconciliation and closure. An essential fracture of the formal and harmonic structures inextricably connected to the defining element of the sonata-allegro does not appear in isolation, removed from the thematic and structural content of the preceding formal sections. The recapitulatory absence and negation is indicative of a process of developing formal instability which appears at the decisive moment in the sonata movement, but has its origins in the forms and content of the exposition and the development. The musical content and inner construction of the movement as a whole render the idea of a

30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Salzer, p.  122. ‘Eine solche Reprise widerspricht dem Geiste der Sonatenform, weil durch eine genaue Transposition der Exposition in der Reprise dieser Formteil keine künstlerische Gestaltung erfährt. Verdankt er sein Dasein doch nur einer Kopier- und Transpositionsarbeit.’ The other is present in D 664. Költzsch, pp. 75, 77. Költzsch, p. 76. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 126. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 284. Kramer, Unfinished Music, p. 327.

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convincing and plausible reconciliation impossible. The recapitulation itself is not the location or the source of the formal conflict, but through its intrinsic formal function and utter dependence upon closure, completion, and return, the recapitulation presents an aesthetic demand which is irreconcilably distant from the forms and content emerging from the compositional evolution of the movements in question. The crisis of the recapitulation, inherent in manifold elements and aspects of the four sonatas composed from D 571/D570 in July 1817 to D 625 in September 1818 and independent of their fragmentary status, is central to the understanding of the evolution of Schubert’s individual renewal of the cyclical sonata form. 2. A Productive Crisis Inherent in the new directions emergent from the 1818–1823 ‘Jahre der Krise’, the crisis of form centred upon the recapitulation which produces the fragmentary movements of D 571, D 570, D 613, and D 625 is the generative period for the sonata-allegro paradigm which defines the large-scale late sonatas, from D 840 until the final work in the genre, D 960. Schubert himself recognised the potential for formal renewal resulting from this period of intensive engagement with the sonata-allegro, writing shortly before the composition of D 784, in which the textural, motivic, and formal achievements of the preceding three fragmentary sonatas are incorporated: ‘it could indeed perhaps be possible for me to invent a new form.’37

37

Deutsch, Franz Schubert: Die Dokumente seines Lebens, p. 182. ‘Es könnte mir freilich vielleicht gelingen, eine neue Form zu erfinden […]’.

D 571 and D 570 The Sonata in F sharp minor D 571 was composed in July 1817 and is notated in a single manuscript (MHc–137) which is 141 bars long and begins on the reverse of a vertically oriented sheaf of interleaved pages. On the first obverse side is a fragment of the alto part of the Mass D 324 without text.1 The heading of the sonata contains not only the date, ‘Juli 1817’, and a signature, but also the title Sonate V. It is a transitional work; from the early-classical inflection of the sonata experiments preceding 1817, it is possible that Schubert directed his compositional energies towards and sought inspiration in a Beethovenian model, the Sonata quasi una fantasia Op. 27 No. 2.2 The sonata points towards developments in Schubert’s interpretation of the sonata for solo piano which follow in 1818, particularly in the context of the fragmentary works D 613 and D 625. Two further contemporaneous movements, a completed Scherzo and Trio in D major and a fragmentary Allegro in F sharp minor in the manuscript MHc–148, now known as D 570, appear to be further sonata movements. On the basis of a shared tonic and the fragmentary nature of D 571,3 it is possible that the three movements form the basis of a cyclical work, which may be further expanded by the inclusion of D 604.4 The ‘reunification’ of fragments has a historicised context which is often inflected by the presumption of a deficit: ‘[…] fragmentation of historical records repeatedly provokes attempts at compensation, notwithstanding incompletion nevertheless to come as close as possible to an erstwhile reality, […] in order to reconstruct as much as possible as well as possible […]’.5 In the case of D 571 and D 570, it is not a deficit in the fragmentary works, but associations inherent in the movements which are the basis for 1 2 3 4 5

Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 331. Krause, ‘“So frei und eigen, so keck und mitunter auch so sonderbar”. Die Klaviermusik’, p. 385. Scheibler, ‘Franz Schuberts Einstimmige Lieder, Gesänge und Balladen mit Texten von Schiller’, p. 271. Badura-Skoda, ‘Vorwort’, p. V. Helmut Hundsbichler, ‘Puzzles aus Fragmenten? Rekonstruktion als Verstehens-Frage’, in Fragmente. Der Umgang mit lückenhafter Quellenüberlieferung in der Mittelalterforschung, ed. by Christian Gastgeber and others (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010), pp. 21–33 (p. 25). ‘[…] provoziert die Fragmentierung historischer Überlieferung immer wieder Kompensierungsversuche, um trotz aller Lückenhaftigkeit dennoch möglichst nahe an einstige Gegebenheiten heranzukommen, um […] möglichst viel und möglichst gut zu rekonstruieren […]’.

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D 571 and D 570

a proposed reconstruction. The following study examines the use of motivic content and unity as a mode of evoking structural coherence within single movements and throughout the cyclical composition and approaches the question of a three-movement or four-movement cycle on the basis of the motivic generation of overarching structure and continuity. In conclusion, the F sharp minor fragments and their motivic and structural processes are drawn into the context of Schubert’s compositional approach to the sonata-allegro and the cyclical formal model. I. Manuscripts and Fragmentation 1. Manuscript of D 571 The fragmentary nature of the single movement of D 571 is a product of the abandoned process of composition, which is visible in the manuscript. The Allegro moderato, clearly the first movement of a sonata, occupies pages 2–6 and ceases in the middle of the fourth system on the last page. There are four empty staves, and the point at which the movement is abruptly abandoned coincides with the introduction of the recapitulatory material. Not only through the concrete physical evidence of the remaining staves is it immediately clear that the movement was abandoned, but also the conformity of the point of fracture with the recapitulatory process is visible in many of the sonataallegro movements for solo piano composed in 1817 and 1818. The manuscript is not yet a Reinschrift, and like many of the extant manuscripts of the fragmentary sonatas6 it is marked by an increasing disorderliness of the handwriting as the manuscript progresses and a notable change in the visibility and severity of the corrections,7 which also become more frequent in the course of the movement.8 The resulting impression is of a work in progress, captured after the early stages of an emerging composition which require a degree of structural and thematic planning, but before the final elements of compositional and musical polish are incorporated into the notation. The apparently

6 7

8

It lacks the characteristic signs including care and clarity of the handwriting, the clefs and key signature appear only at the beginning of the first grand stave, and there are no empty intervening stave between the systems occupied by the composition itself. Indicated by a change to the accompaniment figure accomplished by striking through the heads of the deleted notes in the last system of the first page of the movement and an altered accidental in the third system of the second page, to a figuration of four eighth notes entirely removed through a scrawled excision and re-written immediately afterwards. For example, the progression from a single and minor change to an accompaniment figure on the first page to more serious and wide-ranging revisions to the texture and the octave chosen for the accompaniment in the penultimate system on the fourth page of the manuscript, which contains the beginning of the development.

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fluid compositional process9 and the detail with which markings indicating dynamics, articulation, and phrasing are included indicate that the manuscript has progressed beyond the status of a Skizze or an Entwurf. 2. Manuscript of D 570 The proximity of the composition of a second fragment in F sharp minor, the Scherzo and Allegro D 570, led to an early acceptance of the two disparate manuscripts as three movements of an F sharp minor piano sonata. Uniting, or re-uniting, these two fragmentary manuscripts is rendered more complex by the ambiguous nature of the manuscript of D 570. An examination depends upon an understanding of the chronology and direction of notation of the sonata on a manuscript (MHc–148) already occupied by bars 42–47 of the lied Lorma D 327, which have been energetically struck through. The manuscript consists of two interleaved sheets of paper, producing four full pages, of which the first and half of the second staves of the third (the front of the second sheet) are occupied by the aforementioned lied fragment. The front and back of the first leaf of the manuscript are occupied by the Allegro movement, which is interrupted by the lied fragment on the front of the second page before continuing after beneath it over the following five and a half systems. It appears convincing that, following his usual practice, Schubert composed a sonata-allegro first movement, the Allegro D 570, and broke off the process of composition when he had reached the recapitulation before continuing with a second movement in dance form, the Scherzo and Trio. This interpretation of the manuscript produces two variant formal possibilities: the first, which is supported by the predominance of sonata fragments which contain a sonata-allegro first movement and continue with the composition of further movements in the expected chronological development of a three-movement piano sonata at the beginning of the nineteenth century, renders the plausibility of a united structure comprising D 571 and the two movements of D 570 as a scherzo and a finale unlikely, due to its confirmation of the intended status the Allegro of D 570 as a first movement. The second possibility is that Schubert began the composition in the Lorma manuscript with a finale movement, which required more structural attention, and then later composed and completed the Scherzo and Trio.10 Here it appears that Schubert composed […] the last movement after the first movement and then the others. It is probable that these movements required the most attention and

9 10

This is visible in noticeable fading of the ink particularly at the end of the first and second pages and its pale and translucent colour throughout the manuscript, indicating a rapid blotting of the still-wet ink. Scheibler, ‘Schubert, Franz, Allegretto [E] für Klavier’, p. 448.

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D 571 and D 570

labour and therefore that he notated them first; the middle movements – as will become clear  – were easier for him. It would be an interesting insight into Schubert’s compositional activities, which unfortunately can hardly be verified beyond these few examples.11

However, both of these projections are doubtful given the possibility that Schubert, being aware of the lied fragment on the second page of the manuscript, reversed the existing manuscript and began a separate process of composition on the new ‘first’ page, the reverse side of the outer sheet of paper. The Scherzo and Trio would therefore have been composed first, presumably following the notation of D 571, before the manuscript was once more reversed for the composition of the Allegro from the original first page (the front of the outer leaf of paper), continuing over the interruption caused by the lied fragment until its abandonment shortly before the end of the last system on the third page. In this case, the function of the Allegro as a finale movement would be confirmed, and by inference also the connection of the two-movement fragment to the single movement of D 571.12 A final point of ambiguity regarding the manuscript of D 570 emerges from the discussion of a possible connection between the two fragments:13 in Schubert’s manuscripts it is unusual that the instrumentation is indicated again at the opening of an inner movement, but the manuscript of D 570 bears the scrawled indication ‘pianoforte’ to the left of the first stave at the opening of the Scherzo. This is not decisive proof that the Scherzo and the following Allegro are an independent and unconnected fascicle, but nonetheless produces a degree of separation from the manuscript of D 571 due to the implications of an unnecessary ‘repetition’ of an instrumental indication already present at the beginning of D 571. However, notation of the instrumentation at the beginning of the Scherzo appears to indicate that it is the first of the two movements in the manuscript and the Allegro is indeed a finale. In this 11

12

13

Költzsch, p. 9. ‘Schubert scheint hier […] nach einem ersten Satz zunächst den letzten komponiert zu haben und dann erst die anderen. Wahrscheinlich mußte er auf diese beiden Ecksätze die größte Arbeit und Aufmerksamkeit verwenden und schrieb sie deshalb zuerst nieder; die Mittelsätze gingen ihm – wie noch verständlich werden wird – leichter von der Hand. Es wäre das ein interessanter Einblick in die Kompositionstätigkeit Schuberts, der leider außerhalb dieser wenigen Fälle kaum belegt werden kann.’ The conclusion that the fragment forms a continuation of a single work begun in the manuscript MHc–137 appears inevitable. Firstly, the compositional process to which Schubert adhered when writing piano sonatas invariably begins (in all documented cases in which the manuscript evidence has not been lost) with the first, sonata-allegro movement. Secondly, the manuscripts of the piano sonatas, including the briefest fragmentary works which are formally unrecognisable from the extant material D 655 and D 769A, always bear the title Sonate although all other identifying information (including dates of composition and signatures) may be absent. It is therefore most probable that the order in which the Scherzo and Trio and Allegro were composed is the reverse of that presented by the manuscript, and that the Allegro was intended as the final movement of an already extant structure. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 227.

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case, it is logical to accept that the dissociation of the F sharp minor work across two manuscripts is a result of the construction of the manuscript of D 571. The Allegro moderato movement is abandoned on the reverse of the last sheet, and a conclusion of the movement is impossible on the remaining four staves. Therefore, a continuation of a potential cyclical work through the composition of further movements would require a ‘new’ manuscript, and the indication of the instrumentation before the Scherzo is a result of this separation, already present at the time of composition. These circumstances, as they originate from an objective study of the manuscript evidence and any other reading would indicate a severe and inexplicable divergence from Schubert’s known compositional process prevalent during 1817 and well-documented through other manuscript sources, provide strong evidence for an intrinsic connection between the three movements, inherent in the physical material of the composition itself and the chronological implications of the extant manuscript. 3. Fragmentation in the F sharp minor Sonata D 571/570 Although the Scherzo and Trio manuscript documents a more structurally and formally open and flexible stage of composition than that retained in the manuscript of D 571, the movement is ‘finished’ in terms of a full extrapolation and notation of its ultimate form. This provides an interesting insight into the status of completion, particularly as it exists among the manuscripts of fragmentary piano sonatas, as not entirely unitary and singular, but having differing effects and appearances and encompassing multifarious possibilities. The comparison of the Allegro moderato D 571 and the Scherzo and Trio of D 570 demonstrates that the structural stability and immutability which, according to expectation, should increase throughout the compositional process, are not invariably associated with a work which is complete in the sense that its formal projection is fully rendered in the musical text. A dichotomy between two distinct planes of completion emerges: the more materially complete Scherzo and Trio movement is marked by extensive revisions and rethinking of thematic content and structural arrangement,14 and it lacks the notational stability of the materially incomplete Allegro moderato. Motivic, thematic, and structural boundaries of the extant material of D 571 are firmly established, and deletions and emendations involving multiple bars with profound formal implications for the individual conclusions and transitional preparations of the movement (as in the Scherzo and Trio) are entirely absent. The movement is composition-

14

Examples of extensive alterations are found in the excision and re-drafting of bars 20–21 of the Scherzo, the variant of bars 9 and 10 and the re-notation of bars 20–22 of the Trio.

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ally more advanced than the Scherzo and Trio in terms of thematic development, structural and formal plan, and execution. A nuanced image of completion recognises a ‘complete work’ not as a monolithic concept resting solely upon the occupation of a pre-determined formal construct with adequate musical material, but as a continuum containing a spectrum of independent but fundamentally connected aspects of the composition. This understanding of completion places the fragments in an individual position upon a gradient between the ultimately and indisputably ‘finished’ works (if such a conception is physically and materially realisable) and incomplete works which are so far removed from parity with their formal projections that their fragmentary nature dominates all aspects of their incomplete status. Varying manifestations of formal and aesthetic completion do not alter the status of the F sharp minor sonata as a fragment. Through the combination of the two manuscripts, it is possible to restore the sonata to its original unity, but both the first movement, D 571, and the finale, D 570/2 are unfinished, broken off at the point of recapitulation. The sonata displays a mode of fragmentation based upon a reunited cycle in which internal fragmentation of individual movements is another source of incompletion, conforming to two of the fragment categories presented in ‘The Aesthetic Fragment’, the fragment of production and either the temporary or the dissociated fragment. II. Cyclical Unity Apart from the shared tonality and the indications of the manuscript, the movements of D 570/571 are connected by the presence of motivic elements which are common to the first and the last movements. Using motivically related material in order to evoke structural continuity between movements within a single sonata is a compositional practice which appeared for the first time in D 566, composed one month before the notation of the July 1817 manuscript of D 571. Motivic unity across structural boundaries, emergent in the first group of piano sonata fragments, becomes a definitive focus of formal experimentation in the three fragments composed between July 1817 and September 1818, D 571/570, D 613, and D 625. 1. Motivic Relationships between D 570 and D 571 In addition to similarities in thematic processes, compositional texture, and instrumental writing across the two manuscripts, the most obvious point of resemblance is the appearance of two related, almost identical motives which are thematically significant in the context of the first and second theme groups in both D 571 and D 570/2.

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237

The brevity of the motives does not affect their roles as essential metric and melodic elements which serve to define the thematic content of the first and second theme groups in D 571 and their definitive although less central function as recognisable and significant structural elements in D 570/2. The opening motivic element of D 571 is unusually restrained for the primary thematic content of a sonata-allegro first movement, as it consists of a two-bar period which begins with three repetitions of an octave on C sharp (bar 5) before descending over a major third to a half note A natural and rising once more to C sharp, and forms the primary melodic material of the first theme group in bars 1–27).15 The interest of this theme lies partly in its diastematic construction, as only the opening two-bar period contains a rising interval and there is no principle of rhetorical correspondence or symmetry, as the following three periods contain only descending steps.

Fig. 34 D 571 bars 1–11

A diastematically similar figure is present in the second and sixth bars of D 570/2; each bar is melodically occupied with three repeated C sharps, which are ornamented and repeated in augmentation in bars 3 and 4.

15

Appearing in multiple iterations throughout the progression of the section (as half of the defining opening motive in bars 5, 7, 9, and 11, then in an extended and varied form in bars 18–19 and once more in the reiteration of the opening material in bars 20 and 22).

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D 571 and D 570

Fig. 35 D 570/2 bars 1–6

The minimal differences between the motives lie in the extension of the last C sharp and the ways in which they are embedded in differing contexts, but the presentation of these brief motives at the beginning of the respective movements in thematically significant roles renders their connection compelling. Both D 571 and D 570/2 are notable for the brevity and simplicity of the material of their first theme groups16 and therefore the figure produced by the three repeated C sharps attains a structural importance belied by its length. In both movements, the repeated note motive provides a point of return and recognisable melodic orientation. This level of through-composition and shared motivic identity is a conclusive indication of the connection between D 570 and D 571 as component parts of a single sonata. The interweaving of the three-note motive in the last movement of D  571/570 is not limited to its appearance in the first theme group; the second theme group (bars 39–55) is introduced with a reiteration of the three-note motive, in this iteration rhythmically dislocated to begin on the upbeat to the following bar.

Fig. 36 D 570/2 bars 39–44

The motive, repeated once more in its varied form in bars 43–44, is increasingly removed from its original characteristics of stasis and repetition but remains significant in several related forms throughout the second theme group and its metric identity remains recognisable regardless of melodic alterations and divergent articulations.

16

This is, characteristically in Schubert’s piano sonatas of this period, more evident in the first movement, D 571, than in the posited ‘third’ movement, D 570.

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2. D 571 and D 570: Motivically Connected It is from this recurrence in the second theme group of the Allegro that the second motivic link between D 571 and D 570/2 originates. The similarity is twofold; firstly, the accompaniment motive at the opening of the second theme group (bar 39) in the Allegro is a variant of the opening of the accompaniment figure from the opening of D 571. Although the resemblance between the two elements might be dismissed as a coincidental recurrence of a broken chord in wide usage as an expanded harmonic accompaniment, the second point of connection between the two movements indicates that their similarity is not the result of an accident of composition but a deliberate motivic connection. The appearance of the broken chord motive in D  570/2 at the opening of the second theme group is granted motivic stature and significance due to the simultaneous recurrence of the motive of three repeated notes, which evokes an individual thematic contact between the second theme group of D 570/2 and the primary thematic material of D 571. The reiteration of this previously established connection between the movements in the context of the second theme group emphasises the motivic significance of the left hand arpeggiation. The metric distribution of the two individual motivic elements reinforces the connections to their sources; as in the first movement, the arpeggiated left hand serves as an ‘introduction’ to the primary ‘melodic’ figure, the three-note repetition. A final point of sophisticated compositional structuring is apparent when the connections between the appearances of these two motives, in the primary thematic material of both movements, are placed into a larger formal context. A direct reversal of the static and dynamic periods of the motivic interaction at the beginning of D 571 appears in the finale, D  570/2. In the first movement of the sonata, the introduction of the three-note motive is followed by a half note and a quarter note, under which the repetition of the arpeggiated accompaniment is audible below the second bar of the motivic content in the right hand, which due to the length of the half note is rhythmically more static than the first bar. However, in D 570/2, the relations of motion and stasis have been inverted: the first bar of the two-bar motivic period is marked by a rapid rising arpeggiation conveying dynamism and impulse, whereas the three-note figure is recast not only as the concluding half of the opening motivic period, but also as the element which possesses stability due to its function as the point of melodic arrival. The effects of the motivic mirroring are profound; they are a microcosmic rendering of the overarching interconnection and structural arc of the cycle of movements, spanning the distance between the first movement and the finale. The motivic progression of the first movement, opening toward the continuation of the cycle of which it is the first resonance, provides closure and completion in its reversal at the beginning of the movement which must be placed beyond the possibility of doubt as the finale of a structure which demonstrates internal connections on a thematic level unprecedented in Schubert’s earlier sonatas for solo piano.

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3. Textural Similarities Supplementary indications that strengthen the internal musical arguments for a single F sharp minor sonata emerge from a close examination of the textures and technical demands upon the performer, which are remarkably similar between the proposed first and last movements. Both D 571 and particularly D 570/2 display several unusual qualities which set them apart from other compositions for solo piano during the same period and strengthen their association. The first is the comparatively small role played by ‘polyphonic fabric of a string quartet’17 taken in conjunction with the absence of imitative ‘orchestral’ writing, which are are strongly established and play a definitive role in the aural identities of the preceding piano sonatas. Furthermore, a reduction in the ‘polyphony’ or relatively independent writing of multiple accompanying voices is evident in the outer movements of D 571/570.18 In first movement and the finale a stark distinction between ‘accompaniment’ and ‘melody’, or primary and subsidiary material, is active through longer periods of the composition than is the case in many of the preceding works,19 allowing the incorporation of a wider palette of sonorities and textures. The decreased significance of certain individual lines as an underlying phenomenon,20 through the occasional appearance of more independently directed lines (for example bars 82–91 in D 571, and bars 72–95 in D 570/2) results in a clarified compositional texture as the result of a more hierarchically ordered treatment of motivic content and ultimately the inclusion of a greater range of significant musical elements. A less monolithic approach to thematic presentation is made possible by the strictly defined roles of the melodic and thematic content and the accompanying lines. 4. Instrumental Origins of a New Textural Paradigm The evolving vertical distinctions in melodic and accompanying function and the subsumption of independent horizontal lines into a texture characterised by duality between primary and secondary content is broadly descriptive of an underlying evolu-

17 18 19

20

Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 67. ‘[…] polyphone Gewebe eines Streichquartettes […]’. The scherzi and menuetts are, through their strong reliance on conventionally defined textural contrast, less affected by such textural innovations. For example, the arpeggiated left hand figuration in eighth notes and the melodic quarter note and half note movement which remains constant in bars 1–27 of the first movement (the entirety of the first theme group), a structural division of melodic and accompanimental material which is mirrored in the second theme group of the finale (bars 39–54). A technique which is not universally present throughout D 571 and D 570/2, with the effect of further widening the possibilities of textural expression through the invocation of deliberate contrast.

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tion in the writing for solo piano which informs the composition of D 571 and D 570, in particular the Allegro D 570/2, although the Trio D 570/1 is also affected by specific practices involved in the evocation of a new keyboard sonority. Neither close writing distinguished by three or more relatively independent musical lines, nor traditionally virtuosic elements (which are a prominent factor in the thematic construction of D 570/2) are entirely excised from this sonata. They remain essentially integrated into Schubert’s musical idiom, independent of the instrumentation for which he was composing. However, the significance of their reduced role in D 571/570 and the following two fragmentary sonatas, D 613 and D 625, is primarily in the assertion of a new and definitively pianistic arrangement of textures which, after receding in the deliberate return to an earlier expressive modality in D 664, manifests a resurgence in D 784 and the trio of sonatas composed in 1825, D 840, D 845 and D 850. Contrary to assertions that there is no ‘specific pianistic style […] unlike the piano works of Beethoven, Chopin, or Debussy […]’21 associated with Schubert’s piano sonatas, D 571/570 is marked by a specific instrumental character. This new rhetoric of pianistic composition is not a retrospective inspiration drawn from the textural or instrumental practices of the past, but an expansion of the instrumental sonorities in ways which, from a technical perspective, border upon the ‘unpianistic’ and at times seem to hint at a wish for a full orchestra rather than a single instrument capable of occupying distant registers and producing a vast range of dynamic contrasts. The ‘pianistic’ essence of this new style of composition lies in its close and unique association of the instrumentation with the genre of the composition and not any concession to the technique or construction of the instrument itself. This is indicative of a further divergence in the approaches of Schubert and Beethoven to the instrumental possibilities of the pianoforte, as Beethoven began to incorporate fugues and contrapuntal polyphony into the sonatas composed from 1813, including Op. 101 and Op. 106, both of which were published in 1817. The movements contained in the two manuscripts, D 571 and D 570, are jointly characterised through their placement on the far side of this divide; both are marked by intervals of a ninth or a tenth, particularly in the accompanying elements.22 In addition to the increased use of large intervals and melodic or accompaniment figurations which span a range of more than an octave, the distance between the left and right hands is expanded, dissociating the bass and the treble registers from one another, in contrast to earlier works in which close textures and occasional overlapping lines produced a 21 22

Dahlhaus, x, p. 447. ‘[…] spezifischen Klavierstil […] im Unterschied zu den Klavierwerken Beethovens, Chopins oder Debussys […]’. This is apparent in the opening bars of D 571; the left hand motive, comprising the notes of the F sharp minor tonic, spans a tenth over the first three beats. The entry of the right hand in the fifth bar of the movement reinforces the textural openness and ‘emptiness’ of the large resonances through the repetition of three octaves in the treble, more than an octave removed from the highest note of the left hand figuration.

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sense of compactness and unity. The vertical structure emphasises the polarities of the outermost elements in the treble and bass. These are the most obviously pianistic developments, as they are a reflection (albeit distant) of the realities of execution. The independence of the hands is more prominent in this textural and vertically-structured style than in the instrumentally more ambiguous preceding sonatas and pieces for solo piano. In contrast, the earlier piano works are not distinguished from other instrumental genres by their vertical texture and instrumentally-led writing: the independence of musical content from instrumentation is demonstrated by the C major Klavierstück, which was transcribed from the original string quartet as the Andante D 29.23 A prominent transition in the sonorities of Schubert’s compositional language for solo piano displays a fascinating conjunction between the instrumentally-led expressive changes and a definitively ‘unpianistic’ source of inspiration: the use of repeated chords, often in the context of a defined rhythmic statement, to sustain a single harmony. It is likely that this is a response to the unavoidable decay of a single chord struck on a fortepiano, an attempt to circumvent the diminuendo effect while retaining a static harmony. In this sense, the use of repetition exhibits a more nuanced understanding of the challenges of composing for the instrument. Taken in combination, these two innovations in composing for solo piano are indicative of a changed understanding of the instrument and its expressive possibilities. The first change to textural and registral arrangement demonstrates an increased sensitivity to the idiosyncrasies of the piano, whereas the second development displays the juxtaposition of an understanding of instrumental limitations with the absolute pursuit of musical effects and resonances which originate in an uncompromising inspiration. The fusion of these considerations with an increased awareness of the technical aspects of the instrument produces a recognisably ‘pianistic’ expressivity, which consists primarily of textural and sonorous adaptations. The result, audible across all three movements of D 571/570, is a departure from the idiom of the preceding sonatas and the emergence of an individual style which is uniquely connected to the compositions for solo piano. As a result of the expanded textural palette, a return to moments of vertically closer writing or the insertion of an episode marked by registral specificity24 in the place of large and dissociated registral areas are used as elements of differentiation, in the manner of the textural elucidation of structure which appeared for the first time in D 279/1. The textural and technical commonalities between the first movement and the finale in D 571/570 rest upon a recognition of the widely-spaced sonorities and textures, occur-

23 24

Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 66. For example, the beginning of the transition to the second theme group in D 571, bars 28–43, in which the left hand remains in the opening register but the material of the right hand is placed two octaves lower and expanded by a subsidiary harmonic and motivic line beneath the melody. Similarly, the second theme group of D 570/2 is distinct from the first theme group due to the smaller range and relative constancy of the registral areas occupied by the right and left hands.

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ring in the context of a departure from a virtuosic idiom defined by quickly-executed and florid ornamentation, which is itself not distinct from a generalised conception of technical virtuosity. The pianistic idiom in Schubert’s compositions following the summer of 1817 is marked by a notable decrease in ‘extraneous’ melodic and ornamental material: the sonatas emerging from this period are, seen from a perspective of performance, for the first time truly pianistic sonatas and are permeated by a new consciousness of the instrument. III. Motivic Unity Across Structural Areas in D 571 The motivic brevity and economy which emerges for the first time in D 571/570 remains a definitive and immediately recognisable characteristic of the sonatas, both fragmentary and complete, composed during the following years. It is closely related to the fragments, as the first indications of its importance in Schubert’s sonata structures appear in the unfinished piano sonatas of 1817. The concentration on motivic economy and a highly disciplined approach to formal generation based upon carefully shaped connections between the smallest motivic elements and the underlying construction of individual movements or, as in the case of D 571/570, overarching connections which sustain the cyclical structure of the work as a whole, retains an intrinsically fragmentary character. The extreme simplicity and minimalism of the primary motivic material characteristic of the 1817 and 1818 sonatas is carried forward into the later compositions, such as D 784, but its early definitive appearances are in the two minor-key sonata fragments D 571/570 and D 625. 1. Motivic Function as a Mode of Structural Delineation Increasing motivic economy and elevating brief motivic elements to defining entities of thematically distinct structural areas are characteristic of the compositional period beginning with D 571/570. In the first movement, this mode of thematic generation is visible in the unexpected dimension of motivic and melodic significance retrospectively attached to the introductory arpeggiated figure (bars 1–4). The arpeggiated figure is almost omnipresent in the first theme group (bars 1–27) but remains firmly relegated to a subordinate role with no melodic function. Instead, it provides harmonic and textural dimensions to the primary thematic figure based upon the three repeated notes and an intervallic ascent or descent which is a constant presence in the right hand during the first theme group. After its conclusion, the arpeggiated accompaniment motive is transformed from an ancillary element into a primary melodic entity and gains motivic significance at

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the opening of the transitional passage into the second subject (bars 28–44) which is introduced by a close variant of the opening bar.

Fig. 37 D 571 bars 28–29

This material forms the basis for the following sequence, and is also present as a more distant variant of the opening motive in bar 44, which begins a passage consisting solely of arpeggiated figures without the sustained final note of the original motive.

Fig. 38 D 571 bars 44–48

At first, the derivational figuration rises and then gradually falls to complete the modulation into the mediant (D major) for the introduction of the second theme group in bar 54. The increased significance and redefinition of the arpeggiated figure as a melodic motive is finally confirmed at the entry of the second theme group: the primary thematic material of the second theme group is drawn solely from variations of the arpeggiated motive which was originally presented as an accompanying figuration in the first theme group. The extent to which the musical material of the exposition of D 571 is drawn from the first six bars of the first theme group is unusual in the context of Schubert’s earlier sonatas for solo piano, in which the first and second theme groups are motivically distinct and constructed from independent material.

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Fig. 39 D 571 bars 54–57

Neither the reinterpretation of a motivically significant accompaniment figuration as a melodic element nor the reliance upon material derived from or closely related to the first theme group for the thematic content of the second group (which also figures largely in Haydn’s sonata-movement expositions)25 were innovations in 1817, when Schubert drew upon the process in the exposition of D 571. The transformation of a figure which first appeared in an accompanying function into melodic content was wellestablished in the eighteenth century; ‘[…] already developed by C. P. E. Bach […]’ in the form of a motivically significant accompaniment,26 it was implemented by Haydn as a ‘favourite device’27 and it plays a prominent role in the symphonies of the 1770s. Finally, it was familiar to Beethoven, having led to ‘[…] some of [his] greatest triumphs […]’.28 However, the boldness with which these established practices are combined and the resulting formal significance for the motivic economy of the exposition are a departure from the examples of Schubert’s predecessors. The first and second theme groups are no longer presented as thematically distinct and structurally independent areas of the exposition: instead, motivic unity is elevated to a fundamental principle of form, creating an exposition which is founded upon a sense of continuity. The structural innovations of the transformed accompaniment figure in this sonata rest upon the centrality of the arpeggiated motive as primary material in the first theme group, its subsequent elevation to melodic status, and its function as the thematic material of the second theme group. An emergent process which leads to the consequent application of a principle of motivic economy in D 571/570 is visible among Schubert’s previous compositions,29 25 26 27 28 29

Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 136. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 181. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 182. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 181. The signs of a tendency towards closer thematic connections are present in the Allegro patetico movement known as D 459A/3, in which an inversion and variation based upon the opening arpeggiated figure (bar 1) is incorporated into the dolce second subject (bar 24), as well as the motivic similarities between the first two movements of D 566 and the incorporation of material from the second theme group of D 279/1 into the transition from the first theme group.

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but there is no prior example of an exposition among the sonatas for solo piano in which the first and second theme groups as well as the transitional passages are connected through their reliance upon a single common motivic element, distinguished not through a change in material or rhetorical expressivity, but through a shift in the function of a single motivic entity. 2. The Exposition Repeat The function of a repetition of the exposition is placed beyond the formal convention due to the reinterpreted function of the arpeggiation. In its repetition, the first theme group is a construct of two equally forceful and defining motives, established through the melodic primacy of the arpeggiation in the transition and second theme group, rather than an introductory accompaniment in the left hand and the primary melodic element in the right. The apotheosis of the left hand figuration into the primary motivic element of the exposition acts on a formal level to redefine the sonata principle, in this case through the fundamentally altered experience of the exposition as it is repeated, which is significant for the question of whether Schubert’s exposition repeats are a matter of convention or conviction.30 The repetition of the exposition is not a reiteration of established material in order to establish the tonic and modulatory process of the exposition more firmly and stabilise the primary thematic and motivic content, due to the foregone experience of the motivic function of the arpeggiation. This is made evident by the manner in which the prima volta (bars 100a–101a) leads to the opening of the movement. If the purpose of the arpeggiation were secondary to the repetition, it would be sufficient to exclude the first four bars in which it appears unaccompanied, as the two bars of the prima volta are musically and harmonically sufficient to reintroduce the opening melodic motive in the right hand directly (bar 5).

Fig. 40 D 571 bars 100a–101a

30

Alfred Brendel, On Music (Chicago: A Cappella Books, 2001), p. 160.

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The placement of the arpeggiation in the left hand for four bars in the exposition repeat serves as a final confirmation of its worth as a central motivic element in the exposition. It is not the ‘melody’ of the first iteration of the exposition (bars 5–6) which is introduced by a prolonged dominant pedal and the anticipatory quarter-note figure of the right hand (bars 100a–101a), but the arpeggiation, retrospectively established as an omnipresent and definitive motivic construct. The exposition is expanded rather than repeated and the added dimension of motivic significance, derived from the semiotic process through which the arpeggiation has been elevated to a definitive thematic construct, is only realised in its fullest sense through the retrospective overlaying of the first exposition with its recurrence. 3. Motivic Unity in the Development The importance of this process of confirmation for the arpeggiated motive through the repetition of the exposition becomes apparent in the development of D 571. It is tonally dislocated from the closure of the exposition through a sudden chromatic alteration from the preparatory cadential second inversion and chromatic ornamentation of the F sharp minor chord to a cadential second inversion of F major (bars 99, 100b), although it maintains the transitional motive of repeated quarter notes disposed below and above the constant arpeggiation in the right hand. The change in modulatory direction in the right hand is supported by a divergence in the chromatic bass line, which ascends from B sharp to C sharp in the prima volta but continues its chromatic descent (begun in bar 98) until bar 104, where it establishes B flat as the dominant of the developmental opening in E flat major. The horizontal movement of the bass acts in concert with the enharmonic shift at the opening of the seconda volta, anchoring the modulation to the conclusion of the exposition and preparing the transition to the new tonality of the development through six bars of strongly chromatic instability and postponed cadential closure in two-bar periods, before settling in E flat major (bar 106) and completing the modulatory separation between the exposition and the development.

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Fig. 41 D 571 bars 103–111

The unusual nature of the motivic handling at the beginning of the development lies in its distance from the ideal of an expansion and variation of the main thematic elements presented in the exposition. The introduction of a new motive, related to the right-handed quarter notes placed below and above the continuing arpeggiated motive in the left hand but melodically elaborated, imposes a reversal of the semiotic process occurring between the first and second theme groups, by which the arpeggiated figuration of the left hand attained status as a central motivic element in the transition (bars 28–53) after being introduced as an accompanying figuration. At the beginning of the development, the motivic function of the arpeggiated figure recedes once more as melodic emphasis is placed upon the new content in the right hand. The harmonic and structural continuation of the development is centred upon the motive introduced in bars 106–109 in the right hand and as a result, the development is rendered thematically distinct from the exposition. That the development is based upon new thematic material is not unconventional: ‘Mozart, in particular, likes to introduce melodies that have no obvious connection to the exposition. Haydn, by contrast, generally restricts his developments to motivic and accompanimental patterns from the exposition.’31 Schubert’s innovation is to introduce new material while providing a sense of cohesion and maintaining the developmental function of the section as an exploration of the harmonic and motivic possibilities inherent in the thematic material of the exposition through the continuous presence of the arpeggiated motive, which is the only motivic and melodic constant between the exposition and the development. The value of the arpeggiated figure as a motivic entity lies in its flexibility; in the introductory six bars of the development it is one of two melodic elements (bars

31

Caplin, p. 139.

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100b–105), maintaining its role at the conclusion of the exposition in parity with the newly-introduced quarter notes in the right hand. Subsequently (bar 106) it resumes its function as an accompaniment figure, while the melodic foreground is occupied by the new theme in the right hand. The capacity of the arpeggiated figure to move seamlessly between a functional duality, that of an accompaniment and the primary melodic entity, is central to its significance as the primary motivic construct of the first movement. Its resumption of the function of harmonic figuration anchors the development to the exposition. As in the exposition, the arpeggiation recedes into the harmonic background when occurring simultaneously with a stronger ‘melodic’ theme in the right hand, nevertheless maintaining a motivic and structural identity due to the experience of its temporarily absent melodic capabilities. 4. Motivic Unity Beyond the F sharp minor Sonata D 571/570 is characterised by an overarching unity which acts upon multiple formal and expressive planes. The evolution visible in this sonata heralds a new compositional period, in which nascent tendencies and the origins of significant compositional innovations in the later piano sonatas become apparent for the first time. A period of experimental composition and exploration of a wide variety of formal and aesthetic possibilities is followed by a decisive change in Schubert’s engagement with the piano sonata, in which a compositional evolution directly associated with the later completed works appears. The motivic economy of D 571/570 is a central tenet of its structural coherence, and introduces a formal paradigm in which the first and second theme groups share material. This further underlines the increasing distance from an oppositional interpretation of the sonata principle, already observed on a larger, harmonic scale, realised through the replacement of highly contrasting thematic material to delineate the first and second theme groups and grant them an individual identity with a ‘change in the light’,32 a textural, harmonic, or expressive alteration of already-familiar motivic elements. Instead of emphasising substantive thematic contrast, a new element is drawn into the process of structural delineation: ‘the thematic dialectic is superseded by a dialectic of tone-colour or, better, a dialectic of tone spaces.’33 That the formal resonances of the newly-integrated motivic reduction and relaxation of the structural distinctions after which their distribution had been planned were a focus of deliberate exploration is ap-

32 33

Adorno, ‘Franz Schubert’, p. 25. ‘[…]Wechsel des Lichtes.’ Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 72. ‘Die thematische Dialektik ist durch eine Klangfarben- oder besser Klangraumdialektik ersetzt.’

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parent through their subsequent presence in later compositions34 and results in a sense of monolithic unity. The principle of motivic unity remains relevant for the composition of sonata-allegro movements, although it recedes from the foreground.35 36 5. The Apotheosis of Motivic Unity: the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasie D 760 Another formally experimental work which transcends the established boundaries of the sonata is largely reliant upon the principle of motivic unity for structural coherence: in all four movements of the Fantasie in C major D 760, the defining generator of motivic content is drawn from the eponymous lied Der Wanderer D 493. There is some dispute regarding the precise relationship between the Fantasie and the lied,37 38 as there are no mentions of the undoubted resemblances39 between the slow movement of the Fantasie and Der Wanderer until some decades after Schubert’s death.40 Regardless of the source of thematic inspiration, a structural paradigm in which motivic unity, in the repetitive sense of the fragmentary sonatas D 571/570 and D 625, is central to the formal construction of the Fantasie. The ‘Wanderer motive’, which in its most elemental form is made up of a quarter note followed by two eighth notes, is a constant presence and the primary motivic and metric element upon which the varied material of the four through-composed movements are based. The Fantasie relies upon an extraordinarily brief thematic element not only for the structural coherence of an

34 35

36 37 38 39

40

D 625 (1818) continues the process of contraction and minimisation applied to the thematic material in D 571/570. Further prominent examples in the later works are found in the first movements of D 784 and D 840. In the fragmentary sonatas D 571/570 and D 625, the extraordinary reductive economy in the composition of motivic material from which the exposition is constructed is apparent from a superficial study of the works. The motives in question are either identical or so directly related as to be unmistakeable. In the later sonatas for solo piano, tactics of immediate repetition are replaced by the subtle influences of a harmonic progression or a similar modulatory process, either within the context of individual movements or as a less striking method to evoke an unconsciously apprehended sense of cyclical connection across the sonata as a whole. Fisk, p. 197. An example of deeper, ingrained harmonic and structural connections visible between movements of the late sonatas is found in the emphasised D  flat in the context of A flat major which permeates all four movements of D 958. Maurice J. E. Brown, ‘Schubert’s “Wanderer” Fantasy’, The Musical Times, 92 (1951), 540–42 (pp. 540–42). Krause, ‘“So frei und eigen, so keck und mitunter auch so sonderbar”. Die Klaviermusik’, p. 401. These are based not only upon the remarkable resemblance of the melodic, rhythmic, and thematic material but also upon Schubert’s inclination toward the composition of instrumental variations based upon earlier lieder during this period, such as the ‘Forellenquintett’ D 667 and the ‘Trockne Blumen’ Variations D 802. Brown, ‘Schubert’s “Wanderer” Fantasy’, p. 541.

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exposition,41 but additionally in the three following movements. The motivic congruencies across its cyclical structure and between the Fantasie and the lied are too extensive to be described here. However, the most significant observations to be drawn from the Fantasie when considering the function of the fragmentary piano sonatas are the forms and musical contexts in which the paradigm of motivic unity occurs and its function in maintaining a coherent sense of form and musical progression. This is most apparent through the astonishing variety of formal models which are presented in the Fantasie. The first movement, a sonata-allegro, is followed by an Adagio in C sharp minor in which the ‘original’ lied melody is most closely represented as the theme of a series of variations. The third movement, in A flat major and set in 3/4 with dotted rhythms, strongly resembles a traditional dance movement;42 and the finale movement, which returns to C major, begins with a fugato. The definitive purpose of the paradigm of motivic unity as it occurs in D 571/570 and D 625 is expanded to reach its fullest expression in drawing widely disparate structures together while removing the demand for contrasting material with which they may be distinguished and separated from one another. An extremely reductive approach to the material used to generate large-scale forms does not necessarily result in an incomplete composition, as the ‘Wanderer motive’ is more limited in rhythmic and melodic scope than the primary motivic entities in either of the two fragmentary sonatas marked by the principle of motivic unity. It is central to Schubert’s implementation of the sonata principle, but also to his formal concept as a whole, that the objectively established internal boundaries and their concomitant imposed structures should become as fluid as possible, and that the form arises from the characteristics and expression of its content, rather than being a hierarchically elevated method by which intrinsically differentiated content is ordered and drawn into a coherent structure. The innovations visible in his experimental approach toward the renewal of the sonata principle, including tonal complementarity as a replacement for harmonic tension43 and the paradigm of motivic unity, appearing either through the incorporation and repetition of closely related motivic elements, or through harmonically-conditioned resonances on a more fundamental plane,44 are essentially driven by an understanding of formal identity and musical content. The motivic and harmonic approaches to formal renewal attain parity and become capable of exerting reciprocal influence upon one another.

41 42 43 44

Such as that of the first movement, in which it is the defining motive of the first theme group but also, unaltered, the second theme group in E major from bar 47. In its placement it conforms to the four-movement sonata structure established by Schubert after 1823 in which the dance movement invariably follows the slow movement. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 123. Fisk, p. 197.

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6. Motivic Complementarity in the Sonata-Allegro Movement The elevation of the three-note dactyl to a formally significant entity capable of maintaining structural coherence in the wildly disparate movements of the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasie and its viability as a method of structural development removed from the imposition of contrast upon the motivic construction of the material, apparent in the four distinct formal models of each of the movements, is the result of a formal experiment begun in D 570/571 and further developed in D 625. Schubert implemented a new approach to attaining a reinvention of the sonata principle, although in the earliest sonatas for solo piano it is already possible to recognise the beginnings of an avoidance of a dialectic of oppositional tension through the invocation of complementarity of tonal areas through the exposition, development, and recapitulation as well as nascent indications of motivic fluidity across structural boundaries. Beginning with D 571/570, which follows the establishment of an unpolarised, complementary harmonic principle by which a coherent sonata-allegro movement may be supported, the process of reduced oppositional contrast is applied to a different element: the equally significant thematic elucidation of structure,45 which must no longer rely upon contrasting tensions and forces of tonality and opposition.46 The exposition of D 571 negates the dynamic of contrast between motivic content in thematically distinct areas to support the expression of a substantially different rhetoric and diverges from the models of distinction upon which the sonata principle had relied. D 571/570 represents the beginning of a new compositional evolution; the sonatas which follow display a capacity for formal reinvention and rhetorical and textural experimentation which affects the most fundamental levels of the musical fabric. The evolution in the use and contextualisation of motivic figures, the textural innovations, and the ease with which the planes of the composition, from underlying structural and formal considerations to apparently minimal motivic content, are merged into a single and convincing articulation of form and expressive content are the foundation for the compositions of the next eleven years. IV. A Modality of Cyclical Fragmentation: Middle Movements Among the three fragmentary piano sonatas of 1817 and 1818 which are united by incomplete movements with a break associated with recapitulatory processes, a second type of fragmentation has been postulated: due to the simultaneous presence of three- and

45 46

Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 181. Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 117.

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four-movement cyclical forms, it is possible that these sonatas may also be examples of cyclical incompletion, in which the incompletion of the work is conditioned not only by fragmentation within the movements, but also due to the absence of one or more movements of the cycle.47 Unlike the earlier modality of cyclical fragmentation from 1815 until June 1817, in which the cyclical structure fractures towards its conclusion, the cyclical incompletion present between July 1817 and September 1818 is of a more nebulous type: it is possible that these three sonatas are missing a middle movement. 1. D 571/570 and D 604 As the manuscript of D 571/570 is already separated into two parts, it appears plausible that a further movement of the sonata was recorded on yet a third manuscript, concretely embodied in modern editions by D 604, which is a harmonically appropriate addition to the F sharp minor cycle.48 49 The placement of the movement, assuming it to be part of the F sharp minor sonata, is rendered inevitable by the manuscript upon which the Scherzo and Allegro of D 570 are notated without a break. The only possible placement of the slow movement, which is in keeping with the four-movement model established unambiguously in the completed sonata D 575, lies immediately after the opening sonata-allegro, D 571. D 604 is complete, notated on a manuscript (MHc–141) which contains part of the overture D 470 arranged for string quartet on the first page. The appearance of the overture fragment is a vital element supporting the contention that D 604 belongs to the F sharp minor sonata as a slow movement: the connection is based upon the dating of all three of the manuscripts, which contain fragments of works composed in 1815 and 1816.50 However, there are substantial objections to be found, not only within the context of the individual manuscripts but also through an examination of the overlapping chronologies in the earlier fragmentary manuscripts. Given the disorder of Schubert’s manuscripts,51 is it probable that a particular and deliberately organised system of composition led him to notate the movements of a single sonata upon manuscripts used for fragments of compositions all dated to within two years of one another?

47 48 49 50 51

See the table Types of Incompletion in the Fragmentary Piano Sonatas, page 47. Martino Tirimo, ‘Vorwort’, in Franz Schubert. Sämtliche Klaviersonaten Band 2, ed. by Martino Tirimo, 2nd edn (Wien: Wiener Urtext, 1998), pp. IX–XVII (p. XII). Badura-Skoda, ‘Vorwort’, p. V. Badura-Skoda, ‘Vorwort’, p. V. Deutsch, Schubert. Erinnerungen seiner Freunde, pp. 210, 266, 283, 289.

254

D 571 and D 570

2. Divergences in Chronology and Material between D 571/570 and D 604 Upon closer examination, the compositional dates of the original fragmentary material on the sonata manuscript strengthen the association between D 570 and D 571 while weakening the connection to D 604. The external notations on the manuscripts D 570 and D 571, the lied Lorma D 327, and the alto part of the Gloria from D 324 are chronologically close to one another: D 327, notated on the original first page of the manuscript which contains D 570, was composed on the 28th of November 1815 and the Gloria, notated on the first page of the manuscript of D 571, was begun on the 6th of December 1815. A substantial separation appears between the earlier fragments and the string-quartet arrangement of D 470, which must have occurred after the composition of the original orchestral version in September 1816, more than one year later. D 604 does not display strong internal indications of connections to a larger cyclical structure, which appear in earlier detached movements and imply a conception of a larger form,52 and does not conform to the textural innovations and pianistic writing present in D 571 and D 570/2. The divergences between the outer movements of the F sharp minor sonata and D 604 as a proposed slow movement are not confined to striking departures in the texture of the compositions, but are also apparent in the melodic and thematic arrangement, rhetorical expressivity of individual motivic elements, and the small-scale harmonic structures of the movements. The rhetorical expressivity of the melodic lines in D 604 is primarily characterised by the current of chromatic inflection which informs the composition as a whole; the fluid lines, florid ornamentation, as well as dense and complex rhythmic divisions of individual melodic elements53 which are the predominant expressive mode in this movement create an inevitable contrast with the more restrained and diatonic melodic structures in D 571 and the Allegro of D 570. Textural divergences between D 571/D 570 and D  604 are evident in the latter’s adherence to the mode of polyphonically inflected textures similar to those present in the early string quartets or other genres of chamber music, familiar from the earlier sonatas. The expressive modality of a slow movement has been more closely associated with a polyphonically influenced texture in Schubert’s compositions,54 but the extent to which D 604 departs from the established sonorities and textural paradigm established in D 571 and D 570/2 is sufficient to disrupt an attempt at creating a coherent cyclical structure. The return to relatively independent and closely-written lines is a complete break with the new, more pianistic

52 53 54

The unattached C major slow movements surrounding D 459 and D 459 A, D 349 and D 459A/1 are both inflected by external E major harmonies which imply that they may have been composed in the context of a larger harmonic structure. For example, the second half of bar 1, which contains three sixteenth notes and a triplet. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 66.

Subdominant Recapitulation

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sonorities of D 571 and D 570/2 and the chronologically close association between the two F sharp minor manuscripts which are also connected by shared motivic material supports the proposal of a three-movement sonata, without the inclusion of D 604. V. Subdominant Recapitulation The concept of completion affects D 571/570 not only in terms of its formal projection, but is equally apparent in consideration of formal consequences deeply embedded in its musical material: this is evident from the effects invoked by the subdominant recapitulation suggested by the conclusion of D 571.55 In the context of the earlier sonatas, both fragmentary and incomplete, an intensified appearance of subdominant recapitulations is notable in the years 1815–1817, gradually tapering off from 1817.56 Therefore, D 571/570 appears to incorporate a harmonic model which emerged from the sonata experiments of the preceding years into a structure which is set apart from the earlier works by new textural and motivic approaches. The subdominant recapitulation first appeared in the piano sonatas in D 279/1 (1815),57 in which the divergence from a classical paradigm and the approach to the recapitulatory modulation to the tonicised second theme group were central to the unusual choice of recapitulatory tonality. Suggestions of compositional inability or a profound misunderstanding of the fundamental harmonic principles of the sonata58 which led to these ‘transpositional recapitulations’,59 centred on the circumstance that a recomposition of the modulatory passage to the second theme group is not necessary, are no longer applicable to D 571 and D 570/2, as the relation of the first and second theme groups in the exposition of the minor key sonatas is conditioned by mediant relations (in the F sharp minor movements, D major and A major, and in the F minor D 625/1, A flat major) and a recapitulation in the subdominant does not obviate the necessity of composing a new modulation. Furthermore, the predominance of subdominant recapitulations in the sonatas for solo piano in 181760 indicates that they were a symptom of the formal experiments which dominated this ‘Klaviersonatenjahr’, conforming to the textural and structural innovations present in D 571/570.

55 56 57 58 59 60

The harmonic implications of the concluding passage are, contrasting with the Allegro moderato of D 571, strongly directed toward a return to the F sharp minor tonic, excluding the possibility of a second subdominant recapitulation. Coren, pp. 569–70. See D 279 III: Early Recapitulatory Experiments, pages 94–96. Költzsch, p. 76. Salzer, p. 122. See The Early Piano Sonatas: 1815–1817 II, 3: Subdominant Recapitulations, pages 56–57.

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D 571 and D 570

1. Minor Key Subdominant Recapitulations: Structural Reinvention The most complex element of the recapitulatory process, the transposition of the second theme group into the tonic key and the changes in transitional material and preparatory passages necessary to produce such a modulation is, in the case of major-key sonata-allegro movements in which the second theme group appears in the dominant, avoided by the subdominant entry of the recapitulation. This ‘avoidance’ of the complex modulatory revisions required to return the second theme group to the tonic in the recapitulation has been taken as evidence for an inability to fully engage with the sonata-allegro form as a stable construct determined by tradition and therefore an unwarranted degree of compositional freedom, if not impuissance or incompetence: […] the recapitulations beginning in the subdominant tonality, [can] therefore actually be notated entirely faithfully, often to each single note, to the exposition. I do not intend to discuss a convenience which Schubert allows himself here – a formal freedom which is based upon a fundamental misunderstanding of an important formal principle.61

The view that composing a recapitulation was negligible for Schubert62 and therefore many sonata movements, including D  571, are only notated up to this point is rendered doubtful by the minor key and subsequent harmonic choices in the exposition of D 571. A complex modulation in the recapitulation, necessary in order to bring the second theme into the parallel major of the tonic, fundamentally undermines the conviction that the subdominant recapitulation was used to avoid challenging modulations and is the result of an essential inability to engage with the harmonic structure of a sonata-allegro movement as an intrinsic part of its form. In D 571 there is no ‘benefit’ to be derived from the subdominant tonality: the modulation to the parallel major from the original key of D major for the second subject in its recapitulatory appearance would nonetheless require a modulatory process of a similar level of complexity to that required in a major key sonata in which the recapitulation begins in the tonic.63 A comparison with the preparation of a recapitulatory entry in the tonic in the Allegro D 570 implies that the subdominant recapitulation of the first movement is neither

61

62 63

Költzsch, p. 76. ‘[…] die Reprisen in der Subdominanttonart beginnen, mithin also tatsächlich vollkommen der Exposition getreu, oft notengetreu […]. Ich stehe nicht an, hier von einer Bequemlichkeit zu reden, die sich Schubert leistet, – einer formalen Freiheit, der indessen ein prinzipielles Verkennen eines wichtigen Formgesetzes zugrunde liegt.’ Költzsch, p. 76. ‘unwesentlich’. The questions raised by the incomplete sonata movements regarding their recapitulatory tonality appear in the divergent solutions displayed in the published completions. In the case of D  571, the editions produced under the auspices of Paul Badura-Skoda and Martino Tirimo accept the conclusion of the manuscript as the conclusion of the development and continue the composition in the subdominant, whereas the Leipzig edition of 1927/1928 by Walter Rehberg continues the conclusion of the development until a recapitulatory entry in the tonic is made possible.

Unfinished Movements and Fragment Reception

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the result of a modulatory necessity, nor is it an automatic and unconsidered response to a search for renewal and novelty within the context of the established sonata form. Furthermore, as both D 571 and D 570/2 are abandoned at the point of recapitulation, the choice regarding the tonality of the recapitulation is not a decisive factor in the abandonment of the movements. Both the harmonically conventional tonic recapitulation and the more experimental subdominant recapitulation are, depending on the interpretation of the discontinuation of the individual movements, either equally a matter of routine continuation and thematic repetition in a new harmonic context, or both present similar harmonic challenges to which no convincing solution can be found and which ultimately lead to the fragmentation of the movement. From these conclusions it is evident that the choice of recapitulatory tonality is of less significance than the recapitulatory process when considered from a formally-inflected perspective of a search for the source of fragmentation in the sonata-allegro movements. VI. Unfinished Movements and Fragment Reception The exclusion of a slow movement does not substantially affect the fragmentary status of D 571/570. In its dual fragmentation of the cyclical structure across two manuscripts and of the internal structures of two distinct movements, the sonata provides material for a delineation of the limits of subjective explorations and interventions in fragmentary works. Modern intervention, in the form of compositional extrapolations based upon the formal projections of the sonata principle regarding repetition and transposition of the expositional material, has been incorporated into performing editions in both the first and the last movements of the sonata. It should be acknowledged that the scope of engagement with fragments in which absent or missing material is extrapolated based upon formal models and extant musical content calls for methods of analysis with a heightened precision and reliability. The process involved in an ultimately speculative but nonetheless objectively founded process of reunification which is open to a degree of confirmation due to the possibilities for comparing a range of evidence and information drawn from examination of multiple sources, both physical and aesthetic, is a less grave ‘compositional’ intervention than the generation of new musical material to fulfil a fragmentary projection of form. 1. Intrinsic Implications of Cyclical Form The ambiguity of form in D 571/570 is inherent in the identity of its individual parts. The single movement of D 571, regardless of its incompletion, implies a cyclical continuation and a conclusion, as do the two movements of D 570. The absence of an overarching cyclical structure is made palpable by the compositional and genre-inflected

258

D 571 and D 570

mode of each individual movement. The existence of a movement in a recognisable iteration of a sonata-allegro, in combination with the commonalities between D 571 and established paradigms and expressive characteristics of the ‘first movement’ model in Schubert’s completed solo piano sonatas from the surrounding years is sufficient to suggest the ‘identity’, mereological determination, and intended formal function of an individual composition based upon its intrinsic content. Similar identity-projections of the aesthetic content of the Allegro moderato and the Allegro produce an order of movements within the sonata-cycle; independent of the title attached to D 571, its intrinsic content implies that it was most probably composed as a first movement and therefore D 570/2 would exist within its cyclical context as a finale. 2. Fragmentary Sonata Movements and the Question of Completion The completion of individual movements, common among modern performing editions and based upon their internal formal projections and the extant material, is marked by a high level of unpredictability in the final result and the degree to which the subjectively individual is drawn into the process of intervention. Even within the boundaries of the sonata principles and their harmonic dictates regarding the internal modulations of the recapitulation, there are a large number of variations by which the modulations and transpositions of the original material may be accomplished. Furthermore, the fragmentary sonatas are composed as a method of testing and expanding formal boundaries (as demonstrated by divergences present in the fragmentary works, such as the avoidance of traditional tonal polarities and the predominance of unconventional recapitulations64 in varied and unpredictable forms), which reduces the probability of a strict adherence to established models and expectations. This deliberate distance from the established formal paradigms in Schubert’s adaptation of the sonata principle essentially removes the foundation for the ‘objectivity’ of a recomposition of the missing material; in the absence of an indication from the composer regarding the continuation of the movement, the formal projection must be entirely founded upon the tropes of the genre and a comparison with the completed recapitulations. A completion is therefore an act of calculating probabilities, rather than fulfilling a single formal iteration. It is possible to produce a reasonable approximation by filling out a standard formal projection of recapitulation with the extant material of the exposition, but it would not be an exact reflection of the fulfilled formal projection of the individual fragment had Schubert completed it and, if it were so, it would nonetheless be the result of an aston-

64

Coren, p. 569.

Unfinished Movements and Fragment Reception

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ishing coincidence: precise symmetry with an individual form as it would have existed were the fragment completed remains unknowable, and any completion is therefore excluded from an aspiration to ‘authenticity’. Additionally, the function and construction of the coda in Schubert’s compositions is another significant challenge in attempting to re-construct a fragmentary movement in which the recapitulation and following material are absent. The idea of a single and universally valid completion negates the inherent openness of fragmentary structures, which rely upon the absence of a definitive and concrete fulfilment on the plane of experience, leaving the formal projection as a tenuous potentiality, sufficiently tangible to evoke a multitude of possibilities but without confining itself to a single realisation or resolution. 3. Recapitulation and the Fragment in D 571/570 The ‘crisis of recapitulation’, strongly associated with the sonata-allegro movement in the fragmentary piano sonatas, appears to originate in the notational convention of a solo piano movement in which the recapitulation is not laden with the burden of realising a formal arc: the first version of the Adagio D 567/2. However, D 571 is the first sonata-allegro movement abandoned at the beginning of the recapitulation. Having established the overwhelming presence of recapitulatory fragmentation in the three fragments D 571/570, D 613, and D 625, and its appearance in an early draft of the completed first movement of D 575 in B major, it is evident from the two incomplete movements of D 571/570 that harmonic construction of the recapitulatory entry alone cannot be a decisive point in the origin of structural fragmentation, as the movements contain implications of an unconventional subdominant recapitulation and the traditional return to the tonic. If this were the case, the logical point of fracture in the sonata-allegro structure of D 571 would be the point at which the modulatory process to the second subject begins, not the return of the thematic material which is preceded by a transitional passage or a modulation which itself presents no significant difficulties. The unusual nature of the motivic material and its mutable thematic function in the first movement of D 571 appears plausible as a cause for its fragmentation. Unity evoked across the first and second theme areas may be considered to undermine a significant formal principle of the expositional function, in that a distinction between the structural areas65 is deliberately negated. In this sense, the thematic material is not itself unsuitable or incongruous, but the principles by which it is arranged may be fundamentally incompatible with the emergent form of a sonata-allegro.66 However, it is 65 66

Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 132. ‘[…] the usual function for this moment is that of relaunch – a second start midway through the exposition.’ Költzsch, p. 77.

260

D 571 and D 570

improbable that thematic material which is capable of sustaining a sonata-allegro form until the point at which it is required to return in a harmonically modified but thematically similar iterations suddenly demonstrates its fundamental instability and allows the sonata-allegro structure to collapse precisely at the moment when it is permitted to rely upon the formal and structural processes already established and stabilised in the exposition. It is apparent that the preponderance of sonata-allegro movements which are abandoned at the point of recapitulation is not caused by motivic or thematic insufficiency and does not rest solely upon the unique modulatory challenges of the recapitulation, nor is it conditioned by the presence of a strong motivic unity across disparate structural areas. Based upon the two fragmentary movements of D 571/570, it appears that the moment of recapitulation itself, the structural and thematic return to the opening material, is a critical point in the composition of the fragmentary sonata-allegro movements, independent of individual formal aspects such as the tonality of the recapitulatory entry, structural and musical considerations based upon the generation of cohesion through repetition and variation of recognisably similar motivic entities, and the rhetoric and textural mode in which they are presented. The symmetrical fragmentation of the two outer movements of D 571/570 reveals valuable details regarding the precise causes and origins of aesthetically-conditioned fragmentation within the piano sonatas composed during 1817 and 1818. The works which follow, D 613 (April 1818) and D 625 (September 1818), display close formal similarities to the process of fragmentation which appears for the first time in D 570/571.

D 613 The Sonata in C major, D  613, consists of two fragmentary movements in a single manuscript (MHc–138). As the movements are stylistically compatible with a first movement and a finale, it is possible that the Adagio D  612, recorded on a separate manuscript, was composed as a slow movement for the cycle. Although the first movement and finale are apparently representative of the incomplete movement type of fragmentation, divergences in the point of fracture, which in the first movement does not occur at the recapitulatory entry, illuminate the experimental impulse of the fragment towards generation of harmonic structures which are parallel to but independent from the sonata-allegro model. A compositional necessity of generating cyclical coherence by incorporating the possible slow movement in E major into the tonal plan of the two C major movements creates references to the mediant-conditioned tonal relations between C major and E major.1 In addition to the three-movement cyclical structure, the notated two-movement closed form produces dual formal projections surrounding D 613. In examining the structures of the two movements of D 613, the intensity of the overarching cyclical connections which are based upon analogous modulatory processes offer indications of two incompatible cyclical projections for the work. As a result, it is possible to discuss the fragmentation of the two movements as an attempt to maintain formal openness without excluding either formal model. These circumstances, taken in combination, are considered as grounds for the fragmentary status of the sonata. I. Compositional History 1. Manuscript The manuscript containing the first movement and finale of D 613, composed in April 1818, consists of two unfinished movements in C major notated upon two interleaved

1

Similar mediant relations appear in the Adagio D 459A/1 and the Adagio D 349, two earlier movements which exist in tenuous formal constellations surrounding potential E major cycles.

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D 613

sheets of paper, which are folded in half and offer eight full pages. It resembles the manuscripts of the earlier fragmentary piano sonatas: the first page bears the heading Sonate and the date and a signature on the right.2 The NGA refers to the second movement as ‘fragment of a further movement’,3 reflecting the unusual formal construction of the manuscript,4 as the identity of the latter movement as a finale is strongly implied by the time signature, 6/8, and the motivic structure. If this were the case, the sonata would also be unique among Schubert’s compositional output in that it is the only piano sonata consisting of two movements which demonstrates cyclical completion through the inclusion of a finale.5 From an examination of the manuscript in isolation, it appears that in light of the shared tonality and absence of any intervening movement, combined with the increasing diversity of formal models for the composition of piano sonatas in 1817, this sonata is a formal experiment and not to be seen as cyclically incomplete through one or more missing movements. Based upon the processes recorded in the manuscript, it appears that the composition of a slow movement was not part of the original notation of the sonata as a cyclical construct, and this circumstance is further emphasised by the unusual use of the last one and a half empty staves on the fourth page of the manuscript (the reverse of the second leaf). The first movement is broken off after approximately half of the penultimate stave has been filled, before the entry of the recapitulatory material; subsequently, the next page (horizontally over the leaf and without the necessity of turning a page) is occupied by the finale in 6/8. However, upon reaching the end of the fourth page of the finale, Schubert was evidently not yet prepared to interrupt the composition and, for reasons which are deeply revealing of the process behind the proliferation of movements abandoned at the entry of the recapitulatory material, did not simply continue on a new sheet of paper. The last seven bars of the finale are notated directly following the interrupted composition of the first movement,6 an observation which had escaped Julius Epstein in the 1897 publication of the supplemental volume (XXI, 2) of the AGA in which the printed finale concludes at the end of the last page of the manuscript. From an examination of the disruption to the finale, it is possible 2

3 4 5 6

A tempo marking (moderato) and an instrumental indication, followed by the grand stave including treble and bass clefs and a time signature are also present. The clefs are, unusually, also entered in the second stave but are omitted afterwards. The empty intervening staves characteristic of the more advanced phases of composition (Reinschriften) are not present; nor does the presence of substantial corrections and eradications throughout the manuscript produce the impression of a Reinschrift. Franz Schubert, Werke für Klavier zu zwei Händen. Klaviersonaten II, ed. by Walburga Litschauer (Kassel usw.: Bärenreiter, 2003), p. 146. ‘Fragment eines weiteren Satzes’. MHc–138 in the catalogue of the ISIL AT-WBR. Therein it is unlike D 566, which continues after the second movement with an extensive scherzo and trio, and in which the formal implications of a two-movement structure are influenced by its similarities to Beethoven’s two-movement Op. 90. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 355.

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to make valuable observations regarding the process of composition, having relevance beyond D 613/2 to the sonatas of 1817 and 1818. 2. The Dissociation of the Finale Firstly, the choice to continue composing in the limited space available after the end of the first movement is only logical if Schubert intended to add very little material to the finale movement. Additionally, the importance attached to the notation of precisely these seven bars, which directly prepare the entry of the recapitulation, is clear; their notation was vital for the conclusion of compositional work on this Niederschrift. The possibility of beginning a new manuscript, presumably with enough space to notate the recapitulation in full, was not necessary; the structural caesura at the end of the development was the planned point of conclusion for the notation of this manuscript. However, it is equally apparent that the addition of the final bars did not occur immediately after the composition of the last full page of the manuscript.7 Therefore, the process of notation was at least briefly interrupted and continued on the same manuscript for the purpose of bringing the finale to its conclusive but not completed compositional stage.8 The process is unambiguous; Schubert, having reached the end of the available manuscript, intended to continue the finale but not to complete the movement. The earlier fragmentary sonatas do not demonstrate either a divided compositional process within a single manuscript or the emergence of cyclical completion through the continuation of a working process which is not only unaffected by the caesuras and absent material of the individual movements, but incorporates the lacunae which result as a central element of the compositional evolution of the work. 3. Cyclical Function Between Movements D 613/1 draws upon the textural idiom of thematic presentation in unaccompanied octaves (bars 1–8) introduced in D 279. The movement is characterised by bold and unexpected modulations, which are at least partly informed by its stylistic inspirations; the strong contrast between the first and second theme groups emphasises the harmonic extrapolation of the sonata-allegro structure. The finale is also characterised 7 8

On page eight: the last seven bars of the finale at the end of the first movement are written in pencil, whereas the rest of the movement and also the preceding Moderato movement are notated in ink with a fine-nibbed pen and display no noticeable divergences in handwriting or material. That Schubert intended the movement to continue, and that this intention was present before the interruption and resumption of composition in pencil at the end of the first movement is made clear by the V. S. (volti subito) which is written in the same hand and the same ink immediately following the final bar line on the last page.

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D 613

by its cyclical position; the time signature, 6/8, is a typical element of the last movement in Schubert’s sonatas, and the references to a lilting dance with dotted rhythmic motives (sautillant figuration)9 reminiscent of a French gigue are similarly associated with the ‘finale’ trope, as are the phrase structure and the melodic and metric sense of energetic and forward-driven activity which are apparent from the content of the movement (although there is no indication of a tempo). In this sense, the references to the French gigue are of musical significance, as the dotted rhythms and unequal division of the triplet halves of the duple metre may provide a further insight as to the intended tempo in conjunction with the metric and thematic similarities to the finale movements of D 537, D 557, and D 664. The explicit references to a dance-form may account for the absence of a scherzo or menuett and trio; to avoid the redundancy of two ‘dances’ in close proximity, the omission of the former allows more potential for the dance-like elements of the finale to be explored. 4. A Three-Movement Structure Nevertheless, it is possible that D 613 was not originally intended to contain only two movements, but displays a form of cyclical fragmentation or incompletion arising from the absence of a middle movement, a formal possibility which is characteristic of the three absent-recapitulation fragments.10 An extension of the completed two-movement cycle by inserting a slow movement produces a three-movement structure which conforms to a model familiar from the completed sonatas which precede D 613 and also the later D 664, in which all of the finale movements are in a similar style to that of D 613.11 Additional weight is given to the similarities present in the finale movements through an examination of their time signatures (3/8 or 6/8) which are an unusual choice for Schubert: ‘[…] the concentration in the years 1817/1818 is noteworthy.’12 All of the other sonatas which share these metric characteristics in their first movements and finales evince a fast–slow–fast three-movement structure. The Adagio in E major D 612, dated April 1818, has been suggested as a detached slow movement;13 14 at first glance this is unlikely based upon the material evidence

9 10 11

12 13 14

Little and Jenne, p. 145. Additionally, D 571/570 and D 625. See D 571 and D 570 I: Manuscripts and Fragmentation, pages 232–236 and D 625 I: Fragmentation, page 292. The finales of D 557 (Allegro), D 567 (Allegretto), and D 664 (Allegro) share the 6/8 time signature of the finale (without a tempo) of D 613, and the finale of D 537 (Allegro vivace) is in 3/8). Additionally, in the three sonatas D 557, 567 (composed in 1817) and D 613 (April 1818), the first movements are set in 3/4 time. The first movement of D 537 is also in 6/8. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 50. ‘Auffällig ist die Häufung in den Jahren 1817/1818.’ Költzsch, p. 12. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, pp. 23, 81.

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contained in the manuscript of D  613. Schubert’s working process, regardless of manuscripts which appear to indicate the composition of possible alternative middle movements,15 established the cyclical structure of the piano sonatas and appears to have remained stable independent of the fragmentary and unfinished status of the movements themselves,16 and the manuscript of D 612 bears a date, which is extremely unusual for a manuscript intended as an inner movement of a larger work.17 It is striking that the compositions for piano which are clearly identifiable as single works without a larger cyclical affiliation fall into distinct categories. Most common are Fantasies (such as D 605, probably composed between 1821 and 182318 and D 605A) or, in a continuation of a genre of composition which was present throughout the early years of composition (from 1812 with the lost 12 Menuetts and Trios D 22), a set of short pieces or dances such as scherzi (for example D 593) or menuetts and trios. The compositions intended to stand alone without being integrated into a cyclical form are characterised by a strong formal identification with an established trope, and conceived on a smaller and less musically ambitious scale than the sonata experiments. 5. D 612 as a Slow Movement There are some indications that D  612 cannot be completely excluded as the result of a return to the working process which produced so many isolated movements (in particular slow movements, with a lesser quantity of finale movements) in 1815 and 1816. It may have been composed in a manner similar to the first version of the slow movement of D 567 and D 568, to be later incorporated into a cyclical context.19 The date of composition is highly coincidental, and there are very few truly independent single compositions for solo piano which originate in 1818. Additionally, the harmonic content of the first movement of D 613 provides a tenuous contraindication. From the Adagio D 459A/1 and its probable connections to an E major cyclical work, it appears the mediant relation of C major and E major and the harmonic tensions between them 15 16

17

18 19

See the Table of Unattached Movements, Appendix, pages 402–405. The use of the remaining one and a half staves at the conclusion of the first movement to conclude the first stage of composition of the finale is an additional argument against the possibility of a missing or detached slow movement; it is evident that the abandonment of the first movement was directly followed by the beginning of the second movement finale and that as Schubert began composition on the latter movement he saw no reason to economise with the manuscript. The detached Scherzo and finale D 570 are not individually dated, and even the more dubiously connected individual movements (for example, the Allegretto in C major D 346, suggested as the last movement of the unfinished C major sonata D 279, the Rondo D 506 in E major, a possible conclusion for D 566, and the Adagio D 505, of which the incipit appeared in a catalogue as the slow movement of D 625) are not individually dated. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 350. See D 567 and D 568, III, 2: Versions of the Slow Movement, pages 211–214.

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were of interest to Schubert.20 Not only are the tonalities of the two C major movements and the E major D 612 fundamentally plausible as elements of a tripartite structure, but both movements of D 613 draw upon E major for harmonic structure and the evocation of a formal dynamic at structurally significant moments. The integration of cyclical tensions between movements which have ‘strongly dissonant’ key signatures into the tonal plan of individual movements, or the ‘[…] transfer of conflict resulting from the movement tonalities to the tonal plan of individual movements or in reverse, the transfer of tensions between key-signatures originating in the first movement onto the structure of the movements […]’21 is characteristic of Schubert’s mode of evoking formal cohesion in the piano sonatas, and therein the references to E major within D 613 are of formal importance. The first reference to E as a harmonic centre in the first movement is not the major, but the minor variant; the third theme group (or post-cadential appendix22 in bars 78–83) is marked by a vacillation between G major and E minor.23 The E minor cadences, at intermediate points in the last four phrases,24 act as a point of harmonic distance to the G major dominant, providing a hint of the centrality of E major to the internal structure of the movement and the overarching cyclical harmonic plan. Reliance upon the relative minor of the dominant, at the conclusion of the exposition after the appearance of the first perfect authentic cadence on the dominant,25 is not in itself an unusual process, and is therefore incapable of producing a necessary distortion or aberration in the harmonic model of the sonata principle sufficient to demand later cyclical fulfilment through the inclusion of an E major movement. However, it is an early foreshadowing of the formally and structurally significant role played by the E major harmonic area in D 613/1, in which its appearance at the conclusion of the development severely destabilises the harmonic orientation towards the tonic.26

20 21 22 23

24 25 26

See D 459 and D 459A VII: D 459A: Intrinsic Cyclical Connections, pages 158–165. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, pp.  26–27. ‘[…] stark dissonierenden Satztonarten […]’. ‘[…] den sich aus den Satztonarten ergebenden Konflikt auf die tonale Anlage der Einzelsätze oder umgekehrt die im Kopfsatz initiierten Tonartenspannungen auf das Satzgefüge überträgt.’ Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 17. The cadences throughout the transition and third theme group are unambiguously in G major, but the E minor tonality is central to the harmonic structure and tension throughout these passages; its structural significance is emphasised by the construction of a cadential process which is symmetrical to the dominant seventh and tonic progression implemented to confirm the formal establishment of the G major dominant at the conclusion of the exposition in preparation for either the repeat or the transition to the development. Bars 70–71, 75–76, and in a modified form, not preceded by true dominant seventh in B major in bars 78–79 and 81–82. Hepokoski and Darcy, p. xxvi. Mirroring the evocation of distance and tension through E minor inflections in the context of a cadence on the dominant at the conclusion of the exposition, the five bars at the end of the development are centred upon an unusual harmonic preparation for the return to C major. Instead of a sense of return evoked through a modulation to the dominant and subsequent cadence in

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The alienating qualities and unusual independence of the E major harmonies from the context in which they appear and the decisive role of the tonality in the formal construction of the movement are evident in the manner in which they are integrated into D  613, which strengthens the arguments based upon the dates of composition and the unusual two-movement structure of D 613 for the addition of D 612 as a slow movement. II. Cyclical Implications of Harmonic Structures Examining the significance of the mediant as it relates to the cyclical form of the fragmentary D 613 reveals that the mediant plays a fundamental role in as an anchor for harmonically defined architectonic projections in the first movement and the finale, which remain inconclusive due to the fragmentary status of both movements. 1. Fragmentation and Form: Cyclical implications of E major In D 613/1, the E major mediant appears for the first time in a formally significant position at the conclusion of the development, abruptly separated from the preceding material by a change in the metric structure (bars 116–117).

Fig. 42 D 613/1 bars 116–121

The entry of the recapitulation is expected to appear as a moment of return and harmonic familiarity, and Schubert’s choice of the unsettling E major tonality, in combination with the presentation of the tonic note of C as a discordant suspension from a previous harmony places the entrance of E major in a position of harmonic and formal importance, producing a structural openness and an unresolved discursion in the harmonic plan of the movement. However, the fragmentary nature of the first moveC major, the development is abandoned in E major; the tonic note of C is included in the first of these transitional bars (117) as a discordant and distant element, a passing augmentation of the B natural dominant over an E pedal, which ‘resolves’ downwards two bars later (119) to the expected B natural and leaves an unclouded E major chord behind.

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ment and the absence of a recapitulation and a coda render further examination of the formal implications of the alien tonality difficult. It is tempting to assume that the unexpected emphasis on E major at a formally and harmonically incongruous point and its fundamental effects upon the function and identity of the tonic at the entry of the recapitulation require a ‘justification’ or explication later in the work. This position raises two questions which are relevant to the study of form in incomplete compositions; firstly and more fundamentally, it is necessary to consider whether a narrative or dramaturgical principle of action and consequence is directly applicable to or appropriate for the examination of a sonata movement.27 The insistence that an unusual and unexpected E major modulation should have a harmonic and formal consequence, acting as a kind of Chekhovian pistol,28 must be approached with caution, although in the case of D 613/1 the presence of a startling modulatory ‘weapon’ of destabilisation is undeniable. It is perhaps too much to demand that it be detonated later in the composition. In this interpretation, the E major harmonies of the conclusion of the development may be a small-scale harmonic aberration. The second possibility accepts the potential ‘explosion’ of the unfinished promise of the E major harmony as an element of formal significance for either the movement or the cycle, but leaves the question of its integration open, as elements of the recapitulation (the modulation to the tonic before the entry of the second subject, analogous to bars 32–40 in the exposition, and the possible restatement of the closing material originally presented in G major in bars 78–83 of the exposition, with strong but temporary inclinations to E minor) and the coda offer formal possibilities for closing the harmonic arc opened at the E major preparation of the recapitulation, obviating the harmonically invoked necessity of including a movement in E major. The challenges presented by assessing the cyclical implications of an unusual harmonic element in the context of an unfinished movement accentuate the compositional significance of the recapitulation and the coda. Without the completed movement it is impossible to judge whether this process of formal integration within the boundaries of the first movement is more probable than the implication that E major plays a vital role in the cyclical plan of the sonata, which would strongly imply the inclusion of an individual movement in E major, perhaps D 612.

27

28

The simultaneous use of ‘narrative’ and ‘dramaturgical’ to describe D  613/1 is deliberate, as the movement contains a structure which is characterised by a progressive momentum, as would be expected of a narrative. However, this structure is not elucidated through gradual alterations and development in the substance. Instead, contrasting structural areas which are distinguished through the dramaturgical expressivity and are therefore static in their internal structural properties, are placed next to one another with very little intervening material and therefore a minimum of formal progression or transition. Donald Rayfield, Anton Chekhov. A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1998), p. 203. ‘If in Act I you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act.’

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2. The Mediant as Tonal Centre in D 613/2 In the duality of cyclical implications extending from the E major transition to the development in D 613/1 and its enharmonic dislocation of the tonic through A flat major, the inclination toward an overarching cyclical significance for the harmonic process and insertion of the alien tonality is strengthened by the integration of a similar process at a point of formal significance in the finale. In a modulatory process which is functionally equivalent to the conclusion of the development in the first movement (bars 117–118), the second theme group of the finale (from bar 47) begins with an enharmonic reinterpretation of the A flat as a G sharp; the precise location of the enharmonic transition is unmistakeable due to the introduction of the new tonic, E natural, in the bass.

Fig. 43 D 613/2 bars 43–47

The decisive moment in the modulatory process at the end of the transition from the first theme group (bars 31–46) is the ‘Scharnierstelle’ or hinge-point at which the A flat is transformed into a G sharp, the mediant of the new E major tonic, in bar 47, a modulatory tactic established as a mode of connection between the end of the first theme group and the beginning of the second theme group in Schubert’s sonata-allegro movements.29 The modulatory processes which appear at formally significant junctures in the first movement and the finale rely upon the same enharmonic shift, which strengthens the harmonically disruptive effect of the references to the distant key of E major in a cyclical context, and creates a strong sense of formal unity and parallelism between the two movements. It is possible that the extensive integration of E major into the tonal plan of the two-movement manuscript is intended to counterbalance the unity of the tonic keys. There is an inherent potential for monotony in a two-movement structure in which the tonic remains the same, particularly within a construct in which the constituent movements are substantially longer than those of the single-tonality suites of the eighteenth century (as the variety of metrically and texturally varied models

29

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 85.

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in close proximity offers a different modality of evoking contrast than is possible in the longer movements of a Schubertian piano sonata). In D 613, the incorporation of a tonality alien to both movements acts against the otherwise limiting range of two C major movements, as the E major tonality gains overarching formal importance for the cycle, rather than being confined to producing harmonic tension in the limited confines of a single section or an individual movement. III. Enervation of Form in D 613/1 The formal role played by the mediant relations centred upon A flat as a modulatory focus and the reiteration of its enharmonic function as the mediant of E major is not only to create continuity between the first movement and the finale, but to clarify the modulatory process embedded in both movements through the juxtaposition of two previously dissociated elements, the placement of the modulation to E major and the use of the enharmonic shift on A flat. 1. Mediant Relations and the Three-Key Exposition Although the departures from convention in the harmonic plans of the expositions of both movements of D 613 do not extend to the composition of a concluding passage in a key other than that of the dominant, the ‘three key system of the exposition’30 which results from the distant modulations initiated by relations to the mediant expands the harmonic range of the exposition. There is no necessity which dictates the approach of the dominant via E flat major or E major: arriving at such distant tonalities and returning once more to the original dominant destabilises the harmonic function of establishing the tonic and progressing to the dominant in preparation for the more adventurous content of the development. Table 10 Tonal Plan of D 613/1 Moderato: Exposition First Theme Group

Second Theme Group

Third Theme Group

Bars 1–20

Bars 41–57

Bars 64–84

C major

E flat major

G major

30

Salzer, p. 102. ‘[…] Dreitonartensystem der Exposition […]’.

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Table 11 Tonal Plan of D 613/2: Exposition First Theme Group

Second Theme Group

Third Theme Group

Bars 1–31

Bars 47–62

Bars 81–90

C major

E major

G major

In spite of the similarities in the brevity of the modulation between the first and second theme groups in both movements, the two are distinguished by the thematic treatment of the expositions. In his interpretation of the construction of the three key system, Felix Salzer first divides the exposition into two primary thematically defined areas, the ‘Hauptsatz’ and the ‘Seitensatz’, of which the latter consists of two harmonically differentiated areas connected by a modulation.31 The distinctness of the thematic treatment in the piano sonata expositions and its analogues with Salzer’s observed ‘three key system’ often renders the description of a ‘three theme system’ equally plausible. However, the application of the formal model of the ‘Haupt-’ and ‘Seitensatz’ to the complex expositional forms demonstrated in Schubert’s piano sonatas is centred upon the classical model of the tonic-dominant tension in the exposition and excludes the possibility of a deliberate and critical engagement with the formal tradition, which is evident in the increased harmonic weight placed upon the middle group of both expositions due to its tonality. As a result of an overly formalistic view of the expositional construction ‘[…] the emphasis falls upon the dominant as the concluding key of the exposition. In this way Schubert’s three-key expositions are projected backwards onto a conventional basic form’32 and this circumstance may explain Salzer’s terminological avoidance of the Schlusssatz of the exposition. In light of the formal significance placed upon the sonata-allegro first movement, it is not unexpected that the distinctions between thematic material and the associated expressive content are more clearly drawn in D 613/1 than in the finale. The three thematic areas of the first movement are individually characterised by strong contrast and an absence of any shared motivic content. D 613/2 contains a degree of motivic development and continuity through the exposition, although it does not negate the identity of the closing material as an independent formal element which cannot be included with the second theme group because of the necessity for the latter to achieve modulation to the dominant.33 The structural effects of the A flat modulations are not

31 32

33

Salzer, pp. 102–3. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 86. ‘Die Betonung fällt damit auf die Dominante als die Schlußtonart der Exposition. Auf diese Weise werden Schuberts Dreitonartenexpositionen auf ein konventionelles Grundmuster zurückprojiziert.’ Salzer, p. 102.

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confined to the harmonic plan of the two movements, but have an underlying formal influence on the thematic configurations of the exposition and determine the extent to which connections and interrelations are possible. As the structural principles of the sonata-allegro permeate the composition of a single movement, making themselves felt not only in the larger harmonic plan and underlying form, but also in the choice of thematic material and expressive content, the A flat-based and internally generated structures are similarly and completely integrated in all levels of the compositional process. That the centre and origin of the parallel structures in D 613 are harmonic in nature is only to be expected; the role of the harmonic plan in Schubert’s conception of the sonata form is of the most fundamental importance. […] the thematic, syntactic, and rhythmic innovations of the sonata form for Schubert have not only their equivalent, but their foundation in the treatment of the harmony – that the individualities of the sonata form for Schubert are generally best understood as […] the individualities of the formally-generative harmony.34

2. Motivic Content and Primacy of an Internally Generated Harmonic Structure The rise of a highly individual harmonic structure as definitive for Schubert’s approach to the sonata-allegro movement is underlined by an unusual approach to the motivic material of the first movement of the sonata, which is diametrically opposed to that of the contemporaneous fragmentary sonatas, D 571/570 and D 625. Whereas these fragmentary first movements are marked by a stark reduction in the generative content from which structurally distinct but thematically related expositional constructs are created, D 613/1 is striking in its presentation of a broad and eclectic range of musical influences. In addition to a developing interest and attention to a more ‘pianistic’ style of composition and the incorporation of a new textural sensitivity and above all a drive towards innovation based upon the instrumental possibilities of the piano,35 which are present throughout the sonatas for solo piano composed between 1816 and 1818, D 613/1 in particular is set apart by its attention to the expressivity and ornamentation drawn from vocal music.

34

35

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 30. ‘[…] die thematischen, syntaktischen und rhythmischen Innovationen der Sonatenform bei Schubert nicht nur ihr Äquivalent, sondern ihre Grundlage in der Behandlung der Harmonik haben – daß überhaupt die Eigenarten der Sonatenform bei Schubert als […] Eigenarten der formbildenden Harmonik am besten zu begreifen sind.’ Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, pp. 69–70.

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An aesthetic of virtuosity, salon music, and vocal expressivity36 is not the only potential source of external inspiration present in the sonata: direct influences from Beethoven’s compositions are also apparent, particularly in the first theme of the first movement. The texture (both themes are presented in open and unaccompanied octaves), melodic contours, and rhythmic content of the first three bars of D 613 are strikingly similar to the first three bars of Beethoven’s Piano Trio in C minor Op. 1 No. 3 (published in 1795).37 Although it is possible that the resemblance between the two works is merely superficial or based upon an accidental echo, the tonality of the Beethoven trio raises an interesting possibility. If the central musical content of the main theme is drawn from the C minor trio, the centrality of the A flat to the harmonic plan of D 613 is placed in a new context through its intrinsic functional role as the submediant of the C minor scale. It is possible that the use of the A flat as a force to invoke harmonic contrast and a modulatory pivot is a deliberate reference to the C minor trio’s role as the source material of the first theme of D 613/1. The potential for a harmonic interpretation of the thematic reference to the Beethoven trio is supported by the unusual choice of a mediant-inflected second theme group in the first movement of D 613. It is set in E flat major instead of the more customary dominant, G major (which plays a limited role in the evocation of harmonic contrast in both movements of D 613), and is connected to the C minor trio not only in a larger harmonic sense, but is also tonality of its second theme group (in the first movement, the modulation begins in bar 39) and of its second movement. In D 613/1, the predominance of distant tonalities and their association with a chromatically altered mediant (the minor third, rather than the major third, itself a tonal centre of formal significance in the movement) is unexpected. A connection with the piano trio, in which they are integrated closely into the C minor diatonic structures, is a possible explication of their prominent role in D 613/1. In addition to the harmonic parallels between D 613/1 and Op. 1 No. 3, there is a similarity in the textural arrangement of the thematic material in the first theme group.38 The influence of the Beethoven trio encompasses the vertical structures and 36 37

38

Költzsch, p. 96. ‘[…] leicht banale Modegewächse aus Oper und Salonmusik dieser und der folgenden Zeit […]’. Költzsch states that the first theme of D 279/1 also bears strong resemblances to the Piano Trio Op. 1 No. 3 of Beethoven, Költzsch, p. 61. However, the motivic and melodic similarities between the piano trio and D 613 are much stronger, as the melodic contours of D 613/1, outlining a rising and falling C major triad, are highly similar to the C minor opening bar of Op. 1 No. 3. D 279/1 also begins with a unison statement of C major and a trill in a similar metric arrangement, but the melodic contours of the Trio are inverted and the second bar contains an F major chord rather than the continuation of the tonic common to the Trio and D 613/1. In the piano sonata, the first two phrases (bars 1–4 and 5–8) are stated in octaves without any harmonic accompaniment. They are followed by four bars (9–12) which introduce a textural expansion which is familiar from the earlier piano sonatas (D 157/1 and D 459/2, among others). This pattern of textural contrast is similar to the opening of the Beethoven trio; the first phrase (bars

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phrase periodisation of the entire first statement of the theme and its associated material. Additionally, A flat major plays a central role in shaping the musical content of the first theme group of the Beethoven trio.39 The model of the A flat as a harbinger of modulation and harmonic movement has a precedent in the first movement of Op. 1 No. 3: between the first and second theme groups, a modulation and motivic transition is effected with material drawn from the first theme, originally stated in C minor. The main theme is repeated by the piano in bars 31–36, this time transposed downwards by a major third so that it begins in A flat major and affirms the E flat major tonality which is the ultimate arrival point of the second theme group. The A flat sounds at the beginning of this transition, unaccompanied in open octaves after two beats of rest in all three instrumental parts. This is a striking introduction of new harmonic and motivic content which is centred upon the disruptive effects of the A flat as a single note: the heightened contrast through unexpected interpolations of A flat in the piano trio is tellingly similar to the harmonic and modulatory functions the note attains in both movements of D 613. The formal significance of the enharmonically inflected modulations between G sharp and A flat has resonances in the use of an uninflected A flat in the piano trio as a marker of formal boundaries, strengthening the resemblances between the first movements of both works. This results in another layer of potential connections, in addition to those resulting from melodic and metric similarities in the opening themes and the use of the chromatically inflected mediant (the minor third) for the second theme group of D 613/1. IV. Formal Functions of Mediant Relations D 613 is conspicuous for the broad range of harmonic areas incorporated into smaller formal sections and for the element of the unexpected which is characteristic of many of the modulatory processes. The paradigm of harmonic structures and transitions in D 613 is characterised by a diverse tonal palette and modulatory processes which are executed quickly and abruptly and are severely limited in length. Additionally, the novel modulatory tactic based upon a sudden shift rather than a gradual progression,

39

1–4) and its foreshortened repetition (bars 5–6) in unaccompanied octaves in the piano and the strings are followed by a four-bar phrase in which the piano part is harmonically expanded to a homophonic texture involving four linear elements and further elaborated by the entry of the violin one bar later. The similarities in texture in the first three phrases of the Schubert sonata and the piano part of the Beethoven trio are supported by the harmonic direction of each thematic period; the third phrase in both movements concludes on a dominant cadence (bar 10 in the Beethoven trio due to the foreshortening of the second phrase, bar 12 in the Schubert sonata). After the close of the first phrase (bar 4) the opening bar is restated in A flat major, introduced as the first major harmonic progression away from the tonic-dominant progression of the first phrase.

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derived from the enharmonic correspondence of A flat and G sharp occurring in both movements, is a microcosm of the harmonic aspects of the formal processes on a larger scale. The tonalities incorporated into the expositions of these two movements are largely conditioned by mediant relations: E major and E flat major as the major and minor mediant of the tonic, and A flat major in a dual function, through its position as an enharmonic mediant in E major and its function as the flattened submediant of the tonic. 1. A New Modality of Transition and Modulatory Processes In their incorporation of the mediant as a formative element of the harmonic plan both internally and cyclically, the two movements of D 613 are an expression of a new understanding of harmonic structures in which distant keys are reached via highly compressed modulatory material. The processes are confined to a very limited number of bars, a characteristic which is made more prominent by the comparatively large areas of tonal stability (in keys which are harmonically distant from one another) which surround them. D 613 was composed at the beginning of a period in which Schubert increasingly made use of the ‘[…] opportunities which lend the key changes the character of unpredictability and suddenness.’ The presence of these characteristics in modulatory processes is apparent from 1819, but the new technique and affect are visible in D 613/1, in which the ‘[…] in any case unusual second theme key E flat major is moreover introduced through an interrupted cadence’,40 producing an additional heightening of the effect of abruptness. In this movement, the proportions of the transitional material and the modulatory process are not comparable: the quantity of material between the first and second theme groups carries implications of a long modulatory process. However, the tonic is maintained as a point of tonal orientation from bar 20, which is the conclusion of the second statement of the opening theme (C major reappears in bars 25–26 and more briefly in bars 31, 32, and 37), until the beginning of bar 38. The following three bars retain a harmonic connection to the ambit of a C major-centred tonal area through their references to a modulation to the dominant, G major.41 The 40

41

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 58. ‘[…] zunehmend auch andere Möglichkeiten, die dem Tonartwechsel den Charakter der Unvorhersehbarkeit und Plötzlichkeit verleihen. […] wird die für einen C-Dur-Satz ohnehin ungewöhnliche Seitensatztonart Es-Dur zudem noch durch einen Trugschluß und damit in der Tat als “abrupter Klangwechsel” eingeführt.’ After a single bar in A flat major (bar 38) the following two bars (39–40) are centred upon the a D major dominant seventh. C major is no longer present as a recognisable tonal centre, but the distance from the tonic of the movement has only arrived at the dominant of the dominant and strongly implies a modulation to G major. A further removal to a more distant key is, with the ex-

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interrupted cadence from D major, an ostensible dominant preceding G major, which resolves instead to E flat major at the beginning of bar 41, is anticipated only by the A flat major of bar 38 and made possible by an unaccompanied chromatic descent in bar 40. This cadential process is unexpected and is not preceded by the evocation of meaningful harmonic distance from the C major tonic. The degree to which the transitional passage remains connected to the tonic through continued cadences in C major (bars 24–26, 31–32, and 33–37) removes the transitional material from its function of modulatory preparation and tonal flexibility, and places it instead into the harmonic plane of the opening first theme group, strongly involved in the confirmation and restatement of the tonic. This idiosyncratic modulatory process brings an unexpected element of stasis into the transitional passage. The separation between motivic and modulatory transition and the reduction of the latter is particularly disruptive of formal expectations: the transition has been interpreted as being occupied by ‘tawdry chromatic scales’ and the modulation to the second theme group is characterised by ‘clumsy brevity’.42 The first significant modulation of D 613/1 establishes the processes not as extended and carefully formed progressions from one tonal area to another, but as a deliberately positioned ‘place of junction between two extensively composed tonal planes.’43 The reduction of the external dimensions of the modulation or process of harmonic transition and the concomitant decoupling of the material occupied by the process of the thematic transition and that of the actual point of harmonic transition creates an array of possibilities for delineating and experimenting with precisely defined elements of the harmonic structure and the form of a sonata movement in isolation from one another. The understanding of a transitional function as a unified progression from one thematically defined section of a sonata-allegro movement to another is no longer valid; the formal and thematic aspects of the transition have been detached from the process of modulation. The latter is an isolated event, sudden and unmediated, whereas the former retains its conventional dimensions and thematic function while being placed in an entirely novel structural role as an element of harmonic constancy instead of movement and evolution. Sudden and unprepared modulations which are characterised by an external brevity and span wide harmonic ranges are not confined to the striking harmonic transition between the first and the second theme groups in the first movement. The return to the dominant (bar 64) is equally sudden, further disorienting the paradigm of stability

42 43

ception of the A flat major harmony in bar 38 (which may also be read as a chromatically inflected transition between C major and the D major conclusion of the passage), not anticipated. Költzsch, p. 95. ‘[…] billigen, leeren chromatischen Skalen […]‘ ‘[…] ungeschickte Kürze […]’. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 64. ‘[…] erscheint er als Gelenkstelle zwischen zwei breit auskomponierten Tonartflächen.’

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and transition. The preparation for the entry of the G major closing material occurs over five bars, but the dimensions of the modulation are deceptive. The process involves only three chords and a single chromatic shift and the ‘hinge’ of the modulation (bars 61–62) is even more materially restricted than the first hinge point between C major and E flat major (bars 38–41) between the first and second theme groups.44

Fig. 44 D 613/1 bars 59–64

2. Schubert and the ‘Parekbasis’: a Modulatory Frame The second modulatory process at the conclusion of the exposition is similar to the first not only in terms of its restricted dimensions and extreme compression of the harmonic content: it also contains a deliberate echo of the preparatory harmonies of the first interrupted cadence in bars 39–41. In the former, an element of unmediated harmonic distance and surprise arises from the absence of the expected resolution in G major, which is replaced with an E flat major theme in bar 41.

44

The first modulation between C and E flat major is foreshadowed by the A flat major of bar 38, introduced through a chromatic shift downwards from E natural in the preceding bar to E flat around the stable C in the right hand. The chromatic scale in the left hand of bar 37 provides a further destabilisation of the tonic and prepares for the chromaticism of the C major to A flat major transition in the right hand between bars 37 and 38. The final modulation to E flat major and the entry of the second subject in bar 41 are introduced by another chromatic scale, this time in the right hand.

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Fig. 45 D 613/1 bars 33–40

The harmonies preceding the first cadence in G major and the harmonic transition from the end of the second theme group to the third theme group present a process symmetrical to that of the modulation between the first and second theme groups. The last two bars preceding the G major cadence (bar 64) are occupied by a restatement of the D  major dominant seventh which in the earlier transition (bar 39) preceded the interrupted cadence in E flat major. In the transition to the third theme group, the D major dominant seventh is not followed by of an unexpected harmonic dislocation, but resolved in the expected manner to a newly tonicised G major. The conclusion of the E flat major area relies once more upon the function of A flat in defining and separating formal elements (bar 60). After appearing at the conclusion of the second theme group as a cadential resolution (bars 56–57), dynamic and rhetorical contrasts (from a diminuendo closing gesture on a half note to a chain of broken octaves in sixteenth notes set one octave higher) centred upon A flat emphasise the beginning of transitional and modulatory progression to a new thematically and harmonically defined area. Structurally, the E flat major second theme group is presented as an interruption in a tonic–dominant modulation. Similar processes of interruption in the expected modulatory progressions are present in Beethoven’s sonatas, for example the first movements of Op. 2 No. 3 and Op. 13, in which the minor mode of the dominant appears before the major mode is eventually presented. Schubert’s modulatory process differs substantially from the Beethovenian paradigm in the choice of tonality, as the dominant modulation is preceded not by its minor mode, but by the flattened mediant in the major mode, and in its use of the same ‘framing element’ to enter and leave the modulatory area. Furthermore, the use of stasis and tonal and diastematic points of orientation in the formal demarcation attached to A flat distances the modulatory approach and departure from Schubert’s second theme group from the Beethovenian examples.

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Generalised similarities to harmonic structures present in the eighteenth century, a ‘trimodular block’ in which two ‘medial caesuras’ produce a tripartite expositional structure45 are present in the exposition of D 613/1, which is nonetheless distinguished from earlier modes of creating divergences in expositional structure by the use of more distant harmonies and the symmetry in the linear approaches to the two modulations. Both are guided by a descending chromatic line from E to D in the right hand preceding the first theme group (bars 37–39) and a rising chromatic line from A flat to B in the left hand (bars 60–64) preceding the second modulation which is, harmonically and diastematically, a reversal of the process which led to the interrupted cadence in E flat major and the second theme group. The D major dominant seventh resonates again and in the repetition is resolved in the expected manner, revealing the structural position of the second theme group in E flat major as a musical Parekbasis, or a diversion or temporary shift of subject in the composition, positioned ‘between two tonal elements’ and representing a ‘digressive interlude’ in which ‘the composer steps out of the “real time” of the movement […]’,46 contained and framed by two dominant sevenths in D major. This is the formal innovation behind the ‘[…] modulation, frozen in a bizarre manner, to the mediant of the dominant […]’:47 the tonality and modulatory frame of the second theme group are deliberate evocations of a form marked by harmonic stasis and sharp contrast, isolated within the harmonic parameters of the exposition. The closing material is a ‘chance’ to return to the modulatory process which made an abrupt ‘wrong turn’ between the first and second theme groups, and in the reiteration of the preparation of the D major dominant seventh with a chord in which A flat major plays a central role (bars 60–63), it find its ultimate resolution in G major (bar 64). 3. Structural Effects of the Weakened Dominant in the Exposition of D 613/1 The modulation to the dominant plays a prominent role in the formal plan of D 613/1 due to the attention directed at its postponement and the Parekbasis of the second theme group in E flat major. Therein, its function as a strong tonal centre in opposition to the tonic is undermined, and its return at the conclusion of the movement appears as an abrupt empty gesture to ‘formal convention’:48 Schubert’s major key expositions 45 46 47 48

Hepokoski and Darcy, pp. 170–171. John Daverio, ‘Schumann’s “Im Legendenton” and Friedrich Schlegel’s “Arabeske”’, 19th-Century Music, 11 (1987), 150–63 (p. 158). Költzsch, p. 95. ‘[…] in bizarren Manier erstarrtem Klangwechsel in der Terztonart der Dominante […]’. Költzsch, p. 95. ‘[…] die formgezwungene und ungemein harte Rückmodulation in beiden Sätzen von der Tonart des 2. Themas zur Dominanttonart.’

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are marked by a strong adherence to the established tonal structures in which the tonic and dominant serve as the opening and closing tonalities of the exposition.49 Registral distinctions between the modulatory passages introducing new tonal areas and the confirmation of the G major tonic are of significance for the formal evolution of the movement and its expression in harmonic and registral structures. A flat, first appearing in the bass in bar 38, is reinforced as a structural pole in bar 60. However, the note does not resolve directly to G natural, although this would reflect the harmonic momentum at the conclusion of the Parekbasis from tonal areas including an A flat to G major. Instead, the potentiality of a direct resolution is reserved and the integration of the A flat into the higher registers and its chromatic descent to G natural are important structural and registral events in the development of D 613/1 and the later movement or movements of the sonata. Throughout D  613/1, the textural and harmonic characterisation of the A flat in the bass register remains consistent.50 The A flat of the opening of the development is drawn into connection with the A flat one octave higher, and at the conclusion of the development its registral position is integrated into a larger structural process.

Fig. 46 D 613/1 bars 112–121

From its role as a modulatory signifier and a chromatic inflection, which is underlined by its occupation of a deeper register and therefore textural distinction from the surrounding material, the A flat has been sequentially incorporated into the higher regis-

49 50

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 92. At the opening of the development (bar 87) it establishes E flat major in a dominant function (bar 89) and A flat major appears as the tonicised concluding point of a cadence (bar 90).

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ter from which it was previously excluded.51 However, a directly linear resolution to G natural, which is formally representative of a direct contact between the E flat major and E major areas (united by the enharmonic inflections of A flat) and the C major – G major tonic–dominant axis, remains absent. Recognition of the A flat as a point of formal orientation and a distinguishing attribute in defining and separating structural elements from one another rests not only upon its appearance as a facilitator of dramatically compressed modulations to distant tonalities, but also upon its association with formal boundaries independent of a modulatory purpose.52 By the end of the development, the A flat has attained an integration contradictory to its original formal role and fulfils two apparently opposing purposes. Drawn into the harmonic plan of the sonata as an element of the unpredictable, sudden, and highly compressed modulatory processes, it is extended over five bars of tonal stability in a development otherwise characterised by rapid changes and a densely composed harmonic rhythm. 4. Harmonic Structure and a Divergent Model of Fragmentation in D 613/1 The evolution of the harmonic and semantic-structural understanding of the A flat over the course of the exposition and the development is a process of increasing familiarity. Through repeated use of the A flat in a lower register as instigator of a modulatory process in the exposition and its placement without modulatory consequences at the beginning of the development, the unmediated effects of its insertion into the harmonic processes of the movement have become subdued. It is no longer possible to experience a modulation heralded by the A flat as a truly unexpected event, as the note has attained an aura of structural import and produces expectations of the approach of a formal boundary or structurally weighty modulatory process. The only element which is lacking in the evolution of the A flat functions is that of harmonic integration, the absence of which is emphasised by the deliberate avoidance of the direct chromatic step from A flat to G natural, the result of which would be a direct connection to the original tonic. The implications for the continuation of the movement are clear. A tripartite structure consisting of exposition, development, and recapitulation offers uniquely symmetrical opportunities for the reconciliation of the three aspects of the A flat which 51

52

The chromatically destabilising and modulatory characteristics which had been attached to the A flat in the exposition are restated and reaffirmed in a new register: in a descending arpeggio in unison (bar 116) which closes with an unexpected chromatic step upwards (bar 117) to E, the enharmonic reinterpretation of the A flat as a G sharp is a third recurrence of its function as a modulatory pivot. After its presence in the two significant modulatory processes of the exposition, the A flat in the bass is restated at the opening of the development (bar 87) without acting as a modulatory catalyst.

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have been held carefully distinct from one another. The removal of the element of modulatory abruptness occurs in the exposition, and the registral integration of the A flat in the bass register is achieved at the close of the development. It appears probable that the third element of integration might have been accomplished in the course of the recapitulation. The parity between the sonata-allegro structures and the harmonically-based implications of form which arise from the prominence of A flat as both a pitch and an anchor for tonal areas provides a compelling reason for the divergence in the type of fragmentation in D 613/1 and the other known incomplete sonata-allegro movements.53 The fact that D 613/1 is the only known deviation from the established process of composition recorded in the manuscripts of the unfinished piano sonata movements in the years 1817 and 1818 serves to draw attention to the strength and pervasiveness of the parallel structure based upon the A flats. Established boundaries of the formal components of a sonata-allegro are not the determining factor in abandoning the composition of the first movement, which occurs after the enharmonic modulation to E major and the resolution of the textural dissociation of the A flat at the end of the development. It seems that the abandonment of D 613/1 occurs without reliance on an external structural model, arbitrarily placed close to the conclusion of the development but not directly at the point of recapitulation. This circumstance provides grounds for further examining the possible material causes for the unfinished state of the movement.54 The conclusion of the first stage in the compositional process, which resulted in at least a manuscript of one incomplete sonata-allegro movement among all of the piano sonatas composed from July 1817 to the end of 1818 for which an autograph record exists, was associated with the arrival at a vital point in the structural progress of the movements in question and D 613/1 is not a materially-conditioned exception to this principle. A flat is a transitional and formal pivot for the movement, prominent in defining its form and shaping its progression, and bearing enough constitutive emphasis as an expression of an underlying structural principle to be considered as having a compositional status equivalent to the basic formal elements of the sonata principle. Its reiterations appear to be the only structural process which can convincingly account for the abandonment of the movement at this unusual juncture. The point

53

54

Unlike all of the other unfinished first movements of solo piano sonatas, the recapitulatory entry cannot immediately follow the end of D 613/1 after 121 bars. From the conclusion on a B major dominant seventh, a substantial transition and modulatory process from E major to the tonic of C major are required. Considering the complexities involved in a modulation from E to F major and the inclusion of a B natural which offers the possibility of harmonic re-contextualisation as the leading tone of the tonic, a subdominant recapitulation is unlikely. An examination of the manuscript reveals that more than half of the penultimate system and the entirety of the last system were empty at the beginning of composition of the finale movement: the absence of a modulation to close the development is not due to the physical boundaries of the manuscript.

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at which D 613/1 is abandoned places a spotlight upon the formal role of the A flat structure, which is revealed to be not only a harmonic, textural, and chromatic parallel to that of the sonata-allegro form, but of greater significance to the evolution of the composition. The formal recapitulatory boundary is a secondary concern, as it is left for notation in the later draft. The model of fragmentation present in D 613/1 is not a divergence from the model of incomplete sonata-allegro movements in which the point of fracture is defined by the attainment of a significant formal caesura and which occur simultaneously with the inevitability of the recapitulatory entry. The approach to the sonata-allegro paradigm in D 613/1 is one in which a structural duality rules: the internally generated harmonic structure based upon mediant-conditioned relations through the mediant of the tonic, E major, and the flattened submediant, A flat (also the third degree of E major in an enharmonically inflected iteration), is the primary generator of form. Although the motivic and thematic construction of the movement is determined and organised by the sonata-allegro and its internal structural divisions, the harmonic dynamism and formal progression of D 613/1 create an independent constellation. The latter formally definitive element gains its power to shape and contain the musical material of the movement from its function as a modulatory interpolation and catalyst. A continuing process of revelation of its formal and structural role provides a compelling explication of the divergences in fragmentation between D 613/1 and the other incomplete sonataallegro movements. The subtle interplay of the internally generated harmonic structures based around A flat as a single note and an enharmonic and chromatic modulatory pivot, supported by textural distinctions and effective rhetorical placement, and the externally presented formal ‘vessel’ of the sonata-allegro reveal Schubert’s abiding interest in potential for formal revivification through the use of novel internal structures. D 613/1 is distinguished by unusual harmonic constructions and rapid modulatory processes:55 these modulations are not the ultimate aim of the experimental drive in which the movement is rooted, but a symptomatic appearance of the deeper experimental content of the movement. They indicate the presence of an underlying system of generating structure within the sonata-allegro paradigm, which is constituted from the omnipresent orientation point and modulatory and transitional pivot, A flat. Through the unusual deviation from the specifically established process of composing the first drafts of his sonatas until the entry of the recapitulation, it is clear that the structural and formal emphasis in D 613/1 is focused on the internally generated harmonic structure, creating a formal dynamic which is supportive of the conventionally defined structures of the sonata-allegro movement, but ultimately independent of them. The A flat-centred

55

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, pp. 58, 64.

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structure is integrated into the most fundamental levels of the composition, in defining transitions and delineating the formal elements of the sonata principle, as well as in creating its own independent dynamic of disruption and reconciliation in the context of the harmonic and textural content of the exposition and development. 5. Cyclical Consequences of the Integration of the Mediant in D 613/1 Implications of the placement of the final reconciliation and integration of the A flats into the tonic structures are wide-reaching; not only for the continuation of the unfinished first movement, but for the cyclical structures of the sonata as a whole. Incorporating the final chromatic integration of the A flat into the tonic as part of the modulatory processes of the recapitulation is evocative of a self-contained tripartite structure for the movement, in which the essential harmonic, textural, and chromatic closure and resolution are symmetrically distributed. It is also possible that Schubert might have placed the chromatic resolution of A flat to G natural in the coda, as a similar mode of harmonic reconciliation appears in the coda of D 840/1. The effects of including a distant and formally-weighted tonality in the material of the coda56 upon the tonal plan of a cyclical work can be profound and the structural implications of a potential return of the A flat in the coda are of great significance to the cyclical continuation of the sonata, particularly with reference to the inclusion of a further movement. It is not hyperbolic to state that the likelihood of a connection to D 612, an unattached movement which may have been intended as a slow movement for D 613, is largely dependent upon the conclusion of D 613/1. Arising from indications regarding the compositional process of the sonata-allegro movements in 1817–1818, provided by the manuscript and completed Abschriften of D 575 (August 1817), it is clear that important structural decisions (such as the unaltered transpositional recapitulation of the first movement of D 575) could be made after the notation of the musical material of the first draft, comprising the exposition and development but without a recapitulation.57 D 613 and its ambiguous connections to D 612 are a logical extension of the compositional process already developed and fully present in the first movement of D 575: the structural implications reserved for a full notational record at a later stage

56

57

See D 840 IX: The Coda of D 840/1, pages 392–398. The last resonance of the flattened submediant in the coda of D 840/1 brings final tonal closure to the first non-tonic tonality of the movement; the Andante is set in C minor with a significant A flat major episode (bars 23–50) and is followed by a Menuetto and Trio in A flat major. In D 575/1, the revisions occurring after the first notation of the autograph draft and the completed version recorded in two contemporary copies are confined to the internal structures of the movement, and the structurally loaded moment of recapitulation is most significantly affected by the alterations.

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of composition are no longer limited to the form of a single movement, but affect the cyclical form and possibilities for continuation for the sonata as a whole. The determination of a final cyclical form and the structures existing between the two or three movements involved remains open at the conclusion of the notation of the two manuscripts, D  613 and D  612, and the successful formal integration of an E  major slow movement is closely associated with the harmonic structures which would emerge from the composition of the recapitulation and the coda of D 613/1. In their absence, it is not possible to extrapolate a final cyclical structure. The form of the ‘complete’ D 613, in terms of its internal harmonic structures and the number of movements of the finished sonata appears as a multifaceted entity in which a number of contradictory potentialities for completion coexist. The continuation of the cycle is intrinsically reliant upon the structural evolution of the potential recapitulation and coda. Although two distinct formal and harmonic possibilities emerge from the structural import of the A flat as a single chromatic note and in a harmonic context as A flat major in the exposition and development, the resolution and integration of the distant note into the conclusion of the movement remains a potentiality without concrete manifestation. As a result, the continuation of the form is similarly open; the association of D 612 (itself complete) with D 613 is possible and aesthetically plausible without being finally established. 6. Cyclical Reflections of Mediant Relations in D 613/2 The effects of the fundamental formal activities of the A flats in D 613/1, in addition to the absence of a complete resolution regarding the openness of the sonata-allegro movement and its integrative possibilities with the chromatic resolution of the A flat, extend beyond the question of the cyclical structures and the possible inclusion of an E major slow movement. The strength of the A flat based structure of harmonic and textural distance and subsequent resolution within the exposition and development of the fragmentary first movement are manifested once more as harmonic resonances in the finale. The first significant modulatory effect in the finale, the transition between the first and second theme groups and the subsequent determination of the tonality of the second theme group (bars 45–47), is constructed as a decisive reiteration of the enharmonic shift at the end of the development in the first movement. To draw upon the same enharmonic shift from A flat major to E major twice in a single cyclical work indicates that the composition of the individual movements was not intended to produce entirely independent fascicles, but a continuing and evolving process which is partly founded upon a common reserve of harmonic material. The cyclical effects of the repetition of the enharmonic shift from A flat major to E major in D 613/2 and the continuity to which it contributes are strengthened by the formal placement of the

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modulation, as the A flat in the finale acts as it did in the first movement, appearing at a juncture between two thematically defined areas which require a modulatory process. The enharmonic shift is given a more prominent formal role in the finale than in the first movement. In D 613/2, E major is established as the main harmonic anchor of an important thematically defined section of the exposition, and therefore integrated into the formal sonata-allegro construct in a manner not characteristic of its incidental diversionary appearance before the ultimate recapitulation of D 613/1. The superimposition of the modulatory and enharmonic function of the A flat upon an important formal transition in the finale is a unified presentation of the multifarious formal capacities of the note which were carefully distinguished and applied in isolation from one another in the first movement. The arc of unification and integration expressed in the various appearances and functions of the A flat through the first movement is completed by its reiteration in the finale. More significantly for the formal and harmonic plan of the cycle, the modulation which follows the rising sequence of A flat (bars 119–120, in which the A flat major dominant seventh is enharmonically inflected towards G major through the presence of an F sharp ‘leading note’ in the right hand) in the finale is a fulfilment of a harmonically characterised deficit which is deliberately avoided in the composition of the first movement: the direct chromatic resolution of the A flat to a G natural (bars 120–121). This chromatic step has the effect of bringing together the two contrasting tonal planes of the tonic–dominant constellation and the more distant and unpredictable chromatically inflected mediant relations centred upon A flat and E major. As the integration of the latter into the overarching harmonic structure of the sonata and particularly the first movement would have a decisive effect upon the validity of the two concurrent formal projections in two and three movements, it is avoided in D 613/1. The chromatic resolution of the A flat to G natural in D 613/2 acts as the conclusion of a harmonic and linear process deliberately left unresolved in the first movement. Its appearance in the finale rests upon the compositional assumption that the preceding material, either of the missing recapitulation and coda of the first movement or a direct connection between E major slow movement and the surrounding C major movements would have realised the necessary moment of chromatic resolution as formally inevitable. V. Sources of Fragmentation in D 613 D 613 is illuminating, as it appears intended to explore the consequences of two divergent formal models, and the practical method through which a comparison is made possible results from the detachment and isolation of the potential slow movement (D  612) from the structural arc of the completed formal projection. The following

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examination of the sonata is focused upon the presence of an element of ‘deliberate fragmentation’ in D 613, conditioned by the necessity of maintaining two incompatible cyclical structures in parallel. 1. Coexistence of Two Formal Projections It is possible that the intention of ‘working out’ the formal and harmonic implications of both the two-movement and three-movement models independently from one another, without making a final determination as to which one would be declared successful or valid, is responsible for incompletion in the two movements of D 613. The inevitable choice between reconciliation of the internal harmonic disruptions associated with A flat and its enharmonic function as the mediator of a distant modulation to E major or the avoidance thereof and its placement in the recapitulatory material or in the coda is inextricably connected to the evolution of the formal projection of the work as a whole and finally to the exclusion of one of the multi-movement structures. In order to postpone the final decision between a two-movement or a three-movement sonata, D 613 is left unfinished. The integration of the A flat and E major harmonic elements into the two movements of D 613 and the deliberately postponed opportunity for resolution of the mediant relations in the recapitulations of the movements is decisively involved in their incompletion, but also related to the fragmentary nature of the sonata as a whole. The structural openness and potential to sustain multiple and incompatible formal projections, without being drawn into an aesthetically idealised conformity with a single form in the pursuit of completion and closure, is essentially integrated into the compositional process and experimental nature of D 613 and its connections with D 612. This results in a type of compositional fragment in which the incompletion of the sonata is not only associated with its harmonic structures as they display a deficit or contradiction against the formal arc of the sonata-allegro. D  613 and D 612 are fragmentary constructs in a positive sense and profit from the structural openness inherent in their incomplete state. The coexistence of the two structural models and the potential for integrating the unresolved harmonic elements of the outer movements with or without a slow movement is only possible within the context of a fragment, and the moment of ‘deliberate fragmentation’ is evident in the decision not to continue the composition and finally exclude one of the potential cyclical structures. In its preference for openness over a formally closed structure, it is an approach to the romantic fragments, which display ‘[…] a closed structure, but its closure is a formality: it may be separated from the rest of the universe, but it implies the existence of what is outside itself not by reference but

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by its instability.’58 Unlike the romantic fragments, D 613 is not formally closed, but in its instability and openness, it refers to an immanent but unrealised structural possibility which remains external to the notated material. The advantages and opportunities offered by the composition of a fragment are placed at the centre of the process of composition for the first time. In this sense, as it appears to record the beginnings of an experiment in the generation of an internally directed parallel structure based solely upon harmonic arrangements, D 613 may be described as a deliberately composed fragmentary work. This is not a determination regarding the final aesthetic intention of the work, which remains to some degree undefinable in the context of the most polished and definitively ‘finished’ or completed works, but a recognition of the fundamental role played by the two structural projections and the intentional caesura in the process of composition after the notation of the expositions and developments of the two movements of D 613 and the completion of D 612. The compositional process continues until the inevitability of the necessity to decide on a single formal projection, which is inherent in the compositional and modulatory demands of the recapitulatory passages in the two sonata-allegro movements, and exclude the other is unavoidable and as a result the two movements are abandoned. Based upon its tonally-consistent two-movement structure, it is possible that D 613 was conceived in part as an experiment in two-movement composition in the manner of the sonatas of Beethoven Op. 49 No. 1 and No. 2, Op. 54, Op. 78, and Op. 90.59 It may be a further example60 of a constructive and artistically independent dialogue with the influence of Beethoven’s innovations upon the form and structure of the piano sonata, which simultaneously created the opportunity for a precise and meticulous comparison of the structural possibilities and cyclical implications offered by the arrangement of harmonic structures in sonata-allegro movements and the potential inclusion of an intervening slow movement. The intent to maintain two ultimately incompatible formal projections for as long as possible is compatible with the unusual fragmentary status of the two movements of D 613 and the completion of D 612. The latter is the only movement in which the

58 59 60

Charles Rosen, The Romantic Generation, 6th edn (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 51. Op. 49 No. 1 displays the minor–major shift between a G minor first movement and a G major second movement. This is a pattern repeated by the two movements of Op. 90, in E minor and E major. In Op. 49 No. 2, Op. 54, and Op. 78 the tonic is maintained across both movements. See D 566 IV, 3: Echoes of Beethoven: A Two-Movement Sonata? and 4. Experimentation on the Basis of a Beethovenian Model, pages 193–196. The connection between these two sonatas runs more deeply than the sources of inspiration and thematic material found in the compositions of Beethoven. The Scherzo of D 566 is set in A flat major, an early hint of the enharmonic duality of the mediant of E major and the A flat which is central to the harmonic structures of D 613, both within individual movements and in the construction and evocation of coherency in the larger cycle of movements.

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harmonic choices and content of the movement itself do not have a significant impact upon the ‘final’ version of the sonata; because of the isolation of D 612 from the compositional process which produced the two movements of D  613, it is not possible for the slow movement to exert overarching cyclical influences upon the outer movements. The only demand upon the content of the proposed slow movement is that it would be harmonically and musically compatible with the larger structures of the work with which it is potentially associated. In this sense, the slow movement is the passive recipient and anchor point of the active elements of interconnection (essentially expressed by the repeated references to A flat and E major in the outer two movements of D 613), and this may explain in part why it is the only movement of the three which is not incomplete. The results of this observation can facilitate the establishment of a structural dynamic and the roles of various components of a sonata in the underlying formal model within Schubert’s sonatas for solo piano: completion of the inner movements of the fragmentary sonatas for solo piano is almost invariable.61 Emerging from this observation are two conclusions; firstly, the formally weighted and structurally significant movements, almost always those movements which display resemblances to a sonataallegro form, are internally incomplete. The absence of an unfinished scherzo or menuett and trio in the sonatas composed before 1825 and the completion of all of the slow movements, taken in the context of the fragmentary status of the first movements and finales, is striking evidence of the systematic approach to composition and exploration of formal challenges from which the fragmentary sonatas emerge. Secondly, the genesis of the fragmentary sonatas is profoundly connected to formal conceptions and experiments, which are primarily associated with the more demanding formal and structural model of the sonata-allegro movement. A glance in the direction of the later works provides a retrospective explication of the ‘purpose’ of the two entirely distinct and strongly disparate experimental impulses found in the two fragments D 571/570 and D 625, and in D 613. Motivic economy and reductionism, in addition to the evocation of a powerful harmonically defined structure beyond the tensions of the classically inflected tonic–dominant dialectic, play a vital role in the evocation of the ‘himmlische Länge’62 of the later works and the radical departure from conventional handling of the thematic and harmonic content present in the later sonatas for solo piano. It is not coincidental that these three sonatas are the last works which display the ‘abandoned recapitulation’ mode of incompletion so common in the years 1817–1818. Beginning with the last incomplete piano sonata, D 840, a successful combination of the reinvention of the sonata-allegro principle and 61 62

With the exception of D 840, in which the Menuetto is unfinished, the middle movements of all of the other fragmentary sonatas are completed. Robert Schumann, ‘Die 7te Symphonie von Franz Schubert’, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, 12.21 (1840), 81–83 (p. 82).

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a harmonic structure which is freed from a precise adherence to the formal boundaries expressed in the conventional formal model, and based on harmonically and motivically expressed unity and complementarity instead of opposition and tension, result in an individual expression of the formal elements of the sonata-allegro movement in a new and highly innovative harmonic context.

D 625 The Sonata in F minor D 625, composed in September 1818, is unusual in two senses: first, it exists only in a contemporary copy of the original manuscript bearing corrections in the hand of Ferdinand Schubert. Although in comparison with the fragmentary sonatas for which autographs are available, the source material for D 625 appears deficient, it is important to realise that ‘the information contained in sources is already selected by its creator, filtered, arranged, and alienated. For the process of formation inherent in a source requires an “ideological” focusing, meaning an orientation towards a particular idea […]’. As a result of this creator-oriented understanding of the approaches to incomplete source materials, ‘principally and in a radical sense, all sources are fragments […]’.1 Although D 625 is transmitted at a further remove from its ‘original conception’ than the autograph manuscripts of fragmentary sonatas, the Abschrift exists in a continuum of fragmentation which affects all source materials. In the only manuscript source of the three movements, an Allegro in F minor, a Scherzo and Trio in E major, and an Allegro in F minor, it is the only piano sonata to demonstrate two different types of incomplete movement. Appearing in the first movement and the recapitulation of the third movement, the sonata displays two concurrent types of fragmentation which are not formally equivalent. Insights into the process of composition are limited due to the absence of an autograph, but the two types of fragmentation provide substantial points for approaching the sonata as a unique example of the manifestations of formal and structural experimentation in the 1817 and 1818 fragments for solo piano. Beginning with an examination of the possibility of a third type of cyclical fragmentation centred upon the Adagio D 505 as a detached slow movement, and continuing to evaluate the cyclical consequences of its position, the following approach to D 625 then considers external musical influences on the sonata. Finally, an approach to the dual fragmentation of the sonata, in the first movement based upon a continued evolution of the principles of motivic and harmonic continuity and in the finale drawing attention to a new mode of arranging tonal 1

Hundsbichler, pp. 23–24. ‘[…] Quellenaussagen bereits urheberseitig selektiert, gefiltert, arrangiert und verfremdet sind. Denn der einer Quelle inhärente Entstehungsprozess setzt urheberseitig eine “ideologische” Fokussierung voraus, das heißt eine Ausrichtung auf eine bestimmte Intention […].’ ‘[…] sondern im Prinzip und im radikalen Sinn ist dann jede Quelle ein Fragment […]’.

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planes within a sonata-allegro structure, offers the possibility of placing its fragmentary status in the context of larger compositional developments in Schubert’s experimental sonata-allegro compositions for solo piano. I. Fragmentation 1. Copy of D 625 In the only extant contemporary record of the sonata, the date of composition is given as September 1818. The first movement displays the model of fragmentation which is established in D 571, D 570/2, and D 613/2, and is closely approached by D 613/1. D 625/1 concludes at the end of the development, with an apparent reintroduction of the expositional material. The Scherzo is complete, and the third movement displays a type of fragmentation which is not formally connected with the entry of the recapitulation, but linked to the obvious difference in Schubert’s manuscripts between the notation of the exposition and the recapitulation and may be a result of the displacement of the latter to a later stage of composition. The finale is horizontally complete, but the statement of the second theme group (bars 201–270) in the recapitulation is almost entirely unaccompanied, with the exception of bars 217 and 225–226. The flowing triplet figuration of the exposition is implied by the three bars in which it is entered, but the second theme group is notated only in the melody until the coda (bar 271). In addition to these two types of fragmentation which are inherent in the manuscript of the sonata, there is a third type of fragmentation present as a potentiality, but not intrinsic to the notated manuscript itself. It is possible that the sonata was originally intended to be a four-movement cycle, expanded through the addition of the Adagio in D flat major D 505. 2. D 505 It is not unusual for the piano sonatas composed between 1815 and 1818 to lack a movement; in the earlier sonatas (D 157, D 279, D 459 and the conglomerate surrounding D 459A, and D 566) it is evident that at least one movement is missing and should appear after the conclusion of the notated fragment. D 571/570 comprises two manuscripts, in which the two concluding movements of the sonata are separated from the first movement. Following the increased concentration on the formal demands of the sonata-allegro particularly centred on the recapitulation beginning in July 1817, the

Fragmentation

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less concrete possibility of a missing slow movement emerges.2 D 625 continues this pattern; the Adagio D 505 has been suggested as a slow movement.3 Unusual for the fragment-type defined by the potentiality for cyclical expansion through the inclusion of an intervening movement, the connection does not rest only upon congruencies in chronology and key signature: the first appearance of this potential connection is in a handwritten catalogue which was once in the possession of Schubert’s biographer Kreissle, containing an incipit of the D  flat major Adagio as the slow movement of D 625.4 5 Kreissle’s Biografische Skizze, although its reliability is cast into doubt by some difficulties in distinguishing E major from F major,6 states only that the F minor sonata with the D flat major slow movement was composed in 1817 or 1818.7 It is possible that this catalogue, now lost, was produced by Diabelli,8 whose publishing house produced the first printed version of D 505 in 1848.9 The history of the publication of D 505 resembles that of the editorial interventions surrounding the Fünf Clavierstücke now catalogued as D 459 and D 459A.10 In its original form, D 505 first appeared in the AGA in 1897. The autograph of D 505 is, like the autograph of the sonata to which it may belong, lost and the work exists only in a copy which passed through the hands of Josef Wilhelm Witteczek and is now in the GdM in Vienna.11 In this collection, the two manuscripts are not connected in any way. As a comparison of the manuscripts is impossible, the primary evidence for a connection between the works rests on the (also lost) catalogue and the musical content and possible relations between the two works: the key signature of the movement, D flat major, is cited as a plausible reason for associating it with D 625, as well as the fact that its ‘[…] more mature style and intrinsic worth […] would place it later than the Rondo, first sketched early in 1817.’12 Although comparing cyclical structures across highly divergent, if contemporaneous, works produces at best vague indications of a

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12

Seen in D 571/570, with its potential connection to the untitled A major work D 604, and D 613 and the Adagio in E major D 612. Maurice J. E. Brown, ‘Recent Schubert Discoveries’, Music & Letters, 32 (1951), 349–61 (p. 357). Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, pp. 296–97. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 139. A Sonate in F is given with the date 1815 and another with the date 1816; this must be a mistaken identification of D 154, D 157, or D 459 as the only sonatas in E major composed in these years. Heinrich Kreissle von Hellborn, Franz Schubert: Eine Biografische Skizze (Wien: Druck und Verlag der Typographisch-literarisch-artistischen Anstalt, 1865), p. 101. Brown, ‘Recent Schubert Discoveries’, p. 357. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 296. In its first printing, Diabelli transposed the piece into E major and truncated the original fortyeight bars to twenty-two, through many small reductions across the material of the movement beginning in the sixth and seventh bars. It was followed by the Rondo D 506, which is itself brought into connection with D 566 as a possible finale movement. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. X, 296. Brown, ‘Recent Schubert Discoveries’, p. 357.

294

D 625

generalised formal tendency, Schubert’s evinced interest in mediant-conditioned relations and their cyclical effects in D 613 offers a comparison which may strengthen the cyclical plausibility of a D flat major movement. Emerging from the conflicting evidence of the catalogue and the two contemporary copies present in the Witteczek-Spaun collection are projections of either a threemovement structure or a four-movement structure, in which the placement of the Adagio is uncertain. However, a third formal possibility emerges in light of harmonically directed connections and references between the movements of D 625 and the absence of any similar references in D 505: it is possible that the latter was composed as a potential formal expansion of the three movements, perhaps in an early version of the sonata, and was later replaced with the Scherzo, resulting in two alternative threemovement structures.13 3. Formal Models: Three- and Four-Movement Cycles A comparison of the projections for D 625 with the sonatas for solo piano which evince unambiguous cyclical plans reveals that all of the sonatas which contain a dance movement are invariably conceived as four-movement structures,14 regardless of their state of completion. The sole exception is D 571/570: its three movements are separated across two manuscripts, but produce the structure first movement–dance movement–finale, although a slow movement cannot be definitively excluded. The four-movement form is a phenomenon of the 1815 compositions (D 157 and D 279) and then recedes into the background until the 1817 composition of D 575, from which point it supersedes and entirely replaces the three-movement model, which appears for the last time in D 784. In the examination of the piano sonatas which are chronologically close to the September 1818 composition of D 625, no single cyclical model is predominant. The fourmovement model is present as a strong possibility for the final form of D 566 ( June 1817), and the same structure is completely realised in August 1817 in D 575. However, the other completed sonatas composed between 1815 and 1818 have three movements: D 537 (March 1817) and D 557 (May 1817). The incomplete D 567 ( June 1817) is also a fast–slow–fast structure in three movements. Finally, two sonatas composed in the years after D 625, D 664 and D 784 (February 1823) return to the fast–slow–fast three13 14

Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 139. It is noteworthy that in direct comparison, the ‘fourth’, or additional, movement, is invariably the dance movement: D 567 has three movements and no dance movement, whereas D 568 has four movements, with an added menuett and trio. This model is present across the instrumental genres, for example, in the sonatas for violin and piano D 384, D 385, D 408, and D 574. The addition of a dance movement occurs regardless of its placement: D 574 is unusual in that the most common internal order, first movement–slow movement–dance movement–finale, is reversed and the dance movement precedes the slow movement.

Fragmentation

295

movement model. D 625 would therefore be a departure from the established model solely in the apparent absence of a slow movement in a cyclical work containing a dance movement between two outer movements, but not necessarily in its formal plan. In the absence of the original manuscript and the resulting impossibility of a philological justification for the cyclical position of D 505, indications regarding the placement of the slow movement within the context of D 625 can only be drawn from a comparison with similar works. Although stylistic criticism as a method of judging an individual work always brings a degree of uncertainty and risk, in the absence of any original autographs and on the basis of the sparse contemporary sources of D 625, it offers the only basis for approaching questions of the cyclical nature of the fragment. This does not exclude the possibility that D 625 would have been an exception to the commonalities of genre current in Schubert’s writing in 1818, but may nonetheless be productive of useful insights. All of the piano sonatas which are complete in four movements or display strong indications of a four-movement structure contain slow second movements which are followed by dance movements: this is a pattern maintained in the two piano trios (D 898 and D 929) and the four-movement string quartets (with the exception of D 87, in which the Scherzo is the second movement and is followed by an Adagio). However, the appearance of a strong mediant-conditioned relation between the tonalities of the first movement and the Scherzo and Trio has led to the publication of the movement as the second and the Adagio as the third movement.15 Among the fragmentary piano sonatas of 1817 and 1818, a formal openness to models which are not definitively associated with the presence of a slow movement is evident. It is therefore possible that D 625 was intended as a structural experiment in this direction. In contrast to the two earlier fragments (D 571/570 and D 613), which are strongly marked by harmonic, structural, or motivic links between their individual movements, D 625 offers no similar basis for extrapolation regarding the intended form of the work or the placement of its constituent elements. The manuscripts of the sonata and the slow movement are copies of lost original autographs, and although it can safely be accepted that the copy of D 625 records all of the material in the lost autograph,16 the association of D 505 must remain unresolved.

15 16

Badura-Skoda, ‘Vorwort’, p. V. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 363.

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D 625

II. Beethovenian Influences 1. Correspondences Between D 625 and Op. 57 Assuming that a three-movement cycle with a slow middle movement is a tenable possibility for D 625, resemblances based upon the unusual textures of the external movements,17 the cyclical structure, the key signature, and numerous diastematic points of similarity, have led to associations with another monumental piano sonata: Beethoven’s Op. 5718 19 (published in 1807 in Vienna) which remain present in more recent scholarship.20 In the light of the increasing influence of Beethoven’s works in Schubert’s compositions which is notable from 1817 onwards21 it is possible that similarities between the works arise from a process of influence similar to that recorded in D 566.22 The melodic contours of the opening theme in the first movements of D 625 and Op. 57 outline a descending fifth, from C to F, a parallel which is furthered by the rhythmic confluence of the C upbeat and F downbeat. The coincidence of the resemblance between the opening descent is strengthened by the use of a trill as a rhetorical signifier (Op. 57 in bar 3) and a characteristic element of the primary thematic material, as well as the textural resemblance between the two thematic statements in unaccompanied octaves. D 625 and Op. 57 diverge in their second movements: although its status is not certain, the potential slow movement D 505 shares a key signature with the D flat major Andante con moto second movement of Op. 57, but the E major Scherzo recorded in the manuscript copy of D 625 has no parallel in Beethoven’s sonata. However, the thread of Beethovenian influence appears once more in the finale of D 625; not only in the presence of sequentially organised sixteenth notes marked pianissimo and apparently without clear melodic aspirations as the first thematic statement, but once again in a striking textural resemblance, as the sixteenth notes of both finales are the sole melodic and harmonic content of their opening phrases.23 However, it is the reflection of the textural symmetry between the first movement and finale of Op. 57 which is the most convincing argument for a deliberate influence in D 625. The evocation of formal continuity between two movements through a common mode of expressing thematic

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 70. Költzsch, p. 95. Brown, Schubert. A Critical Biography, p. 67. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 131. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 131. See D 566 IV, 3: Echoes of Beethoven: A Two-Movement Sonata? and D 566 IV, 4: Experimentation on the Basis of a Beethovenian Model, pages 193–196. The addition of a second musical element takes the shape of a strongly syncopated descending minor second in the finale of D 625, a development which mirrors the descents present from bar 29 in the finale of Op. 57.

Beethovenian Influences

297

and melodic content, the prominent use of unaccompanied octaves or single melodic lines, is of primary importance in both sonatas. 2. Motivic Derivation as a Paradigm Common to D 625 and Op. 57 Aspects of symmetry between both works are also present on a deeper fundamental level, associated with the formal plans of the first movements. The second theme of the Beethoven sonata is derived from the material presented in the first theme, and the recognition of this fact is essential to an understanding of the first-movement form: ‘if we do not feel the “second” theme of the Appassionata as a variant of the opening, we have missed an important part of the discourse.’24 A similar mode of reference in the second theme group (from bar 30) to musical content initially presented in the first theme group (bars 1–4) is present in D 625/1: in a reflection of the Beethovenian structure, structural coherence and an underlying sense of continuity are achieved through a return to established thematic material. Formally, however, a necessity for ‘contrast’ between the first and second theme group remains. Just as the subordinate key contrasts with the home key, so too does the subordinate theme contrast with the main theme.25

Nevertheless, it remains difficult to state with certainty whether the sonata was a deliberately planned approach to the Beethovenian work or whether it was composed in the context of a wider attempt to explore the possibilities of innovating in the genre of the piano sonata through a palette of influential examples, which include but are not limited to the piano works of Beethoven, that is apparent in the year 1817.26 D 625 is motivically, structurally, and rhetorically more distant from its possible source of inspiration than D 566. Nevertheless, numerous points of resemblance between Op. 57 and D 625 extend from the motivic similarities present in the first movement to fundamental formal considerations, such as the methods by which structural coherence is generated in the exposition of the first movements, and the use of pianistically characterised textures to draw the first movements into connection with the finales. The extent to which these elements are deeply embedded in D 625, affecting its conception of the sonataallegro movement and the sonata as a cyclical work, renders it highly probable that a process already observed in the use of texture and pianistic writing had also affected Schubert’s pursuit of influential models in the composition of piano sonatas.

24 25 26

Charles Rosen, The Classical Style. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, 2nd edn (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), p. 37. Caplin, p. 97. Költzsch, p. 70.

298

D 625

3. Incorporating Compositional Evolutions and Influences In the fragmentary sonatas composed between 1817 and 1825, the use of motivic continuity as a structurally significant compositional element becomes less superficially obvious and more removed from a reliance on the specific iteration of a single motive. Instead, it acts on a fundamental level to evoke unity across structural boundaries. Schubert appears to have engaged in a similar process regarding the sources of inspiration for the piano sonatas and the methods by which the original material of his own compositions was influenced. Originally, the relations between the original sources of inspiration and the compositions which drew upon their influence were primarily conditioned through superficial resemblance of the musical material, particularly in melodic and rhythmic aspects. Similarities in tonality, metre, and phrase-structure, although present, were secondary to the influence of the ‘experiential surface’ of the musical content. However, in the two outer movements of D 625, the thematic material is not directly imitative of the Beethoven sonata:27 more subtle in their direct expression, if they are indeed present, the Beethovenian influences in D 625 are deeply engrained into the formal foundation of the sonata and inform its use of motivic material and expressive textures. It is probable that an implementation of distinct textures in creating connections across the boundaries of individual movements in D 625 was a consequent development of compositional innovations already inherent in the preceding two fragmentary sonatas. The influence of Beethoven’s Op. 57 and its formal and textural content upon D 625 are juxtaposed with the continually present currents of Schubert’s individual experimentation with form and content in the genre of the piano sonata. It would be an oversimplification to assign a particular formal or motivic structure solely to one or the other cause, and although Schubert continued to draw upon Beethovenian influences in his later works,28 they are subject to a process of gradual subsumption into deeper structural levels which began in D 625. III. Consequences of Internal Fragmentation for D 625/1 D 625/1 displays a type of incompletion which is typical of the sonatas composed from the summer of 1817: the movement breaks off at the point of recapitulation. The division between the composition of the material necessary for the exposition and the development and its restatement in a process of tonal reconciliation in the recapitulation have

27 28

The first movement no longer relies upon what is essentially a variation of the Beethoven theme, as in D 566/2. D 625/3 is not obviously related to the finale of Op. 57 in the melodic contours or rhythmic content of its opening material. Among other examples, such influences are present in the motivic content of D 840/1 and in the reflection of harmonic structures of the 32 Variations in C minor WoO 80 in the exposition D 958/1.

Consequences of Internal Fragmentation for D 625/1

299

led to implications that these movement-fragments are the result of a compositional shorthand and the harmonic arrangement of the recapitulation as a matter of little compositional import: ‘the sonata remains unfinished, even with the restoration of the slow movement, but little more than routine work needs to be done to complete it.’29 Difficulties with the suggestion of a routine completion are demonstrated by the continuing uncertainty regarding the eventual tonality of the recapitulation: the ‘Urtext’ performing editions of the sonata, perhaps unintentionally lending credence to the idea that Schubert’s subdominant recapitulations are a matter of avoiding the necessity of composing transpositional and modulatory passages between the first and second theme groups and with the desire to avoid the appearance of a compositional intervention in the existing material, are united in beginning the recapitulation in the B flat minor subdominant.30 31 However, the copy of the autograph breaks off after the statement of the first three notes of the opening theme, in the register in which they appear for the first time in bars 14–15, in the repetition of the thematic material with harmonic accompaniment: One could see therein the beginning of a transition to a subdominant recapitulation. However, it is probable that the first bar of a tonic recapitulation is present here (all fragments otherwise invariably continue the development until the beginning of the recapitulation) – either in a transposed register or, possibly, beginning directly with the approach to the repetition of the main theme.32

1. Thematic Indications Regarding the Recapitulatory Tonality If Schubert intended to indicate the beginning of the recapitulation (bars 117–119) with the opening notes of the first theme, certain inconsistencies in the notation are apparent. The copy of the original autograph does not break off after the third note of the theme, but presents one further perplexing addition: the last note in the manuscript copy of the sonata is an eighth note C natural (bar 119), in the same register as the reiteration of the primary thematic material in the exposition, but instead of being placed

29 30 31 32

Brown, ‘Recent Schubert Discoveries’, p. 357. Franz Schubert, Franz Schubert, Sämtliche Klaviersonaten Band 2, ed. by Martino Tirimo, 2nd edn (Wien: Wiener Urtext, 1998), p. 75. Schubert, Franz Schubert, Klaviersonaten Band 3, p. 176. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 399. ‘Man könnte darin den Beginn einer Überleitung zu einem subdominantischen Repriseneinsatz sehen. Wahrscheinlich liegt hier aber der erste Takt einer tonikalen Reprise vor (alle Fragmente führen ansonsten die Durchführung stets bis zum Reprisenbeginn aus) – entweder in einer veränderten Oktavlage oder aber gleich mit der angegangenen Hauptthemawiederholung einsetzend.’ The only exception is D 613/1.

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as an upbeat, it appears rhythmically displaced, on the first beat of the last bar. It is therefore impossible for the following phrase to continue an unaltered restatement of the theme, either in its first appearance (bars 1–4) or the variation which follows (bars 15–18), as both of these are predicated upon the descent from C natural to F natural between the upbeat and following bar. Furthermore, the trill which characterises the second note of the three-note primary thematic material is absent in the three notes of the recapitulatory introduction (bar 118 with upbeat). Two possibilities are equally indicated by the notation at the end of the development. Having reached the point at which the tonic is reestablished (from bar 112 in the major mode), the precise thematic content of the recapitulation (including rhythmic exactitude and the omission of the trill in its notation) was of secondary importance, as it serves primarily to establish the harmonic basis of a recapitulation in the tonic and not in the subdominant, due to the ambiguous possibilities of reading the sustained F as an anticipatory tonic or a dominant pedal at the close of the development. Alternatively, the notation of the last bars of the manuscript is not a shorthand acting solely as a tonal anchor for the restatement of the primary thematic material in the tonic, but a clear indication that the final notes of the development are not associated with either the first or the second iteration of the primary thematic material, but act as a transition and preparation for a further modulation. It is therefore possible that the more dramatic statement of the theme, in unison without accompaniment, which acts as a signifier of formal delineation at the beginning of the exposition and again at the opening of the development (bars 76–77) would also serve as a formal and textural element to distinguish the beginning of the recapitulation. 2. Mediant Relations in the Exposition and Development The conclusion of the development is a harmonically ambiguous gesture. In the context of the traditional sonata-allegro model, it is to be expected that the long chromatic descent to F major in the bass line (bars 106–112) and the subsequent prolongation of the single harmony should act as a dominant preparation for the tonicised entry of the recapitulatory material in the subdominant, B flat minor. Ultimately, the standard development culminates on an active dominant ([…] a V that is an active chord, not a key). At this point the dominant from the end of the (major-mode) exposition is usually recaptured, de-tonicised, and reactivated.33

Due to its incomplete status, the element of recapturing the original dominant of the exposition is absent. It is possible, due to the placement of the F major chord at the end

33

Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 19.

301

Consequences of Internal Fragmentation for D 625/1

of a chromatic descent, to envisage the parallel major as a ‘convincingly established’34 tonic, introducing the opening of a recapitulation in F major. In the absence of a harmonically elaborated accompaniment, the question of the major or minor mode at the recapitulatory entry remains unresolved,35 but a minor-mode movement in which the recapitulation begins in the major mode would be without precedent in Schubert’s piano sonatas, and it is highly probable that a tonic recapitulation would have returned to F minor. The presence of the mediant tonality, A flat major, as a formative element of the harmonic plan of the exposition in evoking formal and structural delineation and acting as the enharmonic pivot allowing a modulation to E major (bars 52–53), presents distinct challenges in the context of tonal reconciliation and reintegration in the recapitulation. Apart from the difficulties in reconciling the modulation to A flat major with its enharmonic explorations of E major through a mediant-conditioned modulatory process, the reversal of the introduction of harmonic distance from the F minor tonic is to some degree anticipated in the development. With this modulatory return, the classical function of the recapitulation, to relieve in a varied recurrence the tension built up in the development, has been anticipated in a condensed mirror image.36

As the exposition modulates from F minor through A flat major to E flat major, the development reverses this process from E major through B major (or C flat major),37 to A flat major and ultimately to the major mode of the tonic (bars 101–112). Table 12 Tonal Plan of D 625/1 Exposition

Development

F minor

A flat major

C flat major

E major– A flat major

D flat major– modulatory

A flat major– E major*

B major

F major

Bars 1–20

Bars 30–41

Bars 42–51

Bars 54–72 (72–75 modulation to F minor)

Bars 76–93

Bars 96–102

Bars 104–107

From bar 112

*E major first appears as E minor (bars 91–92) and is otherwise encompassed in the chromatic inflections of A flat major and A major (bars 98–102), but retains its function as a tonal anchor without being explicitly established as a modulatory arrival.

34 35 36 37

Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 124. ‘[…] als neue Tonika überzeugend etabliert.’ Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 124. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 126. ‘Mit dieser Rückmodulation ist die klassische Funktion der Reprise, in einer variierenden Wiederkehr die in der Durchführung aufgebauten Spannungen abzubauen, in komprimierter Spiegelung vorweggenommen.’ Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 126.

302

D 625

The exposition is highly modulatory and characterised by a wide variety of tonalities, and the table is intended to offer a basic point of orientation; the tonalities entered are anchor-points and should not be taken as solid harmonic boundaries. As a result, there is no substantial increase in harmonic tension in the development. More significantly, the reflections between the exposition and the development are focused upon the treatment of the E major and A flat major areas, continuing the modulatory mode of enharmonic shifts which emerged in D 613, which leads to an ambiguity between the two keys and further emphasises the primacy of mediant functions in generating harmonic structures. In an extension of the mirror symmetry of the tonal arrangement of the exposition of D 625/1 to its diastematic expression, the modulatory shift from C flat major via A flat minor to E major and subsequently to A flat major in the exposition is conditioned by a rising step from C flat and B natural (bars 53–54) to C natural (bars 60 and 63), which is reversed in the development, from C natural (bar 94, at first over the enharmonically altered G sharp before the tonicised A flat returns in bar 96, to C flat in bar 100 and B natural in bar 101). The incorporation of a modulatory reconciliation to the tonic major in the development adds another layer of uncertainty to the exploration of recapitulatory processes in the sonatas composed in the summer of 1817 and in 1818. As a result, the harmonic content of the exposition acts in a manner similar to its motivic content in delineating form in the sonata-allegro fragment and therein it does not provide contrast through alteration. The principle of stability in changing contexts which is a definitive element of the motivic structures of the movement also characterises the use of harmonic planes in generating structural coherence and formal identity. That D 625/1 ceases at a point of modulation to the tonic, coinciding with the formal boundary between the development and recapitulation, is not uncharacteristic of the process of composition associated with the piano sonatas during this period, and it does not necessarily lead to an incomplete composition.38 The absence of the recapitulatory material in the three fragmentary sonatas composed from July 1817 until the end of 1818 and the first movement fragments D 655 and D 769A of the following year is intrinsically associated with the musical identity and formal projection of the works in question. In D 625/1, the usurpation of the harmonic function of the recapitulation, and with it the ontological-formal grounds for its existence in the absence of a necessity for harmonic and modulatory reconciliation, is central to the fragmentary status of the movement. Its harmonic structures are deeply integrated into the generation and treatment of motivic content, and this indicates that a study of the structural function of motivic activity in D 625/1 may provide a better understanding of Schubert’s compositional innovation. 38

This is evident from the early, incomplete manuscript of D 575/1, in which the recapitulation of all movements excluding the scherzo was not notated, although the sonata was later completed in a further manuscript, now lost, and recorded in a contemporary Abschrift.

Structure and Motivic Distinction in D 625/1

303

IV. Structure and Motivic Distinction in D 625/1 All three of the fragments of late 1817 and 1818 are united in their adherence to an innovative engagement with the instrumental possibilities of the pianoforte,39 although the modes by which it finds expression are divergent: the sonatas are characterised by higher contrast in the use of unison and accompaniment (often in the service of thematic presentation or distinction) and by the prominence of large intervals and registral contrast. These elements create the unusual and advanced sonorities of all three movements of D 625: the first movement, like that of D 613, opens with the primary thematic material presented in unison (bars 1–2, 5–6) and it is then reiterated and harmonically elaborated with a figuration based upon broken chords in the left hand (bars 15–27). However, D 625/1 employs a more complex and nuanced differentiation of textures in comparison to both movements of D 613, and is closer to the phraseperiodisation and textural differentiation in D 784 (February 1823). Interpolated between the dramatic unaccompanied statements of the primary thematic material are two bars in which a consequent melodic response, presented in close-textured and fully harmonised chords, creates structural contrast and introduces the essence of the motivic treatment and thematic inception in the first movement. Texture and its differentiation are not utilised to create superficial contrasts in the sonorities of the primary theme group, but to establish the model of motivic constancy in which the unchanging material is illuminated40 through new textural contexts: this procedure lies at the heart of Schubert’s evocation of structural coherence and unity through motivic reduction which defines D 625/1, and it is deeply rooted in the first appearance of the primary thematic material from the opening of the movement. 1. Motivic Unity in D 625/1 The textural contrasts inherent in the first theme group, in which the thematic content consists of an antecedent phrase in unaccompanied octaves (bars 1–2) followed by a harmonically elaborated response (bars 3–4), a model of four-bar periodisation which is immediately repeated, have far-reaching formal implications for the rest of the movement; but this is only revealed with the entry of the second theme group (bar 30). A process of formal reinvention originating in the earlier works replaces an oppositional understanding of the contrasts and divergences necessary to maintain a coherent formal model with a complementary dynamic, an arrangement of tonal planes which is not driven by harmonic tension derived from the tonic as a sole anchor

39 40

Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, pp. 69–70. Adorno, ‘Franz Schubert’, p. 26.

304

D 625

and ultimate point of harmonic gravitation. In the exposition of D 625/1, the emphasis upon continuity and parity continues and finds a new mode of expression through a motivic consistency hitherto unprecedented in the piano sonatas. Continuity based upon a common identity between the first and second theme groups is founded in melodic symmetries present in their musical content: the second theme group is only distinguished from the first in its tonality. After melodic transition which leads to A flat major (bars 28–29), the thematic material is strikingly similar to that of the first theme group as it is presented in its return (bars 15–27).

Fig. 47 D 625/1 bars 14–18

In its essential melodic contour, the second theme is almost exactly the same as the first: it consists solely of three rising notes.41 The divergences in musical profile necessary to fulfil the formal expectations of the sonata-allegro model, still active as an external formal vessel and creator of structural boundaries in the musical material, are found in the modulation from the tonic to its relative major. Additionally, distinctions between the thematically defined areas are supported by changes in rhetorical emphasis and the absence of certain rhythmically definitive elements of the fundamental motivic entity in its presentation as part of the first theme group.42 Recognition of the motive in the second theme group is predicated not on the precise direction of the melodic line, but the fact of its stepwise motion and the rhetorical effects of the ornament on the second of the three notes.

41

42

The harmonic function of the melodic notes is altered between the first and second themes: the lowest of the ascending pitches in the first theme group is the F natural tonic, whereas in the second theme the mediant of the new tonality, C natural, is the first note of the ascent, once more emphasising the function of the mediant (although in a melodic context) as an element of differentiation and structural distinction. The eighth note upbeat and the resulting descent of a fifth are present only in the first iteration of the fundamental thematic material. In its repetition within the second theme group (bars 34–35) the characteristic of ‘ascent’ is dissociated from the melodic identity of the fundamental thematic construct, falling from D flat to B flat.

Structure and Motivic Distinction in D 625/1

305

Fig. 48 D 625/1 bars 29–32

2. Generation of a Motivic Entity The trill on the second note is essential to the recognition of the motivic variants in the second theme group. Its function as a signifier of identity, as it enables a process of recognition and association of melodic elements which do not otherwise appear to have direct links to the primary motivic content (bars 1–2), is established earlier, reinforcing its role in evoking unity between the melodic variations of the three-note motive present in the second theme group. Appearing for the first time as a purely ornamental figure on the second note of the primary three-note motive (bars 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9) it then occurs, incongruously, on the last quarter note of bar 13.

Fig. 49 D. 625/1 bars 1–14

The melodic contour of bar 13 is not recognisable as being directly related to the threenote motive; it outlines a descent of a major seventh, and the rhythmic division of the motive into equal half notes has been disrupted by the extension of the first note into a dotted half note. The last bar of the first thematic statement establishes its identity as

306

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a melodic and rhythmic variant of the primary three-note motive solely through the function of the trill as an identifying characteristic. The significance of the three-note motive is also heightened by its appearance in variant forms, producing thematically-weighted reiterations throughout the first theme group: its first rhythmic modification and diminution occurs as the upbeat to the texturally and harmonically elaborated restatement (bar 2). The essential musical content of the first theme consists of two inflections of the three-note motive and the trope of the descending eighth note upbeat. Through the presence of the trill in bar 13 and the association of a dotted three-note rhythm with the primary motive, the range of rhythmic inflections possible within the aura of the primary motive is greatly expanded. In the first nine bars, the monolithic facade of the theme as an independent and singular musical construct which has both rhythmic and melodic characteristics begins to crumble. Boundaries between the melodic and rhythmic identifiers of thematic significance are fluid; subsequent phrases or motives which gain thematic significance often draw their connections to the primary thematic material from more than one of these characteristics, which are related to but not definitive of its fundamental identity. This is the case in the dotted upbeat figures to bars 3, 7, 17, and 23: in addition to their melodic reiteration of the three rising notes, their rhythmic and rhetorical function as an ornamented upbeat is an echo and a variation of the relationship between the upbeat-downbeat opening notes of the movement. The predominance of the three-note motive continues, as it is a recognisable presence throughout the exposition: after a reflection of the upbeat figuration in bars 31, 32, 35, and 36 Schubert renders the three-note figure in its rhythmic and melodic expressions ubiquitous, weaving it into the accompaniment through a metric shift.

Fig. 50 D 625/1 bars 37–39

Its integration into the triplet accompaniment in the right hand expands the range of influence of the rhythmic element as a motivic signifier from ‘motivic’ (in a primarily melodic sense) to define the content of the secondary lines, in a reversal of the transition in vertical function seen in the arpeggiated figuration of D 571 between the first and second theme groups.43 The effect in this passage is almost contrapuntal in nature,

43

See D 571 and D 570 III, 1: Motivic Function as a Mode of Structural Delineation, pages 243–246.

Structure and Motivic Distinction in D 625/1

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as the primary thematic material of the movement is the source of both melodic and accompaniment material in the second theme group. The exposition is primarily occupied by motivically-charged content, of which the identifying characteristics are highly variable.44 A wide range of divergent melodic and rhythmic content is revealed to have connections to the first statement of the theme, and a process of continued alteration and variation of its individual elements is present, drawing all three motivically and harmonically distinct areas of the exposition together. The exposition of D 625/1 is dominated by three elements which are capable of lending ‘thematic’ or ‘motivic’ significance to any material in which they are referenced: the three-note melody and its inversions and variations, the rhythmical possibilities for inflecting the three notes, and the presence of a trill on the second of a recognisable group of three notes. As is apparent from this description, there is a large degree of intersection and commonality between the elements; it would be counterproductive to separate them. 3. Reiteration of Motivic Signifiers and Structure in D 625/1 With the realisation that thematic significance in the exposition of D 625/1 is generated by the presence and combination of these formative elements, questions emerge regarding the validity of an interpretative analysis or understanding in which the chronological position of a particular motivic iteration of a defining element is regarded as determinative and results in the first statement of material being assigned the status of a fundamental and generative source for all of the following ‘variations’. Although it is possible to view all of the following statements of melodic or motivic content which are connected to elements presented within the first eight bars of the sonata as derivations and the first statement of the theme as the source material, this perspective rests upon a rigid adherence to a system of assigning thematic meaning based solely upon chronology of appearance. The innovations in the generation of structure through motivic unity present in D 625/1 are essentially a departure from the concept and function of the ‘theme’ or thematic construct as a single, monolithic entity from which all following material is drawn. This entails the removal of an assumption of primacy and a chronologically defined hierarchy of significance in motivic material, which runs contrary to the ways that Schubert creates structural coherence through a redefinition of the purpose and function of thematic content.

44

A further, primarily metric variant, accompanies the restatement of the first theme group (bars 15–22), consisting of three rising eight notes followed by a rest.

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The exposition of D 625/1 is based upon the ‘[…] incantation of that which once appeared rather than the transformation of the invented.’45 Motivic significance and connection are evoked through recurrences of rhythmic, melodic, and rhetorical elements which are the bearers of meaning, not modes of reference from which variations can be traced back to the ‘original’ source material at the beginning of the exposition. The presence of these independent signifiers throughout the exposition is not a continuous process of recollection of the first eight bars of the movement, but a revelation of their function as motivic entities in themselves, independent of a structurally conditioned primacy. Formal boundaries within the exposition do not act to restrict or define the essential motivic signifiers. Their appearance in a series of variations and transformations, independent of the thematically defined expositional areas, gives the fundamental motivic entities an independence from the dictates of form and therein heightens and emphasises the unalterable nature of their identities and functions. Motivic significance in a structural sense is established not by the inherent characteristics of the material, but through the presence of expressions of thematic weight, regardless of the specific melodic and rhythmic content with which they are associated. This is apparent in the commonalities between the ‘first’ and ‘second’ theme groups, although the terminology is essentially unsuited to the exposition of D 625/1: there is no distinct ‘second theme’, but instead, the process of formal elucidation and separation occurs through structural changes in two distinct aspects of the material: a motivic alteration and a modulation (to A flat major, bar 30). The structural caesura between the first and second planes of the exposition is marked by the unmistakeable return to single and highly distinctive iteration of the thematic signifiers; essentially, the ‘second theme group’ is identified by the recurrence of the ‘first theme’ (compare bars 30–31 and 1–2, figs. 48 and 49). This is a formal evolution which extends beyond the use of related material in order to create a motivically, rhythmically, and melodically distinct second theme, setting D 625/1 apart from earlier examples of motivic unity across structural boundaries. Thematic delineation between the first and second areas of the exposition D 625/1 is therefore dependent upon the recognisable identity of a single motivic construct. The ‘monothematic’ exposition is not an innovation of Schubert’s, as it appears in the works of Haydn and many of his contemporaries. Beethoven’s treatment of related thematic structures is somewhat divergent: To articulate the movement to the dominant, instead of a new theme, the first theme may be played in the new key; or a variant of the theme – generally more complex, more swiftly moving, and unstable may be played. This method, favored by Haydn, requires a longer and more varied modulatory section between the opening and the section in the domi-

45

Adorno, ‘Franz Schubert’, p. 27. ‘Schuberts Formen sind Formen der Beschwörung des einmal Erschienenen, nicht der Verwandlung des Erfundenen.’

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nant. In fact, when the principal theme is used at the opening of both tonic and dominant sections, the modulation is itself generally initiated by an important thematic change. […] The opposing demands of unity and variety of theme were reconciled by Haydn and, above all, by Beethoven, who used radically contrasting themes clearly derived from the same basic material.46

However, D  625/1 diverges from the earlier models which display a mono-motivic approach to thematic generation in that the formal boundary is not made apparent through contrast, but by symmetry and repetition. A return to the opening motive is established as a stable marker of a new formal element, in the manner of an audibly recognisable repeat which divides the end of the exposition from the beginning of the development. The significance of the return to a process of motivic delineation which demarcates formal boundaries through the recurrence of a single iteration of the thematic signifiers is finally established at the opening of the development; in bars 75–76 and 78 the same motivic construct is employed to distinguish a new formal episode from the preceding exposition. The use of motivic unity occurs for the first time in the context of a constructed element of stasis and repetition as a point of formal reference, and has been interpreted as a ‘[…] complete disorientation of the sonata-style […]’,47 although ‘[…] in more recent years, the F minor fragment was recognised as one of the most important conceptions of the early works’.48 In addition to the harmonic individualities recognised by Hinrichsen, the innovation and significance of the structures of D 625/1 for Schubert’s compositional development rest primarily in the intersection of the motivic construction and the harmonic structure. Emphasis on this unusual structure arises from the dual elements of the independence of motivic signifiers from the formally defined locations as well as their specific thematic iterations, and the implementation of stasis and recurrence in the place of motivic contrast as a driving force of formal generation. V. Tripartite Exposition Forms The effects of the motivic stasis implicit in continued returns to a single iteration of the thematic signifiers place more emphasis upon other modes of generating structural distance and evolution from the tonic of the first area of the exposition. This is not in itself a new development: ‘[…] the primacy of the tonal over the thematic structure is

46 47 48

Rosen, Sonata Forms, pp. 241–42. Költzsch, p. 101. ‘[…] eine völlige Desorientierung des Sonatenstils […]’. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 296. ‘Erst in neuerer Zeit konnte das f-Moll-Fragment als eine der bedeutendsten Konzeptionen des Frühwerks bezeichnet werden.’

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accepted […] in the 18th century […]’.49 However, the consequence with which the apotheosis of the harmonic plan, primary in interpreting and fulfilling the structural demands of the sonata-allegro model, defines D 625/1 is underlined by a deliberate removal of thematic and motivic contrast and novelty. This is not previously present in any of Schubert’s sonatas for solo piano, but represents a stringent continuation of the motivic processes which are highly significant in creating expositional forms in the sonatas of 1817 and 1818. 1. The Primacy of Harmonic Structures over Motivic Distinction The larger harmonic structures of D 625/1 are themselves unusual, and through the intersection of the motivic treatment, a highly individual expositional form emerges. The exposition is in three parts: bars 1–29 are associated with the tonic, which remains stable until bar 16, upon which it is increasingly inflected by A flat major. The second section begins in the anticipated A flat major (bars 30–41), which after these bars become modulatory, reaching E major50 over the enharmonic reinterpretation of C flat major from bar 42. The exposition, although it contains three largely distinct motivically differentiated areas, is not a true ‘three key system of the exposition’,51 which would require that a ‘tripartite form is recognisable without difficulty […] in which the third part of the exposition is found in a contrasting tonality.’52 The three-key exposition has generally been referred to in the context of later works,53 54 although its roots are to be found in earlier compositions,55 among them D 625/1 and D 625/3.56 The prevalence of the three key exposition in Schubert’s works composed between 1816 and 1819 and its unusual form, which is a combination of two previously distinct tripartite expositional structures,57 supports the compositional indications of a period of formal experimen-

49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

Rosen, The Classical Style, p. 32. E major is not only evocative of chromatic tension against the F minor tonic, but foreshadows the distant tonality of the second movement of the sonata, embedding the latter within the expositional structures of the first movement. Salzer, p. 102. Salzer, p. 101. ‘[…] eine Dreiteiligkeit der Form ohne weiteres zu ersehen […] den dritten Teil der Exposition, der sich in einer kontrastierenden Tonart befindet […]’. James Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form and Brahms’s First Maturity’, 19th-Century Music, 2 (1978), 18–35 (pp. 22–23). Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 101. Longyear and Covington, pp. 465–70. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 101. Longyear and Covington, p. 465.

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tation centred upon the elucidation of the sonata-allegro model with a specific focus upon the possibilities of internal motivic and harmonic structural generation. The juxtaposition of structural delineation in the exposition, between harmonic and motivic content and distinctions therein, is one of the more exceptional aspects of D 625/1. The individual elements of the expositional form are fluidly based upon motivic and harmonic alterations, rather than being clearly a function of one or the other; harmonic distinction is the primary mode of structural delineation. Two tonal areas, the first centred around the tonic and the second largely based upon the relative major, are present. However, the exposition is divided into unequal proportions: the second tonal area, beginning in A flat major, from bar 30, is significantly longer than the first and contains an extensive passage which is itself divided between C flat major, A flat minor, and E major (bars 42–59). The third texturally distinguished formal section (from bar 60) coincides with a return to the A flat major mediant, producing a tripartite structure, but without a true harmonic distinction and a new tonality for the third formal element. Table 13 Harmonic and Motivic Distinction in the Exposition of D 625/1 Area I

Area II

Bars 1–29

Bars 30–41

Bars 42–51

Bars 60–72

F minor (from bar 16 anticipating and modulating to A flat major)

A flat major

C flat major / E major (A flat minor in bars 52–53)

A flat major

3-note motive

3-note motive without upbeat

Bar 51: Hemiolic triplets, 3-note motive

Hemiolic triplets

Bar 64: Closing material, only triplets

The harmonic variation of the second part of the exposition is resolved as the motivic variation reaches its point of culmination, the greatest divergence from the original motivic material of the three-note motive, leading to a continued ‘progression’ away from the originally presented iteration of harmonic and motivic content at the opening of the exposition. 2. The Tripartite Exposition and the ‘Weak’ Dominant This is a relatively late development in Schubert’s engagement with the sonata form and the expositions of D 625/1 and D 625/3 are precursors to a structural characteristic

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of the late work:58 the three-key exposition, which was originally associated with sonata expositions in the minor mode in the eighteenth century59 and with which D 625/1 shares a tripartite motivic structure, plays a substantial role in Schubert’s sonata movements and is particularly significant for the ‘[…] characteristic appearance […] of the Schubertian sonata principle […]’ which evinces ‘[…] the creation of a principle of complementarity based upon equalisation, balance, and equivalences.’60 The tripartite expositional structure in D 625/1 is not the first of its kind in Schubert’s sonata movements, nor the first among the fragmentary piano sonatas, as it was preceded by D 613 in both the first movement and the finale. The distinctive harmonic structures within the exposition of D 625/1 are a feature of their motivic combination and the consequence with which the harmonic repercussions of the chosen tonalities continue through the development. The harmonic plan of D 625/1 is concerned not with pitch-identity and harmonic fluidity through modulatory potential, but stability and continuity based upon a highly symmetrical arrangement of harmonic correlations and equivalencies.61 The use of mediant relations is integral in a variety of formal contexts; it is present in the earlier works from 1815 and its increasingly deep integration into the formal substance of the sonata-allegro model is evident after 1820,62 and is facilitated by the harmonic areas of the tripartite exposition between 1816 and 1819.63 Appearing in combination with this harmonic innovation and the expansion of the tonal palette of a conventional exposition is an oddly rigid formal parameter regarding the opening and closing harmonies, or the ‘outer tonalities’, applicable with only a few exceptions: With a few […] exceptions, Schubert’s sonata-form expositions share a characteristic which may appear at first glance as a concession to the historical-formal convention already disrupted by Beethoven. The movements in major keys uphold the tonic and dominant as the outer keys of the exposition.64

58 59 60

61 62 63 64

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 101. Longyear and Covington, pp. 448–49. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 109. ‘Das auf die Herstellung von Ausgleich, Balance und Entsprechungen gerichtete Komplementaritätsprinzip erweist sich damit als die charakteristisch Schubertsche Erscheinungsform des Sonatenprinzips.’ Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 38. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, pp. 53, 92, 143, 154, 253. The mediant plays a prominent role in the second part of the expositions of the first movements of the violin sonatas D 384, D 408, and D 574 as well as both (outer) movements of D 613. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 92. ‘Von einigen […] Ausnahmen abgesehen, teilen Schuberts Sonatenform-Expositio-

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The result is that in such movements, the dominant is excluded from the centre of the harmonic plan of the exposition. This is more often applicable to movements in the major mode, although the treatment of the mediant as an important tonal area for the second theme group of the exposition in D 625/1 and the establishment of the tonic and dominant as framing tonalities of the exposition indicate that the movement conforms largely to the harmonic structures established in Schubert’s major-mode sonataallegro movements. In D 625/1 the dominant does not act as a polarity of tension and distance from the tonic, but through its statement at the end of the exposition and in the context of the wide-ranging and more ‘distant’ tonalities chosen for the expositional thematic statements and as modulatory aims, it is something of a reconciliation with the tonic– dominant axis of the exposition and a moment of harmonic stability before the excursuses and modulations of the development. The formal plan of this movement is not founded solely upon harmonic continuity and close relations between tonal areas, but a disruption of a formal understanding arising from active and oppositional tensions between two poles. The principle by which the harmonic structures are created in Schubert’s tripartite expositions, either motivically distinguished or harmonically established as ‘three key expositions’,65 is characterised by the harmonic ‘strength’ of the tonalities chosen for thematic statements; they establish areas capable evoking contrast between the harmonically and motivically distinct elements of the exposition. The dominant, however, is relegated to a concluding function: […] for Schubert, the dominant no longer commanded the power it had for Classical composers. Schubert places the second theme outside the dominant much more frequently than any earlier composer, and the correlation between his remote flat-side tonal relations and his lyrical second themes seems to be no accident. Both spring from a contemplative rather than active, a self-contained rather than a dynamic rhythm. And as we have seen, antipathy to the dominant animates his transitions.66

In D 625/1 the formal function of the dominant is re-contextualised through exclusion from sections of the exposition which were established as being associated with the task of evoking harmonic distance from the tonic and its placement at the conclusion of the exposition as an ‘outer tonality’. It no longer acts to create a tension against the tonic and has become a harmony which is strongly associated with the tonic area,

65 66

nen eine Eigenschaft, die auf den ersten Blick wie ein Zugeständnis an die von Beethoven bereits durchbrochene formgeschichtliche Konvention erscheinen könnte.’ Longyear and Covington, pp. 468–70. Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form and Brahms’s First Maturity’, p. 24.

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reinforcing and distinguishing it from the more distant tonalities of the expositional modulations and transitions.67 VI. A Fragmentary Aesthetic in D 625 Suggestions that Schubert was increasingly interested in a Romantic fragmentary aesthetic find resonances within the three incomplete piano sonatas composed from July 1817 to September 1818, D 571/570, D 613, and D 625. These resonances are associated with the status of the works as fragmentary and unfinished, without being directly connected with their incomplete status. From an examination of thematic treatment in the piano sonatas composed during this period, it appears that Schubert may have developed an interest in the aesthetic of the ‘fragment’, with an intention of integrating aspects of fragmentary expressivity into a structure which adhered to contemporary ideals of formal completion in the external boundaries of the work. The unfinished status of these sonatas is, in this reading, not a result of a deliberate impulse towards composing fragments in the sense of works which appear to display formal incompletion or a lack of closure. It is unlikely that Schubert intended to compose a ‘conscious formal experiment’ in which ‘the resulting formal scurrility might nonetheless be intended through the fragment theory of the literary Romantic […]’.68 The fragmentary status of the movements emerges from an increasing emphasis on motivic economy and unity, juxtaposed with the structural demands of the sonataallegro movement for change in the shape of contrast, necessary to define and characterise individual formal sections. The use of common motivic material across structural boundaries was, in the works of Schubert’s predecessors, characterised by a ‘different significance’, creating the ‘[…] sharp distinction between the functions of the various formal sections that is the essence of the sonata forms […]. In sum, the number and variety of themes are not determinants of form, but even when only one theme is used, it must serve to articulate the polarization.’69 An absence of formal polarisation is the primary innovation of the exposition of D 625/1: neither harmonic polarity between

67

68 69

This principle is demonstrated in the exposition of D 625/1 by the extreme brevity of the dominant conclusion of the exposition. Only in the last bar (75) does the dominant return as a point of harmonic reference from the otherwise long-established A flat major tonality (bars 30–74 with some diversions), and its introduction through a chromatic approach to the first inversion of the tonic further emphasises its place in the harmonic area in which the tonic serves as the primary point of reference: the dominant acts a point of return and stability after the excursuses of the harmonic structure. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, pp. 122–123. ‘[…] ein bewußtes Formexperiment’. ‘Die sich ergebende formale Skurrilität könnte jedoch durch die Fragmenttheorie der literarischen Romantik […] intendiert sein […]’. Rosen, Sonata Forms, pp. 241–242.

A Fragmentary Aesthetic in D 625

315

the tonic and dominant nor motivic delineation through the use of unconnected material are present. In combination with a process of composition and notation in which the recapitulation was separated from the preceding formal elements, this is a probable contribution to the mode of fragmentation characterised by the absence of recapitulatory material. Motivic economy in the service of unity across formal boundaries within the sonataallegro model appears in three of the five fragmentary sonata-allegro movements of this period and its structural effects are a primary source of the aesthetic tensions which ultimately led to an unintentional but aesthetically conditioned and directed fragmentation and formal fracture. 1. Fragmentation as a Characteristic of the Motivic Material In examining the presentation of the motivic material in D 625/1, it appears that the ‘fragmentary’ is not only an unintended condition of the movement and therefore of the sonata itself due to the absence of recapitulatory material, but is deliberately summoned as an aesthetic condition. The empty resonances and unaccompanied texture of the opening gesture are followed by a highly contrasting consequent period; the aesthetic of the fragmentary is drawn into the phrase construction through the use of textural and rhetorical contrast and embodied in the extreme brevity and lack of melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic continuity present in the first thematic statements of the movement. Each consists of a single bar, preceded by an upbeat; the eighth note rest between the first and second period and the one and a half beat pause before the sequence is repeated (from the last eighth note of bar 4) isolate the individual motivic statements, removing the continuous process of thematic or melodic presentation which results in a cohesive and recognisable identity for the ‘first theme’ and replacing it with a series of fractured motivic statements, which in their brevity and repetition represent the fragmentary aesthetic in thematic microcosm. In the variation of the thematic material which follows (bars 15–22), the fragmentary aesthetic which permeates the melodic aspects of the first thematic statement is incorporated into the broken chords which occupy the left hand, in which the gesture of a continuous arpeggiation is disrupted by an eighth note rest. Fragmentation through interpolations of silence between short melodic and motivic elements which are not directly connected in a coherent narrative structure remains present in the second harmonically defined area of the exposition, after the modulation to A flat major. The essential thematic gesture of the exposition is an impulse which does not result in a sustained process or movement, but is broken off and then repeated again and again. Even in the presence of a continuous accompaniment figuration (for example in bars 30–59), the melodic content does not often sustain a single element or thought across more than three notes. The evolutionary processes and structural coherence of

316

D 625

the exposition arise from a series of ‘fragmented’ motivic elements which are placed in a tessellated order rather than a process in which continuous musical gestures are presented and subsequently expand and unfold new expressive possibilities through variation. The end of the exposition is marked by a heightened emphasis upon aesthetic fragmentation through repetition of extremely brief motivic gestures: the dotted rhythm of the opening upbeats is presented once more and the utmost length of motivic integrity is reduced from a three-note motive70 to a slurred and rhythmically distinct connection between two individual pitches. In the development of D 625/1, an aspect of fragmentary aesthetic which is present but not explicitly emphasised in the exposition is placed at the centre of the thematic and motivic treatment. Instead of being drawn from discontinuity through brevity and the contrast between sound and silence, the development contains a process of reiteration and sequential repetition of motivic content which illuminates a characteristic of the fragmentary which arises from a sense of stasis. The motivic material remains unusually stable; Schubert emphasises constancy and invariability in the diastematic aspects of thematic construction, and the result is a fracture between the continuous processes of the harmonic shifts (although the unexpected and wide-ranging modulations are in their own way a fragmentary reference to the polarities surrounding A flat and G sharp as an enharmonic pivot) and the unyielding stasis of the material which remains unalterable in its essential identity, regardless of the superficial details which are affected by the processes of modulation and transposition. 2. The Absent Recapitulation as a Consequence of Fragmentary Stasis After the thematic construction of the exposition, the moment of fracture which follows the conclusion of the development appears as an expected consequence of the engagement with elements of the aesthetic characteristics of fragmentation. Emerging from the extremes of motivic stability and harmonic progression, in which the severed edges of the phrase-fragments are deliberately emphasised through brevity and contrasts in sonority and silence, the aesthetic characteristics of the source material and its integration into stable and non-contrasting harmonic areas condition the development. This is due to its function in mirroring and closing the harmonic structures of the exposition. When the formal and structural transformation of the sonata-allegro model through elements of harmonic, motivic, and textural content are cast in an aesthetic which calls upon elements of the fragmentary and emphasises points of internal fracture, the consequence and inevitability of the incompletion of single movements are revealed as a

70

Originally consisting of four notes in the iteration introduced by an upbeat, see bar 1.

Scherzo and Trio D 625/2

317

status which may have been unintentional, but can be recognised as a consequence of the intersection of content and form. The aesthetic characteristics of fragmentation which define the opening presentation of the thematic material and the subsequent dissociation of motivic signifiers from a single and ontologically primary iteration based upon chronological statements in the course of the sonata movement are fundamentally inseparable from the emergent fractures in the direction and continuity of harmonic and motivic elucidations of structure and form. The germinal aspects of fragmentation, deliberately attached to the smallest compositional elements, are expanded and more deeply integrated into the structures of the formal elements of the movement through the emphasis on motivic repetition and unity. This process, centred upon stability and stasis, reaches a point of unsustainable conflict with the architectonic form of the tripartite sonata-allegro model, which is in its most foundational function defined by fulfilling the structurally created necessity for tonal closure,71 72 centred upon the resolutionary function of the recapitulation. An aesthetically and musically compelling presentation of a recapitulation in the movement is complicated by the harmonic and motivic content: ‘return’ is rendered aesthetically untenable73 by the embedded necessity of asking ‘from what?’ In the absence of a linearly defined journey from the tonic to harmonic realms defined as ‘dissonant’,74 the formal necessity of a return through restatement of thematic content in a harmonic context of integration into the tonal and therefore formally reconciliatory realms of the tonic is no longer present as a structural imperative. An examination of D  625/1 reveals that the coherence of the extant material of the movement does not provide a foundational process upon which the necessity of resolution might be based. This formal fracture arises from the irreconcilability of the motivic content of the movement and its defining aesthetic principle, which is constant and static, and the formal demands of the recapitulation, as a conclusion to a dynamically and oppositionally driven form which is characterised by progression, at first through departure and finally through a moment of revelatory return. VII. Scherzo and Trio D 625/2 The tonality of the F minor outer movements of D 625 is distant from that of the E major Scherzo, which is formally complex, consisting of an A–B–A binary form in the scherzo which is then transferred to a larger plane through the addition of a trio.

71 72 73 74

Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 19. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 284. Kramer, Unfinished Music, p. 328. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 287.

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[…] the form of the entire movement may be interpreted as a repeated, symmetrical interleaving of a A–B–A with a sonata form. Each formal element (Scherzo/Trio) is understandable in itself both as a sonata form and as an A–B–A-form; the Trio, which forms the B-section of the larger form, refers simultaneously to the B section of the […] Scherzosection; all B-sections are simultaneously also developments.75

The presence of references to the outer movements of D 625, which themselves refer inwards76 to the dance movement, demonstrate the compositional attention devoted to creating harmonically and motivically based connections between the movements of a cyclical work. 1. Form and Harmonic Structure As a consequence of its formal complexity, the movement is comparatively long. In comparison to the 118 bars of the fragmentary first movement and the 283 bars of the finale, it is conceivable that the length, formal complexity, and tonal independence of the 150-bar scherzo are the result of its intentional placement as the sole middle movement of the sonata. Schubert’s interest in overarching tonal structures between movements of a cyclical work, displayed in the two movements of D 613, reaches a new level in D 625. Cyclical connections appear not only in the outer movements of D 625, but are also present in tonal references to the outer movements embedded in the harmonic plan of the Scherzo. In addition to its formal function as a development, the B section of the Scherzo, in F major, is an unambiguous harmonic reference to the major mode of the F minor tonic of both outer movements, particularly in light of the tonal uncertainty of the recapitulation of the unfinished first movement.77 If the second theme group of the first movement were to follow the most prevalent harmonic structure in minor mode sonata movements, all ‘[…] non-tonic modules from part 2 of the exposition […]’ should be restated in the tonic,78 bringing the A flat major second theme group into F major and fully integrating the F major tonality of the B section of the Scherzo into the tonal plan of the sonata as a whole. F major remains an important tonal centre

75

76 77 78

Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, pp. 123–24. ‘[…] ist die Form des gesamten Satzes als mehrmalige, symmetrische Verschränkung einer A–B–A– mit einer Sonatenform interpretierbar. Jeder Formteil (Scherzo/ Trio) ist in sich sowohl als Sonatenform wie als A–B–A-Form erklärbar; das Trio, das den B-Teil der Großform bildet, bezieht sich gleichzeitig auf die B-Teile der […] Scherzoteile; alle B-Teile sind gleichzeitig auch Durchführungen.’ E major appears in the first movement in the second area of the exposition (bars 54–59) and in the development (bar 101), and is briefly referenced in the finale in the concluding modulations of the development (bars 163–164, as the dominant of A major). Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 124. Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 19.

Scherzo and Trio D 625/2

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in the finale in both the exposition and the recapitulation: its function in the scherzodevelopment as an intentional reference to a tonality of structural significance to all three movements is reinforced through the F major area of the finale (bars 27–46 and 247–253). 2. Cyclical Mediant Relations The fundamental importance of the mediant, A flat, its modulatory properties, and its enharmonic expansion into the realm of E major in the outer movements of D 625 strengthens the cyclical connection to the E major tonality of the Scherzo. The movement and its apparently distant tonality are tightly woven into the harmonic structures of the first and last movements of the sonata, as a direct result of the emphasis on mediant and enharmonic relations. Melodic emphasis of this formal and harmonic condition of cyclical unity is found in the textural arrangement of the opening chords, which occupy the first four bars of the Scherzo and in which the G sharp is placed as the highest, melodically emphasised note. The importance of A flat major as a tonal plane distinct from the tonic in both of the outer movements of D 62579 alone is sufficient to create a harmonic connection to the middle movement through the A flat– G sharp mediant function of F minor and E major. However, both the first movement and the finale solidify the connection implicit in the common enharmonic mediant by incorporating explicit or tacit modulatory references to E major, in the context of a mediant-conditioned reinterpretation of A flat major and as an independent tonal area. The finale is, superficially examined, less direct in its references to E major as a distinct tonal element;80 however, in enharmonically altered forms which are nonetheless identical in pitch, E major plays a role in multiple elements of the finale and acts as harmonic inflection of the opening bars of the development.81 79 80 81

A flat major is the first harmonically significant departure from the tonic in the first movement (from bar 30), and a modulation to A flat major follows the F major second theme group in the finale (bars 53–92). The harmony appears explicitly only once as a dominant seventh, part of a modulatory passage in the development which immediately resolves to A major (bars 163–165) before the modulatory process continues, leading through A minor to F major. Enharmonic references appear most visibly at the beginning of the development (bars 97–101): the first three notes of the opening indicate the role of veiled references to E major which avoid becoming explicit. A flat, C flat, and D natural (enharmonically G sharp, B natural, and D natural) are followed by an E flat. Only with the fourth sixteenth note of the opening figure is the tonality, A flat minor, made explicit and experientially distinguished from the potential E major dominant seventh. The following sixteenth note group concludes on ‘F flat’, reversing the emphasis of harmonic direction towards the minor mode of the mediant and strengthening the implications of E major inherent in the highly chromatically inflected restatement of the opening motivic material. The tonal ambiguity continues through the next three bars, reaching its apex on the second beat of bar 99, in which the first inversion of E major is written enharmonically as F flat major.

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The implication of E major as an unstated but ambiguously present point of tonal reference is ultimately established by an apparently unconnected harmonic episode at the conclusion of the exposition of the finale, which itself gains significance based upon its reflection of the harmonic structures in the exposition of D 625/1. A modulation to A flat major in the third harmonically distinguished area of the exposition of the finale (bars 53–92) recalls the second area of the exposition of the first movement (from bar 30) through the common tonality. In the finale, the second statement of A flat major is interrupted by an unexpected harmony in bars 81 and 82; through the chromatic inflection of the mediant (which is once again the modulatory catalyst for references to a larger harmonic structure), C natural to C flat, two bars of C flat major are interpolated into the A flat major conclusion of the exposition.

Fig. 51 D. 625/3 bars 73–83

C flat major in the context of A flat major is an incongruous harmonic reference, and through its resolution to G flat major and the sudden chromatic shift to F minor through a C major dominant seventh without a modulatory process, it remains detached from the surrounding tonality. Enharmonically reinterpreted, as B major, the C flat major bars foreshadow the harmonies at the opening of the development, and an echo of the more directed modulatory processes present in the first movement exposition, in which a prominent symmetry becomes apparent. In the first movement, the combination of A flat major (from bar 30) and C flat major (from bar 42) leads to the mediant-conditioned modulation to E major (from bar 54). These relationships are restated in a less explicit, dissociated form in the exposition and opening of the development in the finale. Furthermore, both C flat major elements are preceded by brief statements of A flat minor (bars 52–53 of the first movement and 65–66 of the finale). The incorporation of brief and almost ephemeral modulatory references to the tonalities which are central to the harmonic structures of the first movement and the Scherzo into the development of the finale is in keeping with the tacit nature of the harmonic connections previously examined. Pursuit of harmonic reflection, symmetry, and integration is transformed from the obvious and emphatic references to a single ‘alien’ tonality through the medium of enharmonic transformation, as in the two movements of D 613. The treatment of harmonic areas in D 625 is incorporated into more fundamental levels of the composition, in a dynamic similar to the deeper integration of external sources of influence and motivic economy as a principle of struc-

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tural coherence and formal unity. Both the use of enharmonic modulatory processes and evocation of structure based upon motivic economy are increasingly removed from the experiential and immediately recognisable ‘surface’, in order to act as deeply embedded guiding formal principles. Emerging from the cyclical symmetries present between the outer movements of D  625 is a harmonically defined referential construction. Both movements contain individual and analogous harmonic structures centred upon the mediant tonalities of A flat major and A flat minor, from which the more distant but still mediant-conditioned areas of C flat major and E major are attainable. These more distant mediant elements act as anchors for common tonal and harmonic structures directed towards the harmonic integration of the E major Scherzo. VIII. Finale D 625/3 1. Motivically and Texturally Referential Cyclical Connections D 625 draws upon the textural innovations, particularly the use of unaccompanied octaves to create vertical contrast common in the first movements of fragmentary sonatas, and incorporates them into the material of its finale. Continuity between the outer movements of the sonata remains a priority in D 625, but is achieved not through an emphasis on similar musical content, whether harmonically or melodically defined, but through the mode by which the content of the movements is expressed. The first theme group of the finale is associated with the first theme group of the first movement through a repetition of the unaccompanied octave texture, which recurs at the opening of its development, echoing the functions of structural delineation attained by the unaccompanied octaves in the first movement. Rather than relying upon recognition of individual themes and motives or the establishment of a foundational harmonic principle to draw the two movements together through references to the underlying musical element, D 625 creates a sense of unity between its first and final movements by establishing the expressivity of pianistic textures in the statement of the harmonic and thematic content which is widely divergent between the two movements.82

82

The centrality of textural equivalence in creating cyclical unity is particularly striking in the last movement, in which Schubert departs from the more conventional textures of the preceding two fragmentary finales: with the exception of a single chord on the first eighth note of bar 9, the first twelve bars of the movement are written in unison, without harmonic elaboration or accompaniment.

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Fig. 52 D 625/3 bars 1–4

A similar process of textural connection is evident between the Scherzo and the finale, in the arrangement and restatement of a series of tonic chords (in the finale, in the major mode).

Fig. 53 D 625/2 bars 1–4

Fig. 54 D 625/3 bars 27–30

In altering the bearer of association between individual movements from a thematic entity or harmonic structure to a more universal mode through which the distinct motivic content and harmonic structures are inflected, D 625 represents an evolution in the engagement with the piano sonata which parallels the developments in other aspects of the compositional process. It is a further step towards integration of fundamental elements of structural and formal import into the intrinsic and unalterable planes of the compositions. Rather than relying upon the reiteration of a recognisable and singular motive or other musical constructions to unify the expressive content of two individual movements, D 625 draws upon the certainty of textural unity. The movements of D 625 are no longer reliant upon the experiential facade of aesthetic content, essentially the contours of an

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individual theme or its identifiable and individual metric characteristics (as in D 571 and D 570) or, in an intermediary stage, the harmonic content and a parallel between the established tonal polarities and modulatory processes (as in D 613), to create cyclical coherence. Instead, a process of connection which is independent from the recognisability of the aesthetic content rests not upon ‘what is being said’, or the individual identity of a motive or harmonic construct, but ‘how it is being said’, or the essential trope of expression which is applicable to all motivic constructs across the three movements. 2. Three Key Exposition The finale contains an unconventional arrangement of tonal areas, which is related to the complex distribution of similar tonalities in conjunction with the larger structural planes of the unfinished first movement. The underlying harmonic content of the sonata, centred in the outer movements, is directed at removing the oppositional tension of the formal arc and replacing it with a structure based upon parity.83 The deliberate enervation of harmonic polarity, often but not exclusively expressed through tensions between tonic and dominant in the context of the structural arc generated between the exposition and recapitulation, is demonstrated by the anticipation of the tonic major before its conventionally expected position as the tonality of the second theme group in the recapitulation in both the first movement and the finale. The structurally aspirational tonic major, which is strongly associated with recapitulatory processes,84 is incorporated into the exposition of D 625/3 as the first non-tonic area, arrived at through a dominant–tonic cadence of which the first element is simply an unaccompanied C natural, repeated over two bars. The modulation is a transformative element rather than a process. There are no intervening stages between F minor and F major: the dominant acts as a pivot around which the major and the minor mode are easily exchanged and this simplicity and directness is fundamental in undermining the formally loaded possibilities for polarisation between the two tonalities. The harmonic plan of the last movement, primarily due to the anticipation of the major mode and its unmediated modulatory presentation, prioritises a harmonic structure based upon a symmetrical arrangement of tonally and harmonically defined areas. The exposition of the finale is a clear example of a three-key structure: F minor (bars 1–26), F major (bars 27–46), and A flat major (bars 53–92, subsequently

83 84

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 123. This paradigm of anticipation remains active in the first movement, in which the arrival of the tonic major is closely associated with the approach toward the ultimate recapitulatory processes.

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bars 93–97 act as a retransition to the tonic). Not only in its evocation of symmetrical arrangement of tonal planes does the last movement display a heightened structural clarity. The intersection of form and content produces a three-key exposition in which the second and third harmonically defined areas, those which exist outside the tonic, share the same thematic content, and this form is emphasised through rhetorical and textural media. In comparison to the first movement, the expositional form of the finale is a direct reversal: it contains two motivically defined sections and three harmonic areas, whereas the first movement exposition contains two harmonic areas and three motivically distinct sections. In the finale the departure from F major, the second key of the exposition, occurs in bars 46–4785 and its early appearance is a reversal of the usual ‘Tonartordnung’ in a minor-key sonata-allegro movement.86 Inverting the established or expected tonal plan has wide-reaching consequences for the harmonic structure of the movement as a whole, centred upon the recapitulatory moment of harmonic fulfilment. 3. Fragmentation The finale of D 625 demonstrates a type of incompletion unique among the unfinished and fragmentary sonatas for solo piano, although it is related to the ‘absent recapitulation’ model so prominent in 1817 and 1818. The melodic content of the recapitulation appears to be notated completely, but the second theme group (bars 201–270) has no left hand, with the exception of bars 217 and 225–226. The movement is effectively complete in a horizontal sense, in that the larger structures of the movement are concrete and with them a highly probable harmonic plan for the missing bars is present. Additionally, the new material of the coda, which cites the opening sixteenth note theme once more, is fully notated in both hands. However, the details of the left hand (including textural and registral considerations) are implicit through implication and formal parity, and not specifically stated. This has led to some debate regarding the status of the movement as incomplete with reference to alterations rendered necessary in the accompaniment in comparison to the expositional material.

85

86

However, a direct motivic restatement of the first bars of the F major second theme group (bars 27–29) appears first in bars 73–75 in A flat major, and is emphasised through the fortissimo and textural contrast between the preceding bars, written in unison between the left and right hands, and the harmonic elaboration of the continuation. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 124.

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Although an expansion to a completed piano setting with the help of comparative material from the exposition is in fact attainable without great difficulty, the length of seventy bars of the passage to be expanded allows too broad a palette of possibilities in the completion.87

Others consider the work to be effectively complete, and it has been described as ‘[…] entirely complete in concept […]’.88 As the final movement of the F minor fragment is complete except for certain of the accompanying voices, there are performable versions available which do not require further expansion.89

This is one of the very few movements in which two diametrically opposed views of its status as a fragmentary work are tenable. It is possible to maintain that Schubert, in notating the left hand in three bars interspersed among the seventy-bar passage, largely unaccompanied, indicated any potential divergences from the left hand of the exposition and if not otherwise indicated he had intended a version of the left hand in transposition which was to follow the version present in the exposition as closely as possible.90 It is evident from the completed sonata-allegro first movement of D 575 that the full notation of the recapitulation was not a purely automatic process, but one of formal refinement which was capable of bringing significant alterations to the earlier versions.91 The movement is incomplete due to the absence of material necessary for a vertically complete notation of the recapitulation, and it is not possible to determine whether the extant contemporary copy of the sonata was made on the basis of an earlier or later version of the work. As a result, uncertainty remains regarding potential later alterations to the melodic line and its implied harmonic accompaniment, or whether it had in fact already been revised after the completion of the contemporary Abschrift;

87

88 89 90

91

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, pp.  61–62. ‘Ist eine Ergänzung zum vollständigen Klaviersatz mithilfe des vergleichbaren Materials aus der Exposition zwar ohne große Schwierigkeiten zu bewältigen, so lässt doch die Länge der zu ergänzenden Passage von siebzig Takten eine allzu breite Palette von Möglichkeiten der Ausfertigung zu.’ Kramer, Unfinished Music, p. 327. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts, p. 132. ‘Da der Finalsatz des f-moll Fragments bis auf einige Füllstimmen vollendet ist, liegen somit aufführungsfähige Fassungen vor, die keiner weiteren Ergänzung bedürfen.’ Bars 225–226 reinforce this supposition, as potential uncertainty regarding the octave in which the bass line should be notated arises from the registral demands of transposition. The three bars in which the left hand is notated can be interpreted as registral anchors, in order to indicate that the left hand should maintain the position in which it originally appeared, regardless of the increased distance created by the melodic transposition. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 130.

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it is this uncertainty which affects not only the extant melodic content, but more profoundly leaves open the potential for continued revision. 4. Recapitulatory Innovation The finale of D 625 is the beginning of a process of compositional reinvention in which the recapitulatory moment is expanded and dissociated. Through the separation of the motivic and harmonic statements of recapitulatory significance and the addition of a variant accompaniment, it is clear that the compositional emphasis of the last movement is directed towards integrating the moment of recapitulation seamlessly into a harmonic process which extends from the exposition and development, rather than a more or less dramatically presented moment of revelation and reconciliation. Formal evolutions of the integration and expansions of recapitulatory processes remain significant in the later works.92 It is notable that D 625/3 is the first sonata-allegro movement within a fragmentary sonata composed since July 1817 which is not incomplete through the absence of a recapitulation. With the exception of D 66493 it is the first horizontally completed sonata-allegro movement composed after 1817 and before 1823. D 664 differs from D 625 in its three-movement form (which contains a slow movement instead of a dance movement), textural and rhetorical content, and harmonic structures. D 664 presents a retrospective engagement with compositional processes which originally emerged in the piano sonatas composed between 1815 and early 1817, including the subdominant recapitulation of its last movement, one of the last appearances of this recapitulatory model in Schubert’s compositions. The developmental purpose of creating instability and contrasting it with the recapitulatory reconciliation and restoration of the stable tonic is evidently undermined by the large-scale integration of reflections of F major as a tonal plane which not only played a prominent role in the exposition, but is then reinforced by its treatment as the tonic in the context of a sequential repetition of motivic content in the major and minor mode (bars 165–171, concluding two bars in F major and F minor) which is associated with content originating within the formal boundaries of the development. As a result, the harmonic approach to the ‘recapitulatory tonality’ of F minor precedes the recapitulation of thematic material (from bar 175).

92 93

Specifically D 840/1. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 131.

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Fig. 55 D 625/3 bars 165–175

Impelled by the unconvincing nature of a conventionally inflected recapitulation resulting from harmonic structures based upon complementarity in the preceding sections of the finale, in which the recapitulation does not evoke closure for a formal arc based upon harmonic tensions which lead away from and then return to the tonic, D 625/3 invokes a new formal model. Therein it does not disrupt the motivic or harmonic content of the recapitulation (although the recapitulatory material gains a new accompanimental figuration), but dissociates the two. The single moment of revelation, already fundamentally enervated by the integration of the major mode of the tonic into both the development and the exposition, is divided and the tonal and thematic returns are incorporated into the sonata-allegro structure as two distinct events. This dissociation of tonal and motivic recapitulatory procedures is slight and is not emphasised through a placement at the culmination of a phrase-period, or through a harmonic preparation in which the F major and F minor duality is presented as the achievement of a harmonic goal. However, the separation of the entry of recapitulatory material is a further indication of a changed approach to the compositional arrangement of formal boundaries. The formal impact of a simultaneous restatement of the opening thematic content and a modulatory return to the tonic is no longer a meaningful iteration of a new structural element of the sonata-allegro.94

94

The distance from a compositional model which emphasises a single moment of recognition as central to the recapitulatory process is evident in the variation of the primary thematic material; in its first appearance, the same sixteenth-note material is present in both the left and right hands (bars 1–12) but the unison of the opening texture is replaced by a registrally expansive accompaniment in the left hand, which also provides harmonic elaboration for the sixteenth note units in the right hand, at the opening of the recapitulation (bars 175–182).

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5. Overcoming a Formal Cause of Fragmentation: Two Recapitulatory Moments in D 625 The essence of the fragmentation in D 625, centred upon the first movement, is the aesthetic and formal function of the recapitulation. With D  625, the evolution of Schubert’s harmonic and structural understanding of the sonata-allegro model had progressed sufficiently to exclude the possibility of a convincing and aesthetically significant return, due to the absence of the tension or distance previously an inherent part of the harmonically-generated structural arc of the exposition and development. The crisis of recapitulation arises from ‘[…] some deeper anxiety about return […]’,95 which is due to the presence of two incompatible defining entities within the movement: the tension-conditioned formal arc of the sonata-allegro model and the motivic and harmonic structures of the movement, conditioned by unity and symmetry. The first movement is a fragment because the relative stasis of its motivic content and its aesthetic invocation of the fragmentary had created a dialectical tension with the structural arc upon which the conventionally established formal model of the sonataallegro is predicated, and the conflict of two formative principles reached its culmination at the entry of the recapitulation. The last movement is confronted with a similar challenge, centred upon the harmonic distribution of the characteristic tonal areas through the exposition and development, which create a harmonic structure which is similar to that of the first movement in its premature occupation of regions associated with the recapitulation. The distinction between these movements is profound and goes some way towards providing an aesthetic explication of the horizontal completion of the finale. D 625/3 succeeds in achieving a preliminary form of the dissociation the harmonic and thematic elements of recapitulation which is predominant as a new method of approaching recapitulation and return in D 840/1. Completion of the finale may be interpreted as emerging from its recapitulatory dissociation. The ‘aspirational’ tonic (whether in the minor or the major mode) tonality appears as the result of the first modulation in the exposition, to the second theme group, and reverses the established harmonic paradigm of recapitulatory function. The second theme group of the recapitulation is more distant from the tonic than in the exposition, and the harmonic plan of the movement is based upon a symmetrical mirroring of the tonal arrangements of the exposition (in which the more distant A flat major occurs at the end of the section) in the recapitulation.

95

Kramer, Unfinished Music, p. 328.

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Table 14 Tonal Plan of D 625/3 Exposition

Development

Recapitulation

Coda

Bars 1–26

Bars 27–46

Bars 53–92

Bars 97–174

Bars 175–200

Bars 201–220

Bars 2 27–270

Bars 2 71–283

F minor

F major

A flat major (with divergences)

Modulatory*

F minor

A flat major

F major

F minor / F major

* The first appearance of F major is in bars 123–124 as a dominant preparation for the B flat major (bars 129–136) and B flat minor (bars 137–143) passages. Further tonal areas including D  flat major and C sharp major, A major, and A minor precede the arrival in F major in bar 169 and F minor in bar 171. As in the earlier table, these tonal areas are considered as anchor-points and are not intended to be read as unified harmonic planes.

The first movement and finale of D  625 represent the utmost extremes of the recapitulatory function in the sonatas of 1817 and 1818; the first movement is inevitably fragmented as a result of the irreconcilable dialectic between its content and its formal aspirations. The last movement does not diverge from the aesthetic ideals of the first movement, as it is characterised by similar references to fragmentation, including succinct and abruptly presented motivic material (bars 13–21), startling transitions, and a high degree of rhetorical contrast in addition to a harmonic plan which avoids a linear progression away from the tonic with the intention of formally orchestrating a revelatory moment of return. In the last movement, it is not the composition which fractures under the strain, but the hermeneutic essence of the formally defined recapitulation. The recapitulation, as a formal event in which the primary thematic material (in this case slightly varied) returns in the tonic or in a closely related tonality, is unambiguously present, without even the harmonic modifications and transposed presentation of the opening thematic material characteristic of Schubert’s earlier sonata movements.96 The innovation in D 625/3 is the removal of the semiotic identity of the recapitulation as a reconciliatory moment in which the tensions, both motivic and harmonic, are finally resolved and the architectonic formal narrative of the sonata movement is perceived to be approaching its aesthetic and structural closure. The internally conditioned formal processes, arising from the harmonic and motivic content, provoke an entirely different recapitulatory experience than that which is integrated into the externally-defined formal model of the sonata-allegro recapitulation as a harmonic and motivic return, predicated upon distance created from the tonic of the first theme in the exposition and development. D 625/3 is not complete due to the successful ‘solution’ of the recapitulatory problem, as the moment of fracture centred upon the recapitulatory process remains pre-

96

Coren, pp. 569–70.

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sent. Instead of finding expression by irretrievably shattering the coherence between formal model and aesthetic content, which led to the abandoned first movement, the fracture in the finale appears between the externalised and established form of the recapitulation as a presentation of the opening material in the tonic, and the semiotic function of the recapitulation as a bringer of return and resolution. The formal fracture centred upon the recapitulation which emerges in the sonatas of 1817 and 1818 has not been excluded from D 625/3 and the following sonata-allegro movements. It has been so deeply ingrained in the fundamental formal elucidation of the sonata-allegro at its most definitive moment that the connection between a single aesthetic interpretation and a forced necessity of reconciliation has been broken away from the identity of the formal model itself. The fragmentation of the individual movements has been transfigured into a fracture in the meaning and function of the sonata movement as an idealised construct. Conformity with the formal model of the sonata-allegro movement allows a material completion of the movement in question, but the autonomy and independence of the individually generated structures arising from motivic and harmonic processes remains uninflected by the rigours and demands of the external formal principles. This is the mode in which the following sonata-allegro movements would be composed. The fracture of the recapitulation and its ambiguous function as a harbinger of ‘return’ is more fully explored in D 840/1. Although the formal–aesthetic moment of fracture remains the most essential characteristic of the later recapitulatory processes in many of the following sonata-allegro movements, the cultural shadow and the formal emphasis emerging from the most evident type of fragmentation in the last incomplete piano sonata, D 840, is finally removed from the sonata-allegro model and the recapitulatory process as its most significant and revelatory component, and falls once more upon the formal construction of the sonata movement cycle as a whole. D 625 finds a new path to the aesthetic ideal of completion in its transfiguration and formal integration of the recapitulatory fracture and its acceptance of the fragmentary as an aesthetic and structurally-active principle of renewal. Through its acknowledgement of the fragment and the moment of fracture as an inevitable consequence of the aesthetic independence of the musical content, both harmonic and motivic, the irreconcilable poles of form and individual musical content are revealed as the oppositional principles under which a new dialectic tension necessary for aesthetic coherence may be created.

D 655 and D 769A Following the composition of D 625 in September 1818, at the end of period marked by the appearance of four-movement structures, minor keys with increasing numbers of accidentals, and structural and formal innovations, Schubert returned to an earlier sonata paradigm with D 664 in A major. Its three-movement structure and the polyphonically inflected, string-quartet-like textures of its first movement echo the idiom and rhetoric of the earlier compositions, preceding the experimental sonatas of 1817 and 1818, while the octaves in the development of the first movement are a tribute to the instrumental and virtuosic developments in the writing for piano to have occurred in the intervening years. The finale, D 664/3, contains the last subdominant recapitulation among the piano sonatas. This is highly unusual: preceding the composition of D 664, divergent or unconventional recapitulations were exclusively present in the first movements of the sonatas for solo piano.1 A placement of the subdominant recapitulation in a movement other than the first movement, where it is divorced from the weight of formal and structural expectation placed upon the moment of fulfilment of the sonata-allegro model, is a significant step. In the light of the deliberately invoked characteristics of the piano sonatas composed in 1815 and 1816, it is tempting to conclude that Schubert, having surpassed the necessity for composing a recapitulation which is not entirely conventional and simultaneously aesthetically satisfactory, placed the transpositional recapitulation in a movement in which it is clearly a matter of compositional choice or whim. In the last movement of D 664, this has been interpreted as a kind of musical farewell2 to the recapitulatory process which had been fundamental to so many of the preceding sonata movements. However, the sonatas of the period marked by fragmentary experimentation are not drawn into the dynamic of ‘farewell’ present in the return to an earlier textural and thematic idiom and the reconciliation of the transpositional recapitulation present in D 664. It is the compositional impulse towards thematic economy and textural and instrumental innovation specific to the possibilities of the pianoforte, emergent for the first time in these experimental sonatas of 1817 and 1818, from which the two short1 2

Coren, pp. 569–70. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 131.

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est fragments of piano sonatas D 655 in C sharp minor and D 769A in E minor originate. The following examination is centred upon the continuation of the principles of motivic unity and their effects upon harmonic structure which are definitive for D 571/570, D 613, and D 625. These are analysed and subsequently placed in a context of aesthetic fragmentation in the two shortest examples of incompletion in Schubert’s solo piano sonatas. I. Compositional Background An examination of the two fragments together is based upon the commonalities between them. The brevity of the two sonata fragments is significant in the context of the increasing drive towards total motivic integration, in that the small scale elements which attain formal significance are incorporated throughout the composition, independent of the boundaries between thematically defined areas, and its structural consequences. Although the paradigm of motivic presentation and variation established with D 571/570 and refined in D 625 is recognisably present in D 655 and D 769A, the application of the structural and thematic principles of reductivism, simplicity, and minimalism in conjunction with sparse textures and elements of virtuosity specific to the possibilities inherent in the keyboard instrument for which Schubert was composing produce material which presents substantial obstacles to sustaining coherence and large scale structures in a form as long as that of a single sonata-allegro movement. These are substantially the result of the limited motivic material, which renders it difficult to produce extended thematic constructs and generate a continuous and coherent structure. Both movements are distinguished from the other sonata fragments by the struggle to compose an extended structure on the basis of motivic material which is not only itself very brief, but also more ‘inflexible’ in terms of the possibilities for thematic and melodic presentation and variation than the motivic elements upon which D 571/570 and D 625/1 are based. The fragments D 655 and D 769A are abandoned at a point which is comparatively early in their structural progressions: in the case of D 655 at the end of the exposition after 73 bars, and in D 769A in what is most probably the transition between the first and second theme groups, after 38 bars.3 This produces a substantial reduction in the material available for analysis. However, it is the presence of similarities in the modes by which motivic and harmonic elements are interconnected, through processes of reinterpretation and retrospective elucidation, which connect the two fragments and may in part account for their unusual brevity. In both

3

However, the last chord is a B major dominant seventh, implying a return to the E minor tonic and a possible restatement of the opening theme before the conclusion of the first theme group.

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manuscripts it is clear that the fragmentation at these points is a matter of deliberate incompletion: the manuscript of D 655 (MHc–139), consisting of two pages (notated recto and verso) contains three empty staves after the exposition repeat, and is dated April 1819. D 769A (MHc–173) is undated but ascribed to 1823,4 and is notated on a single page of which the last stave and the verso are completely empty, indicating that the compositional process was abandoned in the course of the exposition. II. D 655 1. Continuation of a Process of Motivic Unity The dual circumstances of the absolute dimensions of the notated material of the two fragments, which are substantially shorter than all previous incomplete movements belonging to a larger cyclical work,5 and the fact they break off before the beginning of the development, strongly indicate that they represent a distinct stage in the composition of piano sonatas. The piano sonata appears to have reached a temporary terminus. It is perplexing that this is successfully realised not in the two fragments but in the apotheosis of the formal and thematic developments and experiments of 1817 and 1818, the Fantasie in C major D 760 in 1822.6 The two fragmentary piano sonatas, the latter probably composed shortly after the completion of D 760, do not participate in the dynamic of formal and thematic confluence which led to the strict motivic reduction and implicit reliance upon a single dactylic rhythm over four aesthetically and atmospherically contrasting movements in the Fantasie. Instead, they retain substantial elements of the sonata paradigm of the experimental works of 1817 and 1818, but display a subsumption of motivic and thematic unity and reductionism into a deeper formal level, allowing the possibility of generating related but not identical thematic material in which the connections are implicit and therefore prominent in the perception and experience of the musical structures. This process, which will be fully realised in the later works,7 begins to emerge with the use of motivic elements to elucidate larger structural connections.

4 5

6 7

Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 463. With the exception of movements which are potentially associated with incomplete cyclical works, such as the Rondo in C major D 309A. Even assuming that the movement was intended as the conclusion of D 279, it would be a coherent part of a fragment on a much larger scale than D 655 and D 769A. See D 571 and D 570 III, 5: The Apotheosis of Motivic Unity: the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasie D 760, pages 250–251. The use of recognisable motivic entities to generate thematic content in different formal contexts and create a deeper layer of structural connection, and its eventual separation from a process which is confined by the necessity of running in strict parallel to the formal divisions of the works (the

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2. Motivic Generation D 655 begins, like D 613 and D 625, in unaccompanied octaves; the essential thematic content of the first theme group is contained within the first bar. Although the diastematic contour of the primary thematic material appears to be conditioned by the notes of the tonic chord, the intervallic relationship which informs the divergences from this chord is significant. The essential nature of the diastematic content is harmonically static, apart from the presence of chromatic steps to D sharp and A natural. The centrality of the chromatic step to this motivic construct is reinforced by the second bar. It is recognisably presented as an inversion and variant of the primary thematic material, but the melodic contour is substantially different from the opening bar. The chromatic vacillation surrounding D sharp functions as a stable point of recognition, and the restatement of the second chromatic step, from G sharp to A natural, in inversion reinforces the motivic connections. In order to appreciate the foundational significance of the chromatic steps to the identity of the primary thematic material, it is necessary to examine its phrase periodisation and the motivic construction of the fourth bar.

Fig. 56 D 655 bars 1–6

After the first motivic statement and two bars occupied by its variants, the fourth bar acts as a transition to a single bar in E major, recognisably drawn from the material of the first bar in the semitone vacillation of the first and third beats, before returning to a varied and elaborated restatement of the theme. An indication of the motivic significance attained by the chromatic step throughout the exposition fragment D 655 is present in the generation of its material. Although it appears to be a chromatic scale, manner in which the first ‘new’ derivation of the fundamental thematic material is presented in the context of the second subject, as in D 625/1) which characterises the motivic interconnections that exist between movements in the later sonatas, begins in D 784.

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the presence of the semitone in the preceding three bars as a generator of harmonic momentum and distance from the tonic informs its function as a transition.

Fig. 57 D 655 bars 11–15

The significance of the semitone as a melodic identifier of motivically weighted material is further heightened by its appearance in the transition to the second theme group (bars 12–13). It is preceded by material derived from the first thematic statement in bar 1 (once more recognisable due to the characteristic vacillation over a semitone in the sixteenth note figure and the reference to a semitone step between G sharp and A natural). However, the transition to the rising chromatic scale in bars 12–13 (itself a varied reiteration and extension of the transitional bar 4 of the primary theme, which also introduces an E major passage) results in a seamless integration of the non-thematic, transitional chromatic steps into two distinct thematic contexts. The last bar of the first theme group is characterised by chromatic steps and octaves, and the introduction of the scale emerges from a vacillation on the A natural–G sharp semitone already familiar from the first thematic statements. Furthermore, its rising semitones, each repeated, shape the accompaniment of the second theme group, being altered only in their diastematic stasis in the first bar and first two beats of the second bar (bars 14–15). This centrality of the chromatic step or semitone is formative in the exposition of D  655, being incorporated into increasingly broad contexts and departing from its original presentation as a structurally and harmonically insignificant ornamentation of the C sharp minor triad. After the transition to the second theme group, it is recognisable in its intervallic identity as a two-note figure, a substantial reduction from the already minimal three-note thematic element at the centre of D 625/1. Its status as a potential motivic identifier is further reduced due to its incorporation as a smaller element of a larger, melodically defined theme which occupies the entirety of the first bar and it is a comparatively minor distinguishing element of the larger melodic contour of the fundamental thematic material in the first subject, which destabilises the thematic

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coherence produced by its reappearance in the transition, even with the emphasis of multiple repetitions. The function of the semitone in D 655 as a definitive motivic element is further underlined by a process which parallels that present in D 571, although in reverse. D 571 raised the accompaniment figure of its opening bars to the status of a musical element of primary melodic significance in the second theme group (bars 28–53) by incorporating it into the second theme. In D 655, the semitone is removed from its position as a part of the melodic contour of the primary theme in two stages. In the transition to the second theme group (bars 12–13), the semitone is the only material present, but does not act as a recognisable melodic element: its function is to signal the approach of truly ‘thematic’ content, which is duly introduced in bar 14. The realisation of the structural weakness of the semitone as the source of motivic content is revealed in the first transition (bars 12–13) between the first and second theme groups: repeated in a rising sequence, the transition is a motivically insignificant sequence without recognisable content which aspires to melodic or thematic status. The semitone, although recognisable as being derived from a minor melodic element of the opening theme, remains ornamental rather than motivic.8 The presentation of the melodic content of the second theme group completes the dissociation of the semitone from its ornamental function in a thematic context: the first five notes of the two-bar phrase period which characterises the second theme group (bars 14–37) outline two major thirds in stepwise movement. The function of the semitone as a fundamental unifying element is fulfilled by its subsumption into the accompaniment, a relegation to the textural background which is emphasised by a thematic parallel to the melodic line present in the bass. In addition to its prominence as the definitive intervallic content of the accompanying middle voice, the semitone remains melodically active. It retains elements of its presentation in the first theme group as a brief ornamental inflection of diatonic content, but in a metrically augmented context. The diastematic elements of the melodic and accompaniment lines which display semitone relations to preceding or subsequent notes are held for at least a quarter note, and occasionally for a half note. The role of the semitone has been expanded in the second theme group, from a minimally recognisable ornamental and transitional figuration to a substantial melodic characteristic and the primary material of the accompaniment. 8

By the conclusion of the second theme group on the first beat of bar 37, it is clear that the motivic capacities of the semitone in isolation have been exhausted. After a two-bar transition which incorporates the semitone as a melodic element, it is no longer sufficient to occupy the transitional bars without elaboration, due to the triplet figuration of the accompaniment at the close of the second theme group (bars 37–38) which replaces the sixteenth note figures of the previous transition (bars 12–13). Further transitional material in the four bars (43–46) which immediately follow a sustained arrival on the dominant of the C sharp minor tonic (bars 39–42) relegates the semitone to its original role as a smaller melodic interval in the construct of a larger, unified motivic element.

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In its processes for evoking structural coherence through a source of fundamental thematic and motivic content, the C sharp minor fragment remains indebted to D 571 and D  625/1. It does not achieve the strict adherence to a single, predominant thematic and melodic element present in D 625/1; nor does the chosen motivic entity, the semitone, have the immediately recognisable melodic contour and structural presence which, in addition to its flexibility of motivic function, renders the arpeggiation of the opening of D 571 a versatile element of thematic and motivic construction throughout the movement. Regardless of the degree to which the semitone has been integrated into the musical fabric of the three thematically defined sections of the C sharp minor fragment, it does not succeed in creating an overarching structural unity in the manner of the preceding sonatas; neither does it act entirely as a subterranean element of connection acting on a deep structural plane, as is the case with motivic entities in some of the later piano sonatas. The primary thematic and therefore structural weakness of the movement lies in the ubiquity of the semitone as a part of the diatonic scale and the difficulties in associating specific thematic content with an interval which is ultimately almost unavoidable in melodic composition. In this sense, the experimental nature of the fragments is confirmed and the process of motivic reduction and economy which began in D 571 and continued with the increase in minimalism in the primary thematic material of D 625, particularly in the sense of its unaltered presentation as the melodic content of the first and second theme groups, is furthered in D 655 and is driven to the point of collapse. 3. Harmonic Implications of the Semitone and the Third Expositional Area A new structural area which is associated with the concept of the ‘three key trimodular block’9 or the ‘three key exposition’10 beginning in bar 39, is harmonically distinct from the preceding first and second theme areas but not motivically distinguished through the dominance of a single, identifiably melodic element. Harmonically, the third structural area is distinguished from the opening section in C sharp minor and the second theme group in E major by an extended opening passage on the dominant, which is strengthened and expanded in its modulatory scope through the enharmonic reinterpretation of its G sharp major harmony as A flat major, introduced as a new tonal centre in bar 51 and finally established in bar 55. The structural effects of this passage, fulfilling a function somewhere between that of a new formal section and a continuation of the preceding transitional bars (37–38) in which the dominant seventh is es9 10

Graham Hunt, ‘The Three-Key Trimodular Block and Its Classical Precedents: Sonata Expositions of Schubert and Brahms’, Intégral, 23 (2009), 65–119 (p. 65). Longyear and Covington, p. 455.

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tablished as the stable opening chord, are undeniably anticipatory and only revealed at its conclusion. Instead of the expected C sharp minor tonic, a chromatically inflected resolution to an A major dominant seventh follows on the first beat of bar 43. The oppositional dynamic created between G sharp and A natural, a new function of the formative semitone, is a primary tenet of the following formal element which, viewed harmonically, continues until the beginning of the re-transition at the conclusion of the exposition in bar 73. The function of the semitone as a harmonic determinant, allowing the composition of an extended formal section predicated upon the half-tone steps surrounding G sharp, is clarified by the following modulations.

Fig. 58 D 655 bars 42–49

The A major dominant seventh is followed by a C major dominant seventh, continuing the process of semitone relations through the harmonically definitive step from C sharp to C natural in the left hand and the melodically significant step from A natural to B flat in the right hand (bars 45–46). The subsequent resolution to F major (bar 47) continues the transformation of the semitone from a motivic and melodic entity to the primary mode of harmonic movement and confirms its place in the generation of structural continuity. Its primacy as a harmonic signifier is reinforced by the G sharp eighth notes in the right hand (bar 47), which introduce a new harmony into the otherwise stable F major harmony as an ornamental passing note with a linear descent,

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an inversion of the diastematic semitone relation of the first bar of the movement in the same register as its original appearance. The reiteration of this semitone relation in a context which is both explicitly melodic as well as harmonically influential is a confirmation of the newly acquired significance of the semitone, and its return to the original pitches in which the interval was established as an entity of structural and formal import is conclusive. The semitone is therefore expanded not only in its role as a defining harmonic and structural element through the dissociation of the individual notes from their registral identities and from the directly sequential nature of their diastematic function, but the mode by which it is incorporated into the exposition as an entity of structural import is fundamentally altered. The ornamental iteration of the semitone, which originates in the primary theme, is contained and defined by its thematic and motivic surroundings: removed from this context, it is capable of acting only as a transitional, ornamental, or accompanying motive (as is seen in the transitional bars 4 and 12–13, and the accompaniment of the second theme group from bar 14). In the third area of the exposition, it is initially present in initiating and shaping harmonic processes, as in the modulation in bars 43–46. This transition from a primarily ornamental and melodic element, capable of implying harmonic structures without actively realising them in the first two areas of the exposition, to a definitive element of the underlying harmonic structures on the scale of individual antecedent and consequent phrase structures, is reiterated at the conclusion of the exposition (bars 63–71). Here, the chromatic step is presented in all of its previous iterations: it is active as a melodic figuration in the half notes of the right hand (for example, in bar 63) and simultaneously in the accompaniment figuration of the second theme group in the middle line (bars 63–65). Finally, it is presented in a larger harmonic context as the distinguishing element between the major and minor mode reiterations of the melodic content (bars 63, 65, 68, and 70).

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Fig. 59 D 655 bars 61–73

4. Distinct Functions of the Semitone in the Exposition The third section of the exposition (bars 39–71) is distinguished from the first and second theme groups by the shift in the function of the semitone, which is concurrent with the appearance of a new tonal centre based upon enharmonically linked G sharp– A flat tonal areas. G sharp major dominant sevenths introduce this section, which remains highly modulatory until bar 51, after which A flat major predominates until an enharmonic reinterpretation in bar 58, allowing the exposition to close on the G sharp dominant. This creates a structure which is ambiguously dual in nature, as the first thirty-eight bars of the exposition, centred upon C sharp minor and E major, and the following thirty-one bars, anchored around the G-sharp and A flat enharmonic entity, create a tonally bipartite form which is inhabited by three thematically and motivically distinguished sections, predicated upon a series of mediant relations. The A flat and G sharp centred tonal area, initiated in bar 39 and fully established in A flat major from bar 51, acts as an interrupted but essentially consistent dominant-inflected prolongation against the ‘tonic-like’ C sharp minor and E major tonal centres of the first and second theme groups. The understanding of the exposition of D  655 as a three-part exposition with an underlying dual structure, in which three harmonically and thematically defined structural elements are subsumed into a deeper form defined by motivic, harmonic, and

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metric contrasts and changes is strengthened by the otherwise unusual proportional weight of the third expositional area (bars 39–71) in comparison to the first (bars 1–8) and second (bars 14–36) areas. The two-part expositional structure and the length of its latter half, which emphasises the enharmonic areas surrounding the dominant and simultaneously succeeds in dissociating the dominant from its polarised relation with the tonic, is not merely an attempt to avoid stasis or create harmonic interest. It is also a heightened and intensified harmonic expression of Schubert’s interest in creating structures based on the arrangement of tonal planes, in which areas defined harmonically create a structure without being directly related to one another through architectonic tensions. The moment of circularity and ambivalence which appears with the enharmonic, as an irritation of linearity and unambiguity, is used as Schubert’s primary method of neutralising the formally generative polarity of the exposition. It is […] not his only [method], but certainly the most fruitful for the further development of the sonata form. Tonic and dominant remain the cornerstones of the exposition, but their relation is no longer […] constitutive for the course of the movement.11

This description reflects the arrangement of tonal areas in D 655: the gradual transition from tonic to dominant tonal areas through the mediant harmonies of E major gives way to a procedure of formal generation through a structure profoundly reliant upon enharmonic shifts in order to create a dissociative potential and harmonic breadth impossible in the traditional sonata-allegro model, while maintaining the harmonic ‘frame’ of the tonic-dominant exposition. D 655 represents a continuation of the formal paradigm based upon motivic reductionism which emerged in 1817 with the composition of D 571/570, and contains an attempt to incorporate the emphasis on an underlying structure which is analogous to, but not identical with, the sonata-allegro movement and is delineated and expressed by harmonic planes with a heavy reliance upon enharmonic pivots present in D 613. In bringing together the diverse threads of formal and harmonic experimentation as well as the treatment of motivic content in the context of structural generation, the fragmentary D 655 reveals itself as a concentrated and purposeful attempt at driving the experiments in paradigmatic interpretation of the piano sonata to a new plane.

11

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p.  122. ‘Das mit der Enharmonik eindringende Moment von Zirkularität und Ambivalenz wird als Irritation von Linearität und Eindeutigkeit zum Hauptmittel Schuberts bei der Neutralisierung der formbildenden Expositionspolarität. Es ist […] nicht sein einziges, aber sicher das für die weitere Entwicklung der Sonatenform folgenreichste. Tonika und Dominante bilden zwar die Eckpunkte der Exposition, aber ihr Verhältnis ist nicht länger […] für den Verlauf des Satzes konstitutiv.’

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5. Sources of Fragmentation An examination of the compositional aims which appear deeply embedded in the formal arrangement and harmonic and motivic structures of D 655 reveals that the scale of the fragment is ideal for the scope of the formal and aesthetic challenge to which it is devoted. The formal space of the exposition is well-suited to unifying two disparate strands of compositional experimentation, the function of an individual and self-determined harmonic structure as a parallel and fundamental replacement for the externally-imposed formal strictures of the sonata-allegro and the use of motivic reductionism and economy to create continuity and connections across the formal boundaries inherent in the sonata-allegro model. The more precisely Schubert appears to direct the composition of the unfinished piano sonatas towards a particular compositional challenge or approach them as an experiment in the possibilities of a particular aspect of the musical form, the more striking are the arguments and plausibility that their fragmentary status is not only immediately related to the compositional impulse, but a direct consequence thereof. A strong association between the type of incompletion present and the compositional aim or focus of the individual fragment, clearly apparent in the ‘absent recapitulation’ model of D 571/570, D 613, and D 625, remains present in D 655, which additionally records a continuing process of experimentation with the intersections of established formal principles and harmonic and motivic structures which follow D 571/570. Emphasis upon continuity and parity rather than tension and opposition between not only the harmonic aspects of the formal delineation, but also the thematic and melodic content, continues to be central to the exposition of D 655, and is subject to a more direct approach than is evident in the preceding sonatas. Formal emphasis upon the dominant and its effective harmonic ‘denaturation’ as a tonal polarity evoking oppositional tension against the tonic is the most open and deliberate attempt to undermine the internal harmonic gravitation of the sonata-allegro structure in D 655. The choice of the major dominant as a key for the second half of the exposition is highly unusual, both in the context of minor key sonatas in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries12 and in Schubert’s oeuvre before the 1819 composition of D 655. In D 655, it appears that the distinct strands of motivic, harmonic, and formal experimentation are directed towards a new conceptualisation of the sonata-allegro from within, an overwhelming impetus towards unity and cohesiveness, illuminating form through the presence of unchanging material upon which the rhetorical and aesthetic expression varies as an individual and characteristic ‘Stimmung’:

12

Hepokoski and Darcy, pp. 119, 310, 312–13.

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[…] that which changes around something which itself remains timelessly the same. Repetition is only possible for that which is itself singular and never for the subjectively created.13

The essence of ‘that which remains timelessly the same’ is an abiding form created through structures of stillness, which exists as a new entity while maintaining the identity and integrity of the formal model of the sonata-allegro upon the surface of the composition. Regardless of its brevity, D  655 represents a progression from the experimental fragmentary sonatas of 1817 and 1818, and stands between the beginnings of the reinvention of the sonata-allegro from within and the culmination of the formal dynamic expressed in the last fragmentary piano sonata, D 840. However, it is not the last link in the chain of the fragmentary sonatas and the experimental approach to the sonata-allegro which they record, as it is followed by a further sonata-movement torso. III. D 769A The penultimate fragmentary piano sonata, D 769A, is enigmatic in its brevity. Previously known as D 994, it was published in 1958 and assigned a date of 1819.14 it is only 38 bars long and identifiable as a sonata due to the title on the manuscript. Based upon the paper and handwriting, the sonata has been provisionally dated to 1823;15 the balance of probability would place it after the February 1823 composition of the completed A minor sonata D 784, but a more concrete date is unavailable. 1. Manuscript Formal indications inherent in the thirty-eight-bar fragment showing it to be the beginning of the first movement of a piano sonata are absent; however, the melodic and motivic material appears directed by an exploration of the possibilities of the statement of the first theme. The last bar closes on a B major dominant seventh, implying a continuation in the established E minor tonality. Due to the absence of a second theme group and therefore the lack of any modulatory passages, no conclusions regarding the harmonic structure and the continuation of the experiments in complementarity prominent in D 655 can be drawn.

13 14 15

Adorno, ‘Franz Schubert’, p. 26. ‘[…] Stimmung ist, was wechselt an dem, was zeitlos sich selber gleichbleibt, ohne daß Wechsel Macht hätte darüber.’ Brown, Schubert. A Critical Biography, pp. 58–59. Deutsch, Franz Schubert. Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, p. 463.

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The manuscript appears to conform to the model of a Reinschrift in its ‘balanced handwriting and careful organisation’.16 Between each of the accolades, a single stave is left blank, and contrary to Schubert’s practice in earlier stages of composition, a clef and a key signature appear at the beginning of each stave in the subsequent accolades, not only before the first line. In conjunction with the title and the clarity of the notation, it appears that D 769A may be a fragmentary work in which the process of notation was begun as a Reinschrift, as there does not appear to be any evidence of a preceding Niederschrift;17 the absolute quantity of fragmentary Reinschrift manuscripts is small, only six works in comparison to the eighty-one compositional fragments and twenty fragmentary Entwürfe.18 Although it is possible that an earlier working manuscript of D 769A has entirely vanished, it is not tenable to assume that such a manuscript must have existed in the absence of any concrete indication, as the established practice of notating the first movements of piano sonatas in a Reinschrift-like character (with key-signatures, clefs, and intervening empty staves) would require the assumption that the draft versions of D 157, D 459, and D 613, all of which display strong affinities with Reinschrift-notation and exist only in a single manuscript, had been similarly lost or destroyed.19 It is therefore most probable that the fragmentary manuscript of D 769A records the full extent of the composition.20 Schubert’s ‘highly economical writing methods which follow the beginning of the years of crisis’ indicate the conclusion that D 769A is a compositional fragment which exists in its full extent in the manuscript MHc–173, which is simultaneously the first notation of the work.21

16 17 18 19 20

21

Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 90. ‘[…] ausgewogenes Schriftbild und eine besonders sorgfältige äußere Gestaltung charakterisiert.’ Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, pp. 90–91. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 65. Furthermore, the only known manuscript of D 279 (MHc–136) displays strong indications of aspiring to the characteristics of a Reinschrift in the type and clarity of the notation at the beginning of the first movement, although it deteriorates rapidly on the second page. In the sonatas and single movements which only exist in a single version, at least the first thirtyeight bars (the extent of the notation of D 769A) and more often the entire first movement maintain the clarity and orderliness of a Reinschrift and it is therefore probable that the possibility for errors, corrections, or simply the evident rapidity of notation present in the later movements of the manuscripts which begin in the type of a Reinschrift have simply not had the opportunity to emerge. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p.  121. ‘[…] stark ökonomisch orientierte Schreibweise nach Einbruch der Krisenjahre […]’.

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2. Scale of the Fragment: Formal Projection Schubert’s established practice of composing fragmentary piano sonatas which, either individually based upon the type and location of the break in composition or taken in the context of contemporaneous fragments, often resulted in compositions which display a convincing parallel between the nature of the incompletion and the compositional focus. Regardless of the brevity of D 769A and the possibility that its incompletion is not due to the aesthetic content or formal untenability of the movement, the connection between fragmentation, the sonata-allegro model, and the musical content of the fragments indicate that a closer examination of intrinsic sources of fragmentation is capable of providing insights into the development of the conception of the piano sonata as an aesthetically defined construct. Due to the title of the manuscript it is clear that Schubert intended to compose a cyclical work on a large scale. The opening theme of the exposition was most probably conceived as an entity capable of providing the necessary content to sustain a formal construct on the scale of a sonata-allegro movement, and in light of the previous innovations in harmonic structure and interpretation of form through both harmonic and motivic complementarity and relations, it is probable that the first theme of D 769A was intended to allow later material to draw upon similar connections and references to those seen in the preceding sonatas. 3. Harmonic Structures and Thematic Content in the First Theme Group Immediately, two striking aspects of the composition emerge as characteristic of the thirty-eight-bar fragment, and in keeping with the established direction of Schubert’s compositional interest in the sonata and the sonata-allegro movement, one is primarily concerned with harmonic structures and the other with motivic content. The first theme group is marked by an inclination away from the expected reinforcement of the E minor tonic and an early incorporation of the distant tonality of F major.22 The choice of F major draws a variety of harmonic and formal intersections into consideration: a dichotomy between F major and the resulting unavoidable emphasis on F natural generates a melodic closeness to F sharp as a defining function of the dominant of E minor. However, the inclusion of F major is not solely conditioned by an intent to create as much harmonic distance between the complementary poles as

22

Appearing for the first time in bar 5 with a Neapolitan function as a chromatically altered subdominant: after a further appearance in the restatement of the main theme in bars 15 and 16 and an increasing function as a tonal anchor in bars 23 and 24 and again in bar 29, the centrality of F major as an established tonal plane which is removed from the tonic–dominant area is deeply integrated into the first theme group.

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possible. Chromatic opportunities for unexpected harmonic transitions based upon chromatic steps define the harmonic content of the fragment (for example, the fluidity in modulation in bars 27–35), essentially treating components of the vertical harmony as individual polyphonically-influenced voices subjected to melodically linear alteration in the passages not occupied by unaccompanied octaves. It is possible that the unusual brevity of D 769A is a result of the intensity and concentration with which the harmonic and structural aspects of the first theme group were composed in order to present a microcosm of the formal possibilities of the movement as a whole. The previous fragment, D 655, established distinct tonal planes which create an underlying duality in the form of the exposition: however, the integration of the dominant and its enharmonically inflected neighbouring tonal regions occurred relatively late (from bar 39), after half of the expositional material and the first two thematically defined areas have passed. D 769A anchors a distinct tonal plane within the first five bars of the first theme group. The unusual emphasis on establishing the F major as a complementary tonal centre in the course of the first theme group is not only significant in the context of a compositional development leading to the origins of the fragment itself. The integration of F major through its Neapolitan function (although so well established as to be ‘somewhat antiquated’23 by the time Schubert was composing D 769A) indicates that the first theme group is concerned with the generation of harmonic structures and tonal references which continue to play an important role in the evolution of the stylistic and structural characteristics of the later works. The Neapolitan became increasingly prominent not only the in tonal colouring the following piano sonatas, but through its use in the exploration of novel and unconventional modulatory possibilities. […] it is in the modulatory and tonal implications of the [Neapolitan sixth] chord that we find the key to Schubert’s later style. The chord is called a sixth, and indeed Schubert is nearly always orthodox in its use as a first inversion – but he does not allow it in the works of his maturity to lead him into the more orthodox modulatory paths.24

The divergence between F major in its function as a traditional Neapolitan sixth, in the first inversion and resolving to the dominant (bars 5 and 15–16), and F major as an independent tonal centre which is not bound by the ‘orthodox’ modulatory paths of the Neapolitan function as it appears in bar 29 is definitive of the essential harmonic structures of the first theme group. The exposition fragment contains the compressed harmonic principles upon which a larger structure can be founded; the fragment ends with the fulfilment of its composition impulse, the introduction of the Neapolitan sixth and its expansion and elevation to the role of an enharmonically and chromati23 24

Maurice J. E. Brown, ‘Schubert and Neapolitan Relationships’, The Musical Times, 85 (1944), 43–44 (p. 43). Brown, ‘Schubert and Neapolitan Relationships’, p. 43.

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cally potent harmonic entity, the establishment of F major as an equal and prominent tonal plane. The melodic material of D  769A is, particularly in terms of its texture and linear direction, strongly related to the experimental fragmentary sonatas of 1818 as well as the probably contemporaneous D 784. It contains rudimentary melodic innovations which, further developed, inform the thematic and melodic content of large sections of the first and second movements of D 840. Its opening bars state the broken tonic triad in the right hand and it is apparent that the textural minimalism and reductionism in the presentation of the primary thematic material present in D 613/1, D 625/1, and D 655 is continued in D 769A, creating a relatively continuous sequence of sonataallegro first movements in which the open and sparse tone of the first theme is a distinctive characteristic. The stark nature of the unaccompanied-octave theme in D 769A is associated with the realisation and experiential emphasis of the harmonic structure, centred upon the establishment of F major as a structurally significant tonal area. The first moment in which the harmony is not merely implicit in the melodic and linear progression but concretely established through the presence of a chord is the statement of the Neapolitan sixth in bar 5. Texture and its connection with the presentation of primary thematic material in D 769A is not only a return to an earlier model established in 1818: D 784/1 shows a still stronger textural resemblance to D 769A in its use of unaccompanied linear presentation of melodic and thematic content, briefly interrupted by harmonically elaborated passages for the purpose of creating emphasis upon musical and harmonic elements which are later to play a structurally significant role.25 In D  769A, the harmonic expansion for the purpose of reinforcing a structurally significant element falls upon the Neapolitan sixth, which acts as a tonal pole for the continuing first theme group. Based upon the example of the use of harmonic elaboration as a mode of indicating structural weight which has a deep connection with the content of the movement as a whole, it is reasonable to anticipate that the F major tonal area would be given a similar formal and structural prominence as the reinforced motive in the first movement of D 784. The last fragmentary sonata, D 840, opens with a motive which is more closely related to the opening of D 769A than it is to any of the other, more lengthy fragments. D 769A is, in its unaccompanied opening four bars, primarily engaged in outlining and occupying the harmonic space created by the triad of the E minor tonic, exploring its intervallic and melodic possibilities. D 769A, like D 655 before it, establishes the basis

25

In D  784/1 an interpolated chord in the left hand (bar 4) is used to distinguish and reinforce the importance of a rhythmically-characterised motive which becomes a foundational element throughout the movement; in placing still more emphasis on the accented note (on the third beat of bar 4) through the addition of harmonic support, its relation to the original motivic statement of the theme becomes clearer.

348

D 655 and D 769A

of a paradigm of composition in which disparate strands of experimentation in evoking and organising harmonic and melodic content in the context of a re-conceptualised sonata-allegro model are brought together and continue to be incorporated in ever deeper structural planes of the subsequent compositions. In the case of D 769A, it is the use of the unelaborated pitches of the tonic triad as the primary thematic material in the context of a precise and delicately positioned textural emphasis of the harmonically significant elements in the otherwise stark octaves or single line of the theme. 4. Fragmentation Defines the Scope of Formal Experiments The two fragmentary movements are especially challenging due to their enigmatically brief material presence and the extremity of the gulf which arises between the notated fragments and the formal ambition of a cyclical work. The evolution towards increasingly abrupt moments of fragmentation, the centrality of formal experiments, and the use of the piano sonata for laying out and resolving a specific and clearly observable aesthetically defined purpose is heightened in the composition of D 571/570 and the following unfinished sonatas. D 655 and 769A provide the next step in a continuing process of the evolution of Schubert’s conception of the sonata-allegro model. Deliberately sought possibilities for unconventional and rapid modulations originate in the two fragments, although lacking the illusory spontaneity of later works, and these remain characteristic of the piano sonatas composed after 1823. In D 655 and D 769A, the dialectic between the fragmentary material and its formal projection is more strongly apparent than in any of the other fragmentary sonatas; only recognisable as piano sonatas due to their titles, the two incomplete movements are inseparable from the form which is nascent but unrecognisable in the existing musical material. That the extremely limited material of these two fragments is not decisive in terms of understanding their significance in creating a connection between the experimental compositions for solo piano of 1817 and 1818 and the late style. On the contrary, it is indicative of an intensely concentrated approach to achieving an aesthetic synthesis between the musical content of the compositions, and the structures which are intrinsically generated by said content and their role in providing an internally-driven sense of order and organisation, which are incorporated into an intersection of the content and internally defined structures and the externally imposed sonata-allegro model drawn from the titles of the two fragments. The two fragments may be considered as aphoristic vehicles for the potentialities of the movements and forms to which they aspire. Like the aphorisms of the nineteenth century, they are not reduced by their absolute length; they are, rather, bearers of a highly concentrated meaning. ‘A fragment must, like a small work of art, be entirely

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separated from the surrounding world and complete in itself, like a hedgehog.’26 The exposition fragments of 1819 and 1823 are, in their brevity, a complete statement of the material and harmonic structures upon which not only a single movement, but, more loosely, an entire sonata may be projected. Through their abrupt ends, their material is irretrievably separated from their formal projections. The two fragments represent the final step in a process leading to the utmost extremes of harmonic and thematic integration and formal concentration on increasingly small but all the more essential elements of the sonata-allegro: after their composition Schubert began an entirely new mode of engagement with the genre.

26

‘Fragmente’, in Athenaeum. Eine Zeitschrift., ed. by August Wilhelm Schlegel and Friedrich Schlegel, Reprint (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftlich Buchgesellschaft, 1992), i, 179–322 (p. 230). ‘Ein Fragment muß gleich einem kleinen Kunstwerke von der umgebenden Welt ganz abgesondert und in sich selbst vollendet sein wie ein Igel.’

D 840 The Sonata in C major D 840, composed in April 1825, is the last of the unfinished piano sonatas and the first of the ‘late’ sonatas, followed by D 845, D 850, D 894, and the 1828 trio of works D 958, D 959, and D 960. It is also the first exception to the engagement with the piano sonata which led to individual and genre-specific types of fragment and fragmentary processes which exist solely in the context of works for the piano, although at first it appears to be a seamless continuation of the formal processes of D 625, composed seven years earlier. Not only is the first movement entirely complete, but it incorporates a profound refinement in the model of recapitulatory treatment which originates in the first and last movements of D 625. However, D 840 differs from the preceding fragments, not in its content or in its place as the culmination of a fragmentary evolution towards a renewal of the juxtaposition of form and content, but in its adherence to a model of fragmentation which involves complete opening movements followed by incomplete movements later in the cyclical form of the work and, for the first time, does not emerge from a composition for solo piano. Furthermore, it is an example of a type of dissociative fragmentation which affects its physical manifestation: parts of the manuscript, specifically the eighth page, containing the end of the second movement and the beginning of the Menuetto, are lost, whereas others are distributed between European libraries. This is an example of a type of archaeological fragmentation which does not affect the work as an aesthetic construct, as it is solely concerned with the integrity of a single physical manifestation. In the following examination, the similarities of D 840 to the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony in B minor D 759 are placed in the centre of a discussion of a type of cyclical incompletion which spans the boundaries of instrumental genres. An approach to the sonata through its fragmentary last movement and the incomplete Menuetto1 and Trio lead to a philosophical and analytical study of the first movement, in which the aesthetic concept of fragmentation forms the driving formal dynamic of an arc of reconciliation. This is a culmination of the impulses towards formal reinvention seen in the earlier fragments and produces the first complete sonata-allegro movement within an unfin-

1

The title of the movement is taken from the first edition, as the sheet of the manuscript upon which it was recorded is missing.

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ished piano sonata since 1817. The formal integration of motivic and harmonic treatment and a new modality of recapitulatory function form the centre of a movement which stands at the conclusion of a long period of exploration through the composition of sonatas which remained fragmentary. I. A New Fragment Type 1. ‘Unfinished’ Symphony D 759 Structural similarities in the modality of fragmentation between D 840 and D 759 render a study of the symphony instructive; it is a large-scale cyclical work showing a type of fragmentation otherwise common to the sonatas for solo piano. Its composition precedes that of D  840 by three years, and its model of a completed sonata-allegro movement followed by a slow movement within a fragmentary work anticipates the fragmentary structure of the last incomplete piano sonata. Beyond the formal similarities between the two fragments, Schubert’s treatment of the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony is revealing of his view of his incomplete compositions. The title page of the full score of D 759 bears the date ‘30 Octob. 1822’, and most probably indicates the date at which the notation of the full score was begun rather than the date of the preliminary drafts and sketches for the symphony.2 The first two movements, a sonata-allegro movement in B minor and a slow movement in E major, are formally completed. The third movement, an Allegro and Trio, exists in a short score,3 in which the first part, a scherzo-type section, is fully notated, although increasingly only in the upper voices as the score continues, and contains sixteen bars of the Trio and a few bars of Reinschrift notation, at the end of the full score. There is no recognised extant manuscript of a fourth movement. With the symphony, a new type of cyclical fragment appears. It resembles the earliest sonata fragments in that it is an example of cyclical incompletion, but unlike the earlier fragmentary sonatas the last extant movement is internally incomplete.4 This leads to a twofold fragmentation; firstly, through the openness of the cycle, which would presumably conclude with a finale movement, and secondly through the incomplete third movement.

2 3 4

Maynard Solomon, ‘Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony’, 19th-Century Music, 21 (1997), 111–33 (p. 111). Michael Graubart, ‘Schubert’s Silence’, The Musical Times, 151 (2010), 5–7 (p. 5). This fragmentary status does not appear to result from loss or damage to the end of the manuscript, as in D 567.

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2. Schubert’s Reception and Treatment of Fragments In addition to the new type of cyclical and internal fragmentation, the symphony offers an opportunity to examine Schubert’s view of his own unfinished compositions: after being accepted as a member of the Steiermärkischer Musikverein, he sent the score to his friend Anselm Hüttenbrenner in Graz, and indicated his intention to send the Musikverein a symphony in full score in a letter dated the 20th of September 1823.5 The presence of the fragmentary third movement, complicated by the dissociation of the short score from the two-movement full score and the further separation of the last page of the latter, has led to the suggestion of a number of varied formal projections drawn from the unusually broad range of structural potentialities inherent in the manuscripts and its fragmentary material. It has been suggested that the manuscript which was sent to Anselm Hüttenbrenner was in fact completed before Schubert dispatched it, and that the composer himself had separated the finale from the preceding three movements in order to use it as an entr’acte for Rosamunde D 797,6 but the suggestion does not explain away the incompletion of the third movement, of which only nine bars of fully-notated material at the beginning of the Allegro exist, although it provides an illuminating insight into the reception of fragmentary works and the frangibility of their formal constructs. It is therefore apparent that the four-movement structure of a fragment of reception in which the last movement had merely been separated from the preceding three and reused is not feasible. This leaves two further possibilities for the movement: Schubert, realising that a continuation of the symphony would be formally unsatisfactory after the composition of the first two movements, decided to abandon only the third movement, thus retrospectively ‘completing’ the symphony as a two-movement structure regardless of the tonal openness of the E major slow movement (a similar construct is seen in D 557, in which the finale of the A flat major sonata is in E flat major) or that it was originally intended as a two-movement symphony, after the example of Beethoven’s two-movement sonatas (beginning with Op. 49). An explanation of the abandonment of the third movement and a possible re-thinking of the formal conception of D 759 is proposed by Maynard Solomon: […] Schubert temporarily drew back from the implications of so risky a prospect and tried to compose a conventional scherzo with the purpose of adapting the unusual opening movements to the requirements of a four-movement cycle. Unsuccessful in this endeavour, however, he reverted to the two-movement plan, leaving the evidence of his con-

5 6

Deutsch, Franz Schubert: Die Dokumente seines Lebens, p. 200. Gerald Abraham, ‘Finishing the Unfinished’, The Musical Times, 112 (1971), 547–48 (p. 547).

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flicted feelings on the last page of the manuscript, on which he had boldly left the opening of the scherzo, as though to underscore his refusal to retreat from his original conception.7

A divergent version of the genesis of the two-movement structure is not based upon a completion through reduction, but the acceptance of the finality of its fragmentary status: Did Schubert delay the thanks to the ‘praiseworthy Musikverein’ because he hoped that he would yet complete the B minor Symphony? […] At the latest at the beginning of the next year, as he spoke of the ‘path to the great symphony’, he must have finally resigned himself, the two movements must have become historical to him as a fragment […].8

This possibility contains a vital point regarding the prevalence of fragmentary structures and their associations with the genre of the piano sonata. In the specific case of the composition of the B minor symphony, there is a precedent for a similar process of formal inspiration leading to a three-movement fragment in which a two-movement structure is strongly emphasised: D 566. Like D 759, D 566 consists of three associated movements, the last of which is a scherzo and trio, and the dissociated Rondo in E major D 506 has been suggested as a last movement for the sonata.9 The parallels between D 759 and D 566 are not only present in the extant fragmentary structures of the three-movement works, but also in the similarities between the proposed solutions to the questions raised by their fragmentary status. Both works are associated with potential status as fragments of reception, in which the separation of the finales occurred after the original ‘completion’ of the cyclical structures, and also with the incompatible suggestion of a two-movement structure, reductively issuing from the recognition that a third and fourth movement were untenable after the composition of the third movement was begun.10 11 Through the obvious analogies in the extant forms and the receptive engagement with fragmentary structure, the fragmentary model and internal cyclical structures of the symphony, and consequentially D 840, are revealed to be closely related to formal innovations and experiments present in the composition of D 566.

7 8

9 10 11

Solomon, ‘Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony’, p. 112. Peter Gülke, Franz Schubert und seine Zeit (Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1991), pp. 200–201. ‘Hat Schubert den Dank an den “löblichen Musikverein” hinausgezögert, weil er hoffte, die h-Moll-Sinfonie doch noch fertigstellen zu können? […] Spätestens im folgenden Frühjahr, da er vom “Weg zur großen Sinfonie” sprach, muß er endgültig resigniert haben, müssen ihm die zwei Sätze als Fragment historisch geworden sein […]’. Scheibler, ‘Schubert, Franz, Allegretto [E] für Klavier’, p. 448. Solomon, ‘Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony’, p. 112. Lindmayr-Brandl, Franz Schubert, p. 121.

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3. D 759 and D 840 as Models for a New Fragment-Type Recognition of the commonalities across the genres, expressed in form, fragmentary structure, and the presence of suggestion of an influence or inspiration through the formal innovations found in the works of Beethoven, which are reflected in the most widely-known Schubert fragment, D 759 and its precursor in demonstrating a similar type of fragmentation and possible external inspiration, the E minor sonata D  566, places the obvious formal and fragmentary points of resemblance between the Symphony and D 840 in a new light. The four-movement structure, in which an element of cyclical incompletion due to the absence of one or more completed movements is characteristic of the fragment type, and the transition in formal emphasis from fragmentation and incompletion in the sonata-allegro movements evident in the sonatas composed in 1817 and 1818, primarily expressed in the first movement and at times through incompletion in the sonata-allegro finales, to a model in which the first two movements are complete and generally received as highly proficient and aesthetically satisfying compositions12 13 and incompletion, acting as an agent of an aesthetic conflict leading to fragmentation, is present in the dance-movement (in the case of D 840, a menuett and trio).14 Differences in the manner and type of fragmentation present in D 759 and D 840 clarify the structural emphasis present in all of the fragmentary sonatas; from the symphony D 759, it is not entirely clear whether its incompletion can be associated with an aesthetically expressed crisis and focused on a particular formal or structural challenge, as in the model established in the three sonata fragments composed from July 1817 to September 1818.15 However, the presence of a similar type of fragmentation in D 840, which, through the location of the point of fragmentation, places formal emphasis more strongly upon the concluding movements of the cyclical construction, indicates that a new type of fragmentation which is nonetheless similar to the ‘open’

12 13

14 15

Barbara Barry, ‘A Shouting Silence: Further Thoughts about Schubert’s “Unfinished”’, The Musical Times, 151 (2010), 39–52 (p. 40). The ‘special treatment’ accorded to the C major sonata as a torso is not only evident in its more prominent place in the performed canon of Schubert’s sonatas for solo piano, but in the collation of individual works in the NGA, in which the first two movements are detached and printed separately from the two fragmentary movements, which are relegated to the appendix. Although this treatment consistent across sonatas containing unfinished movements, in D 840 it results in the division of the work into two halves. Schubert, Werke für Klavier zu zwei Händen. Klaviersonaten II, pp. 46–63, 177–186. Fragmentary typology in D 840 diverges slightly from that present in the B minor symphony, in that the Rondo finale of the sonata is a fragment of 272 bars, whereas the finale of the symphony is either entirely missing or essentially complete, as the entr’acte for Rosamunde D 797. It is possible that the work was laid aside in favour of the completion of the Fantasie D 760 for which Schubert was paid, and which was composed almost simultaneously with the notation of the two-movement full score dated October 30th 1822, in November 1822.

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cycles of the earliest piano sonatas composed from 1815 until June 1817 is present across the boundaries between works and, for the first time, genre and instrumentation. In the presence of two unfinished movements in D 840, it is clear that the previous fragmentary sonatas – in which the formal establishment of a new recapitulatory model dominates – have been replaced by a formal model centred upon larger concerns of aesthetic closure in the cyclical construction of musical forms containing sonataallegro movements. Furthermore, the presence of unfinished movements leading to cyclical openness in both the symphony and the sonata and the fact that all four movements of the sonata are at least partially notated implies that the source of fragmentation in this new model of incompletion is to be sought in the internal structures and musical integration of formal closure into the concluding movements. II. D 840/4 The reception of D 840 has concentrated on the completed fascicle of the Moderato and Andante first and second movements. The incomplete Rondo finale of D 840 is one of the more common fragments in which the continuation of the movement is not clearly established and it propagates the continuum of formal experiments which are defined by the incomplete sonatas and movements for solo piano. As the most apparent aspects of fragmentation within the cycle are found in the concluding two movements, an approach to the compositional breaks within D 840 provide an opportune point to approach the fragmentary cycle as a whole. 1. Rondo-Sonata Structures The model of a sonata-allegro movement, which lends a certain stability of projection to the fragmentary movements of the ‘absent recapitulation’ model, is excluded as the sole basis for evaluating the extant material, defined explicitly through the title as a rondo. The formal indications presented by the movement, most prominently in the repeat after bar 238, only complicate matters further. It appears probable that the ultimate form of the movement would have been a juxtaposition of a sonata-allegro and a rondo. Unlike the sonata-without-development rondo form of D 506, the repeat in D 840/4 serves to delineate a type of expositional area from the following ‘development’, a formal interpretation which is supported by the harmonic structures in the surrounding bars.16 In light of the fact that Schubert almost always adhered to the

16

Preceding the repeat (from bar 217) are a series of cadential processes through which the dominant is stabilised, although G major is inflected by the addition of an F natural from bar 235, foreshad-

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external aspects of the convention of the tonic and dominant as ‘frame tonalities’ of the exposition in major key sonata-allegro movements, it appears probable that the combination of repeat and harmonic structural distinction through the establishment of the dominant as a tonal centre, its subsequent preparatory inflection for modulatory purposes, and fulfilment of the modulatory ‘promise’ through a resolution not to C major, but to A minor following the structural boundary of the repeat are intended to delineate formal elements which act as an ‘exposition’ and ‘development’. However, a determination in favour of a sonata-allegro structure for the movement does not result from the presence of the repeat. A further quandary regarding formal uncertainties in the fragmentary finale is raised by the presence of not only an ‘exposition repeat’, but also an opening repeat sign referring to the material which follows (bar 239). This is highly unusual for both the sonata-allegro movements and the rondo-finale movements of the contemporaneous sonatas.17 The divergence from the mode which appears to have been common among the contemporaneous completed rondo movements, in which the rondo form takes priority over the sonata-allegro model, acts as a disruptive element which may be partly responsible for the formally-conditioned source of fragmentation in D 840/4. The development repeat was incorporated before the full notation of the material to be repeated; the finale breaks off after the recurrence of a harmonic and diastematic variant of the opening theme, which is not preceded by episodic material, but appears to partially reflect the structural arrangement of material in the first thematic statement of the exposition.18 Due to the repeated development, it is arguable that the finale exists on a continuum of formal principles of which the sonata-allegro first movement represents one extreme and the completed rondo finales of the following sonatas represent the other. The thematic and harmonic division of the exposition into four parts, instead of the more common tripartite expositional structures (either thematically or harmonically delineated) of the sonata-allegro movements, underline the implications of a rondo

17

18

owing and preparing for the modulation to A minor which follows the repeat (bars 239–243) as well as the return to C major at the opening of the exposition repeat. D 845 and D 850 (both composed in the spring and summer of 1825), as well as the last four sonatas, D 894, D 958, D 959, and D 960 indicate that the exposition of the first movement should be repeated, but none includes a repeat of the development. The finales of the six sonatas are more varied in the formal use of repeat signs: D 850 and D 959 are characterised by the repetition of brief sections of the finale, whereas the remaining four finale movements in D 845, D 894, D 958, and D 960 contain no repeats at all. D 845, D 850, and D 959 contain finale movements given the title ‘Rondo’. In the exposition, a comparison with the first episode (bars 49–82) reveals the structure of the ‘first theme group’ (bars 1–31) to contain two statements of the primary theme. This model is common to the first movements of sonatas composed after 1817, including the fragments D 613 and D 625, emphasising the Rondo’s adherence to parts of the sonata-allegro model established in the preceding years.

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model. The following table presents two possible readings of the sonata-allegro and rondo structures, which are rendered as parallel for the ease of comparison. The divisions between thematic and transitional material are not absolute,19 as the ‘second theme group’ states material already established in the preceding transition as a melodic element (bars 50, 52, etc.), and gradually transforms its paradigm of motivic weighting through the elevation of the triplet figuration with which it opens. The length of the third theme group suggests that it is not a unified construct: the material is so highly varied that it may be divided into further sections, however the overarching connection between the varied thematic material is reinforced by recurrences of more recognisable forms. Finally, the transitional material draws upon common thematic elements, reducing the accuracy of a description which relies upon clear formal boundaries between transition and thematic–harmonic form generating planes. In the descriptions of the sonata-allegro and rondo structures, the transitions are presented as being distinct, but are experientially subsumed into the formally definitive areas by which they are surrounded. Furthermore, the transitional material of bars 103–120 is a modified repetition of the first transition, lending a high degree of stability and formal stasis to the motivic and harmonic plan of the exposition. Table 15 Harmonic and Formal Structures in the Exposition of D 840/4 Bars 1–31

Bars 32–48

Bars 49–82

Bars 92–102

Bars 103–120 Bars 121–238

Sonata

First Theme

Transition

Second Theme

First Theme Transition

Third Theme

Rondo

A

Transition

B

A

C

Transition

The use of the dominant as the anchor of the harmonic plane of the third theme group of the still nominally present expositional section, which functions as a second episodic interpolation in the rondo interpretation of the structure (bars 121–238), is an ambiguously presented return to the modulatory practices of the sonata-allegro exposition in Schubert’s composition; the ‘harmonic trajectory’ of the conventional, late eighteenth century sonata exposition consists in establishing the tonic and then modulating to and arriving cadentially in a new key. The use of the tonic and dominant as the framing tonalities of a sonata-allegro exposition in major key sonatas20 remained remarkably constant in Schubert’s interpretation of the form, and this is the harmonic model which, in contrast to the episodic references to rondo forms, is reinforced at the conclusion of the first formally differentiated section of D 840/4.

19 20

Schubert’s practice of using material of the second theme group in a transitional passage which anticipates its ‘thematic’ appearance is established in D 279/1. Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 16.

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In short, the finale begins with the formal implication of a sonata movement, maintained through the presentation of what appears to be the second theme group, which is then undermined by the unexpected return of the opening material, stated in full and causing a reevaluation of the preceding modulatory material as not a second theme, but the first modulatory episode of a rondo. Finally, the second episode continues the process of integration of the sonata-allegro and the rondo forms: the appearance of a strong dominant as its harmonic basis conforms to the harmonic-structural arc of the sonata-allegro, whereas its motivic and thematic content place it in the context of a rondo as the second episode, leading to the expectation of a third restatement of the primary thematic material. The episodic construction of the latter half of the ‘exposition’ in which the rondo was the primary formal reference is supplanted by a development, which not only replaces the emergent rondo form with a clearly established sonata-allegro paradigm, but succeeds in retroactively altering the interpreted function of the preceding material, emphasising the harmonic aspects through which it may be experienced and understood as an extended and unconventional exposition. 2. A Decisive Formal Junction: the Development Repeat The continuation of the movement is forced into a position of action as a formal determinant, as the expectations arising from the fourth thematically distinct section of the exposition are mutually exclusive. Either another return to the primary thematic material in an unaltered and unmodulated form will occur, excluding the possibility of a ‘development’ and therein indicating that the rondo form has primacy over the sonataallegro, or the harmonic implications of the concluding dominant will be fulfilled by the presentation of varied expositional material in a new tonality, conforming to the formal expectations of a development and reinforcing the paradigm of a sonata-allegro movement.21 The four introductory bars (239–242) take on a formal and narrative significance which is disproportionate to their brevity. They prolong the uncertainty regarding the fundamental formal identity of the finale and postpone the decisive moment in which either the sonata-allegro or the rondo is established as the basis for the movement’s continuation. The fermata over the last bar is a dramatic realisation of the rising structural tensions, not only due to the conventional expectation of a modula-

21

This is not to state that the forms of the sonata-allegro movement and the rondo are mutually exclusive, as some of Schubert’s sonata movements demonstrate aspects of both models. However, D 840/4 is actively engaged in a process of postponing formal determination through the alternate presentation of elements from both forms; at its arrival in the second section after the repeat, a decision regarding mutually exclusive elements of the rondo and sonata-allegro paradigms must be made.

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tion. These bars are ontologically active as the foundational moment of creation, in which the movement itself ascertains its formal identity. After the opening of the development, the structural dialectic between the two equally vital formal potentialities starts to collapse with the restatement of the primary thematic material in A minor, undermining the rondo-form-based expectation of a third, unaltered restatement of the unaltered opening material. The arrival in A minor and its presentation as a dominant–tonic progression strengthens the harmonic conventions of the sonata-allegro while continuing the model of mediant-based relations to the tonic originating in the second area of the exposition. In the following bars, the motivic and rhetorical conventions associated with a conventional development are operative, in the form of variation, foreshortening, and sequential modulatory use of the primary thematic material which is incorporated into denser vertical textures and a more rapidly inflected harmonic rhythm. 3. Repetition and the Function of the Retrospective Formal understanding in D 840/4 is in part predicated upon recognition in retrospect. The moment at which formal significance or function of a section of the movement becomes recognisable is not always simultaneous with the immediate interpretation which is embedded in its chronologically ordered presentation of material, but is a cognitive response to a process of reevaluation and reexamination. It is in this manner that the function of the opening 238 bars of the finale of D 840 are revealed to have been an extensive and formally unusual exposition, through the appearance of a new section which is interpretatively identifiable as a development. A similar process is nascent in the function of the repeat of the development section: as the repeat of a development section is unprecedented in the piano sonatas of Schubert, it is highly probable that it would initiate a new process of retrospective reinterpretation, in which the succeeding formal element reflects the function of the development in a new light. The seeds of the instability of the development’s formal identity are planted before the material containing its identifiable characteristics as a development has been presented. The formal ‘disqualification’ of its development function, an evocation of distance and progress away from the primary material which loses its structural and dynamic force through the evidence that it is not a single and directed process, is embedded in its opening material. 4. Sources of Fragmentation In returning to the opening of the developmental material and invoking a sense of stasis, the development repeat would also act upon the experience and generation of form

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in the exposition. The formal interpretation of the exposition would be retrospectively opened once more, as its rondo -inflected episodic structure is not entirely subsumed into a conventional sonata-allegro exposition by the subsequent development. The reinterpretation of the rondo episodes as an ‘exposition’ is not the eradication of its own, intrinsic identity, but the superimposition of a new layer of formal function through a semiotically-informed process of recollection and retrospective reinterpretation. The episodic rondo form remains present and formally active beneath the re-categorisation of the opening 238 bars of the movement as an exposition in the larger model of the sonata-allegro projection, which effectively adds a further layer of formal complexity and identity to that inherent in the expositional material, a complex rondo-structure. The repeat of a substantial portion of the development and potentially the final harmonic and motivic approach to the recapitulation is antithetical to the singularity inherently necessary to this process in terms of the established architectonic structures of polarity and contrast ingrained in the sonata-allegro movement. It is foreseeable that the third layer of formal identity would return to the original projection of a complex rondo form, relegating the apparent development to the role of a more extended and motivically unusual episode. In this manner, the formal identity of the finale fluctuates between two distinct and to a certain degree incompatible models and results in an increasingly complex and layered structure based not upon replacement and eradication of the preceding formal experience, but upon a combination of superimposition of formal interpretation, and the retrospective realisation of the contrasting material stability of the section as an element of a different formal construct. The nature and identity of the material from which the forms of ‘rondo’ and ‘sonata-allegro’ coalesce remains unchanging; alterations in the formal conception of the work are a function of changing perspectives. This paradigm of repetition-based stability and interchangeability between two equally-weighted models places the experimental approaches to a formal plan which is to a large extent contingent upon motivic unity and avoids directional reliance upon antithetical contrasts and opposition on a deeper structural level than in the previous sonata fragments. This is the fundamental difference between D 840/4 and a ‘sonata-rondo’ movement; the finale does not allow the two formal models to coexist as equally viable presences, and still less are they united into a single form bearing characteristics of both models. The finale draws upon a process of transition between two mutually exclusive forms which emerge from the same essential content while remaining separate and associated with structural elements of the movement, and a finely drawn but enduring distinction between the material in its objective existence, and the nature of memory, experience, and perception in creating a formal construct. This procedure is only tenable until a certain point in the movement, as the functions of the recapitulation in bringing thematic and harmonic resolution after the excursuses of the development are central to the identity of the sonata-allegro, and a

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process in which these elements of the recapitulatory function are denatured or undermined through repetition would produce a structural impact upon the integrity of the sonata-allegro model from which it is unlikely to recover. It is significant that the movement is abandoned after a return to the primary thematic material in a new modulation to A major; the approaching moment of implosion, in which the formal dialectic between two distinct models around the same material is no longer sustainable was not only foreseeable, but within reach. The problem of the recapitulation as an aesthetic and structural construct, surmounted in the first movement, appears for the last time in a reflection of the earlier fragmentary sonata movements in the finale and is the central foundational point of origin for the aesthetic and formal crisis which leads to the movement’s fragmentation. 5. Formal Conflict and Length A further and more prosaic concern arising as a consequence of the formal dualism of the rondo and the sonata-allegro present throughout D 840/4, which may also be partly responsible for its fragmentation, is the sheer difficulty of sustaining complex structures based largely upon feats of memory required for retrospective engagement and reinterpretation of the preceding formal elements over the significant length of the movement. Abandoned in what appears to be the middle of the development, it is already 272 bars long. Modern completions of the movement, informed by a perspective of the least possible ‘artistic’ presence of their respective editors,22 23 are at least 500 bars long. In comparison to the completed first movement (318 bars) and second movement (121 bars), the prospective, and for Schubert’s contemporaneous and completed works disproportionate, length of a completed finale threatens to destabilise the structural and formal equilibrium of the four-movement cycle. From a close examination of the piano sonata fragments leading to the composition of D 840, it appears that there is seldom one single and undoubtedly clear explanation for the fragmentation of a sonata or a single movement. More often, a process of comparison with other works and a collation of these external indices with the internal formal, structural, and musical dynamics of the sonata or movement in question produce a moderately clear image of tensions and incompatibilities of form and material which are sufficiently coherent as to reach the standard of a ‘most probable explanation’ of the sources and origins of fragmentation. An approach to a divergent modality of fragmentation present in the Menuetto and Trio reveals that the work contains two sources of

22 23

Paul Badura-Skoda, ‘Vorwort’, in Schubert Klaviersonaten Band 3, ed. by Paul Badura-Skoda (München: Henle, 1997), p. V–X (p. VIII). Tirimo, p. XVI.

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fragmentation which are independent of one another and represent different aspects of the compositional and notational processes involved in the cyclical work. III. Fragmentation and Completion in D 840/3 1. Intentional Incompletion in the Menuetto In comparison to the finale, the Menuetto and Trio is structurally closer to formal closure. The Trio (28 bars) is completed, and the Menuetto is fully notated in both staves until the return of a varied form of the opening material (bar 74), after which only the right hand is present (bars 75–80), and concludes with the notation ‘etc. etc.’, unique among the unfinished piano sonatas. There are no other examples of manuscripts in which Schubert clearly indicated that the abandoned movement should continue, and the abbreviation appears to imply that he truly did consider the movement as completed even in the absence of fully-notated ‘recapitulatory’ material, as has often been suggested regarding the notation of the recapitulatory passages in the fragmentary sonata-allegro movements of 1817 and 1818.24 In retrospect, this places the abandoned sonata-allegro movements, in which no such evidence of a clearly defined intention regarding the continuation of the movement is recorded in the manuscripts, in a new light. In the absence of both the recapitulatory material and a recorded intention like that present at the conclusion of the Menuetto of D 840/3, it is apparent that this unfinished movement brings a new level of deliberate acceptance to the functional incompletion of a drafted movement, and reveals a notated distinction between the formal-aesthetic type of incompletion present in the absent recapitulation movements and the functional incompletion of the Menuetto, which is nonetheless the result of a type of ‘completion’, at least associated with a particular stage of notation, in the working process. 2. Types of Completion In this reading, ‘completion’ is associated not with the status of the work itself, but with the end of a compositional process, and this type of ‘completion’ itself leads to further questions and divisions between a practical or biographical cessation and an aesthetically conditioned interruption, centred once more upon the uncertainties surrounding compositional intention. It is highly similar to the mode of completion expressed by the conclusion of the compositional process in D 759 evinced by the decision to send the manuscript to Graz; an indication that the compositional process is to be in-

24

Költzsch, p. 10.

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definitely, if not permanently, interrupted and the work has reached its final state. This is independent of a typology of completion which is expressed through the fulfilment or constructive evasion of a formal model, whether inherent or externally-imposed through a title, genre, or adherence to established aesthetic convention. A final reading of completion is that of reception: the first and second movements of D 840 and D 759 present a type of experiential closure which is independent of both the formallydefined and process-oriented aspects of completion. With the knotty issue of Schubert’s intentions, whether provisional or ultimate, set aside, the coda of the Andante con moto of the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony conveys the deep impression of closure that defines the sense of an ending: it has achieved a state of repose that calls for nothing beyond silence and inner reflection. It is distinctly an ending, if by that we mean that it propounds a statement that does not necessarily require further discourse.25

It is vital to obviate ambiguity in the typologies of completion and totality which are associated with fragmentary works; from their presentation as aesthetic abstractions in the introduction, it is apparent in the study of fragmentary artefacts that the divisions between fragment types are more nebulous in an individualised context. An interruption of the compositional process, whether or not it was intended to be final, is without effect upon the adherence of a work to its formal model, insofar as the latter is unambiguously identifiable, and does not alter the status of the work as a fragment, but exerts influence upon the type of fragmentation represented. Confusion regarding the Symphony in B minor as a potential subject for a type of ‘retrospective completion’ on a formal level due to the interruption of the compositional process,26 in combination with the experiential closure inherent in the two movements, and loosely associated with two-movement structures present in the piano sonata of the early nineteenth century does not imply that it is not an incomplete or fragmentary work. More than in any work which is recognised as essentially complete, distinct from fragmentary conformity to types of highly specific completion, the act of interpretation and engagement with the fragments is ontologically definitive. IV. Cyclical Cohesion: D 840/2 1. Two-Movement Structures: D 566, D 759, D 840 The two-movement fragment paradigm of D 840 is connected to that found in two earlier unfinished works, D 566 and D 759, which produce a context of formal fragmen-

25 26

Solomon, ‘Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony’, p. 129. Schorn, p. 204.

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tation dating from the year 1817. In both of the piano sonatas, separated by eight years, the most evident foundation for a larger structural connection between the first and second movements is to be found in their tonal relations. The first movement of D 566 is in E minor and the second movement is in E major, and the major–minor duality is reversed in D 840, of which the first movement in C major is followed by a C minor slow movement. Harmonic analogies in the cyclical structures of D 840 and D 759 are not as direct, but equally compelling due to harmonic emphasis upon the transition.27 All three works are marked by the intensity and enduring strength of the connections between the first two movements. This is not based upon the manuscripts, which clearly indicate that the works were continued, but is a consequence of the compelling nature of perceived formal closure inherent in the two-movement structures. D 840, although it conforms to a strikingly similar formal plan of tonal unity between the first two movements, does not have the same history of musicological reception in which a two-movement ‘completion’ in which the fragmentary third and fourth movements are excluded from aesthetic consideration due to a proposed rethinking of the form on the part of the composer. Taken together as definitive of a category of unfinished or fragmentary cyclical works, the sense of absence evoked from the denomination of ‘unfinished’ has been an influence, formally considered, in contradictory directions towards completion: D 566 and D 759 are the subject of proposals to create cyclical closure through the removal of the fragments or full movements which do not fit into the tonal, structural, and rhetorical arc of conclusion embodied by a receptional type of completion. The performance history of D 840 is indicative of the structural similarities between the three: recordings and concert performances of the work are almost invariably reduced to the two formally ‘complete’ movements,28 with few exceptions,29 as the performance of fragments is still unusual in conventional modern concert formats. The intensity of the structural connections between the first two movements results in the creation of a compelling two-part form; unlike the more affirmative close of the Andante con moto of D 759, the coda of the Andante D 840/2 consists of a curiously persistent repetition of a perfect cadence in in C minor.30 The sheer number of cadential processes, separated by very limited intervening material and placed in a brief coda at the end of the movement, creates a sense of underlying formal closure which is pro27 28 29

30

Solomon, ‘Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony’, p. 130. Wilhelm Kempff, Schubert. The Piano Sonatas, Deutsche Grammophon 1965. Among them: Sviatoslav Richter, who performed all four movements in 1961 (Monitor) and 1979 (Philips); Paul Badura-Skoda, who played the sonata with his own completion in several recordings (e. g. RCA 1968); Yehuda Inbar (Oehms Classics 2019) recorded the third and fourth movements in Michael Finnissy’s completion, which contains additions in the fully-notated opening halves of both movements. Over the ten bars of the coda (112 with upbeat–121) there are nine cadential progressions from the dominant to the C minor tonic.

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duced by the structures of the first and second movement together, as the continued restatement of the C minor cadence reinforces the shared tonic note, creating a formal connection to and reflecting the sustained C major chords of the conclusion of the first movement (bars 304–318, interrupted by a brief restatement of the opening thematic material in bars 312–316). 2. Motivic connection to opening thematic material of D 840/1 A nuance of symmetric reflection in the harmonic modifications of melodic content draws the close of the Andante into a referential process which extends from the first phrase group of the first movement: in the rising scales with which the coda of D 840/2 opens, ambiguity between C major and C minor is placed at the centre of its melodic and harmonic material.

Fig. 60 D 840/2 bars 106–116

Diastematically varied, the scale (bars 111–112) in unharmonised octaves ascends first through A natural and B natural (with the hindsight of the C minor cadence, the me-

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lodic minor) before rising through A flat and B flat (the natural minor) with a final chromatic step through B natural to the C minor cadence on the first beat of bar 113. The statement of the coda is drawn from the primary thematic material (bars 2–3) and restated at the close of the first section of the movement (bars 19–21) before its rhythmic characteristics integrated into the material of the second formal section, beginning with the upbeat to bar 23. However, the original source of this motivic unit, revealed through the elaboration of the second formal element of the Andante to be essentially identified with the brief rhythmic presence of the dotted sixteenth note and thirty-second note (bar 21), is not the primary thematic material of the slow movement, but the third phrase-element of the primary thematic statement of the first movement (from bar 5, with upbeat). Herein lies the formal significance of the reduction of the ascending scale in the coda of the Andante to the rising fourth of its truncated form (from bar 115 with upbeat): its connection with the primary thematic material of the Moderato is made clear. The intervallic contour of the motive is identical, and the emphatic insertion of the B natural as the treble voice of a cadential progression to C minor is revealed not only to be a harmonic necessity for the restated authentic cadence, but a final reference to the melodic contour of the unshadowed C major opening of D 840/1. In its striving to return to the melodic contour of the untroubled major mode, it carries the reminiscence of an unattainable distance from the opening, implying the impossibility of a homecoming.31

Fig. 61 D 840/1 bars 4–6

31

An equivalent process, in a strikingly similar formal construct to that of D 840/2 is visible at the conclusion of the Fantasie D 940; the opening dotted motive is a stable point of formal reference between the episodic discursions of the piece, but in its final reiteration it twists away from the established content of its previous repetitions. The divergence serves a dual purpose; through the varied restatement of the opening theme, it is apparent that its recurrence is not a precursor to a further episodic departure, but acts as a signifier of formal closure and conclusion. However, in keeping with the aesthetic developments in Schubert’s forms in which a complete sense of return and reconciliation is avoided or dissociated into component elements, resulting in an inevitable sense of displacement and a fundamental integration of a temporal distance and element of retrospection to the formally-designated moments of return or recapitulation, the close of D 940 is a reflection upon the musical and aesthetic progress which separates the opening material from its final citation.

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The process by which the Moderato and the Andante are drawn together as two distinct elements of a larger formal arc through the continuing reference to common motivic elements is a characteristic method of creating formal unity within movements in the experimental and fragmentary sonatas composed in 1817 and 1818.32 In D 840/2 the fundamental identifying element of the preceding movement, a rising melodic ornamentation of a fourth from G to C, incorporating the dotted rhythm over A–B–C, is never restated exactly. Only through a gradual process of reduction and simplification which takes place over the duration of the coda of the Andante are the layers of variation and ornamentation removed, revealing the core of the rising scale motive which is so often referenced through D 840/2 to be a brief citation of the third phrase-period of the first movement.33 Emergent, an unmistakeable gesture of formal conclusion through the uninflected repetitions of the dominant–tonic cadence, which in its brevity encompasses the formal arc of both movements, the variant motive draws a direct connection to the now distant motivic content of the opening phrases of the sonata. V. D 840/1: An Aesthetic of the Fragmentary and Formal Completion Continuing from the broader perspective of a fragmentary study of the sonata as a cycle and the particular sources of the formal fragmentation and incompletion in the Menuetto and finale of the C major sonata D 840, it is illuminating to concentrate more closely on an individual movement and the integration of aspects of aesthetic fragmentation which are not directly implicated in the fracture of larger formal and cyclical structures and the incompletion of the later movements. D 840/1 draws upon fragmentary structures within its thematic construction from the opening bars of the first theme group, and therein displays strong similarities and structural connections to the thematic and motivic material of the first movements of the earlier piano sonatas. The difference in the motivic treatment of D 840/1 is the integration of the fragmentary aesthetic of the thematic material into an underlying and formally definitive process of reconciliation, which culminates in the coda.

32 33

See D 571 and D 570 II: Cyclical Unity and D 571/570 III: Motivic Unity across Structural Areas in D 571, pages 243–252, and D 625 IV: Structure and Motivic Distinction in D 625/1, pages 303–309. The closest citation, in which the rhythmic impulse of the dotted upbeat to C natural and the melodic contour of the rising fourth occur in a version which is most obviously related to the opening content (bar 4, last beat–bar 6) is revealed only in the penultimate bar of D 840/2, after the rising scale and the intervening A flat and B flat have been excised in a process of foreshortening and motivic reduction.

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1. Fragmentary Phrase-Periods The primary thematic material of D 840/1 consists of brief phrase-elements, each no longer than two bars and characterised by an extended moment of stillness at the end of each statement. The first two phrase-elements are easily recognisable as an antecedent–consequent pair, based upon a common metric structure. The continuation of the primary thematic material is a small-scale reflection of the process of retrospective recontextualisation of formal elements, as the third and fourth phrase-elements act not only as a second antecedent–consequent pair, but expand the structure of the opening phrase elements. This reveals a larger grouping of the first and second phrase-elements as an antecedent unit of which the third and fourth are the consequent conclusion.

Fig. 62 D 840/1 bars 1–12

The ‘strong caesuras’34 with which each of the four brief phrase-periods conclude and the subsequent necessity for resumption of a sense of metric movement with the beginning of the next phrase-element produce the dialectic of a dynamically progressing melodic element and the confluence of elements of stasis resulting from the interpolatory function of the independent metric structures. This results in an aesthetic contrast, leading to an understanding of the latter as a sign of fracture or fragmentation. Harmonic ambiguities in the opening phrase elements encourage the experience of a non-directional structure, creating a further layer of contrast with the relatively direct melodic progression: the first two-bar phrase element, due to its lack of harmonic elaboration, is almost modal in nature and avoids not only the tonic, but also

34

Edward T. Cone, ‘Schubert’s Unfinished Business’, 19th-Century Music, 7 (1984), 222–32 (p. 228).

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the leading note and any strongly directional harmonic inflection. The tonic is clearly established at the beginning of the second phrase-element (upbeat to bar 3), creating a further contrast between the material on either side of the metrically established breaks in the structure. The use of unisono textures and harmonic ambiguity is effective in ‘veiling’ the modulation from C major to A flat major, inflected with a lowered sixth and seventh of the tonic scale, briefly hinting at a possible C minor harmony: ‘[…] the octaves of the closing phrase […] allow that a tonal reinterpretation of the melody is possible while retaining the original notes, without destroying the impression of a darkened repetition through the chromatic alteration of several pitches through the hard juxtaposition of two tonalities.’35

Textural contrast continues to evoke the aesthetic of division among the first four phrase-elements. The first and third elements are monophonic, but the second and fourth phrase-elements are harmonically elaborated, involving at least four and at times five individual pitches. This divergence is underlined by the presence of articulation marks in the second and fourth phrase elements, distancing them from the legato first and third elements. A further mode in which the aesthetic of fracture and fragmentation is active appears in Schubert’s treatment of the evocation of contrast: the melodic progression had acted as a continuing thread, against which metric content, texture, and harmony are productive of variously expressed moments of stasis and disruption. However, in examining the use of textural contrast, it is evident that the apparently unified action of the elements of harmony, metric content, and texture against the melodic continuation are themselves carefully distinguished and create secondary levels of differentiation through variation, substantively founded upon elements of stillness and transformation. 2. Fracture of the Musical Content into Four Independent Entities A similar dynamic of stability and transformation is present between the contours of the melody and the presence of harmonic elaboration: the ambitus of the melodic content of the first phrase-element is a full octave, whereas that of the second phraseelement is only a fourth (or, if the treble is taken as a melodic line, a major second). Furthermore, the melody of the first phrase element contains a descending leap of a major sixth and no pitches are immediately repeated, whereas the upper voice of the

35

Markus Waldura, ‘Modulierende Themenwiederholung in Schuberts Klaviersonaten’, Schubert: Perspektiven, 12.1 (2012), 47–59 (p.  51). ‘[…] das oktavierte Unisono der ersten Nachsatzphrase […] das eine tonale Umdeutung der Melodie unter Beibehaltung der Stammtöne ermöglicht, ohne daß das harte Nebeneinander zweier Tonarten den Eindruck einer durch die chromatische Veränderung einiger Tonstufen eingedunkelten Wiederholung zerstört.’

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second phrase-element contains six G naturals, interrupted only by the ascent and descent from A natural after the fifth. The harmonic content of the second phrase is directly associated with the continuing melodic progression, drawing the original melodic carrier, the upper voice of the first phrase-element into contrast through its temporary assumption of the role of a static element. In addition to the evocation of shifting poles of transformation and stasis already mentioned, the otherwise intrinsically linked musical constructs have been formally dissociated from one another, thereby constituting separate parameters by which the thematic content of the opening bars of the movement is separated into independent phrase-elements. Each transformation rests upon a process in which a single parameter functions as a source of disruption and contrast, set against the omnipresent base structure of the dialectic between melodic continuation and metric caesuras. The result is a twofold fragmentation which is best described as experiential (in its base structure), and upon closer examination is revealed to emerge from a type of formal fragmentation which does not produce immediate aesthetic consequences, but affects the modes in which different aspects of the musical structure are connected to one another and the ways in which they shape the expressive content of the work. The continued presence of widely-spaced chords and unisono textures throughout the movement, often in the context of moments of harmonic stasis or ambiguity,36 indicate that the fragmentation and recombination of individual aspects of the first theme group continues to act definitively in the structures of the movement. The two aspects of fragmentation are therefore not entirely distinct from one another, but spring from a common cause. The invocation of the aesthetic of the fragmentary affects the formal construct as well as producing an experience of fragmentation drawn from the dialectical phrase structures. An aesthetic of musical fracture evoked by the fragmentary phrase structures of the opening is central to the motive-based structures which permeate the Moderato. VI. D 840/1: Generation of Structure Although D 840/1 is characterised by an intentional reference to a fragmentary aesthetic in its primary thematic material, it is the first sonata-allegro movement in a fragmentary piano sonata composed since 1817 which is not in some respect incomplete. The earlier unfinished sonata-allegro movements often display textural innovations marking the emergence of a pianistic style in Schubert’s composition and the use of motivic signifiers instead of extended thematic constructs, resulting in unified motivic 36

Karl Heinz Füssl, ‘Harmonische Neudisposition in Schuberts Sonaten-Allegro’, in Franz Schubert. Reliquie Sonate in C für Klavier D 840, ed. by Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1992), pp. 81–90 (p. 86).

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elements which operate across internal formal boundaries. D 840/1 continues to rely upon these factors while incorporating them more deeply into the fabric of the composition, rendering them less immediately obvious and allowing the inflections and transformations of texture and motivic signifiers to act on a fundamental formal level. 1. Motivic Structures and Continuity in the Exposition D 840/1 differs from the earlier sonatas in its presentation of primary thematic material for the second time: the opening theme is not restated in full or in a varied form. Instead, the first phrase-gesture of the theme (bars 1–2) is taken as the motivic basis for a sequential process of modulation (bars 28–43), in which the formal currency of dissociation between static and dynamic elements of the musical fabric of the movement continue. The harmonic movement of the sequence is placed in contrast against four repetitions of the central motivic content of the first theme group, which in a foreshortened variant continues to provide the motivic content for the transition (bars 45–52) to the second theme group. In D 840/1, Schubert places the consequences of a fragmentary aesthetic37 derived from the extremes of motivic unity at the centre of the formal construction and thematic treatment of the exposition. The processes of dissociation between distinct phrase elements and the component sections of the composition itself result in a conflict between the conventional expectation of a narratively-inflected progression inherent in the sonata-allegro model and the stasis which necessarily results from such dissociative processes. In this movement, Schubert finds a solution to both of the formally-defined compositional challenges towards which the fragmentary experimental sonatas of 1817 and 1818 are directed. Through the embrace of structural stasis and its integration into a harmonic structure delineated through the arrangement of tonal planes, it is possible to draw a new model of formal explication from the primary thematic material of the exposition through the beginning of the development which culminates in an entirely novel recapitulatory process. Following the first theme group and its varied and modulatory repetition (bars 1–45), the second theme group continues to display a striking reliance upon motivic signifiers to act as catalysts of overarching structural and formal unity across the conventionally established boundaries of the sonata-allegro. The transition between the first and second theme groups is, in a motivic sense, a gradual process of coalescence and the subsumption of previous material into a newly emergent variation.

37

Foreshadowed in D  571 and most closely connected to the fractured melodic structures and abruptly truncated accompaniment figures of the first theme group of D 625/1, and also present in D 784/1.

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Fig. 63 D 840/1 bars 28–31 (Compare bar 8, Fig. 62)

Two bars serve as an introduction of the main melodic content of the second theme group (bars 53–54), in which the left hand repeats a single rising motive. The rhythmic grouping of three eighth notes followed by either an eighth note or a quarter note, distinguished from the preceding group of three notes by a divergence in pitch, is a consistent and identifiable motivic signifier throughout the first subject area from its first appearance in bar 8.38 In an example of commonalities present between the piano sonatas and the lieder, it is similar39 to the repeated metric figuration in the left hand of the piano in Der Zwerg D 771, which has been cited as an example of Beethoven’s influence upon Schubert’s compositional style.40

Fig. 64 D 840/1 bars 45–46

38

39 40

Acting as an element which avoids a cadential conclusion at the close of the first statement of the primary thematic material in bars 20 and 21, it gains further motivic significance through its omnipresence as an accompanying figuration in the left hand of the texturally and melodically altered reiteration of the primary thematic material (bar 28, including upbeat, to bar 45). However, the rhythmic emphasis of the motive in Der Zwerg is divergent, as it is strongly identified with an introductory upbeat. Martin Chusid, ‘Schubert’s Cyclic Compositions of 1824’, Acta Musicologica, 36 (1964), 37–45 (p. 42).

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Fig. 65 D 840/1 bars 53–54

Fig. 66 Der Zwerg D 771 bars 1–2

A process of gradually increasing motivic autonomy draws the four-note motive, consisting in its first iteration of three eighth notes repeating a single pitch or interval followed by a fourth eighth note, into greater thematic prominence throughout the first theme group, emphasising its function as a harbinger of closure or transition at the end of the first theme group and the beginning of the second. This process results in the eventual emancipation of the motive from its source within the fourth phrase element of the primary thematic material (first seen in bar 8 and reinforced in bar 11), allowing it to emerge as an independent motive with a strongly defined identity in a rhythmic context at the opening of the second theme group. Its elevation to the role of primary melodic and rhythmic content in the transition to the second theme group and its introduction (bars 45–54) represents the culmination of a change in the identity of the rhythmic motive. At first presented as a superficially ornamental and rhythmic elaboration of the primary (melodically defined) thematic material of the opening phrase (bar 8) and once again in a compressed form (bar 11) which further underscores its reliance upon the thematic structures of the primary melodic material in which it plays a subsidiary and elaborative role, the four-note rhythmic motive gains an increasing importance as an entity of thematic significance in its own right. The four-note motive continues to unfold possibilities of motivic expressivity within the context of the second theme group. It is closely involved with the harmonic structures which lead the second theme group from the B minor tonality of its opening

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to the dominant at the close of the exposition. From bar 71, it reaches its full potential in terms of motivic expressivity: the entirety of the melodic and rhythmic content of the following nine bars is derived from the four-note motive, leading to a multifarious structure and an austere formal clarity through the reliance on a single motivic and thematic element.

Fig. 67 D 840/1 bars 70–74

After the apotheosis of the four-note motive, a modulatory transition (bars 80–86) to the G major dominant occurs, and subsequently the structural boundaries of the second theme group are reinforced through a return of the thematically emphasised melodic content with which the second theme group began (bars 54–56 and bars 86–88). The motivically and structurally prominent evolution of the four-note motive from an ornamental elaboration to a signifier of formal conclusion, an independent accompanying element, and finally to the sole content of a structurally significant moment within the second theme group is rendered independent of the formal progression through the sonata-allegro paradigm. In addition to the unifying function played by the continuously present and evolving four-note motive, the melodic profile of the second theme group displays resemblances to the opening bars of the first theme group.

Fig. 68 D 840/1 bars 54–58 (Compare Fig. 62)

In both motives, the intervals of a sixth and a fourth are constitutive in the right hand, although in divergent arrangements: additionally, the connection between the two motives is emphasised by their orientation towards the constituent parts of the respective tonic chords.

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2. Function of the four-note Motive in the Development Continuing in the vein of the exposition, defined by motivic continuity in which two divergent aspects of the first theme group material are drawn into that of the second theme group, the thematic content of the development refers to the same material, contained within the first 12 bars of the first theme group, and does not significantly vary from the exposition: the open textures, orchestrally large range both within individual chords and between the extremes of treble and bass, and the extroverted presentation of the material have been anticipated in the thematic restatement of the first theme group within the exposition (from bar 27 until the transition to the second theme group, which concludes in bar 52). The continued presence of the melodic content of the first bar of the sonata is evident throughout the development, fully stated until bar 134 and then in the expositional foreshortening of an upbeat and a downbeat from bars 35–36. The entirety of the melodic material of the development is derived from the first theme: it is a reiteration of the four-note motive, metrically altered from the eighth notes of the expositional opening to triplets.41

Fig. 69 D 840/1 bars 116–119

However, the triplet variant of the four-note motive is anticipated in the exposition: the fourth phrase period, an ornamented repetition of the second, contains a triplet figuration on the fourth beat (see fig. 62, bars 9 and 11). In the course of the development, the triplet motive is gradually placed at the centre of the harmonic progressions through a process of foreshortening of the melodic motive drawn from bars 1–2 of the exposition already displayed at the close of the first theme group and transition to the second theme group. At the close of the development, this process of reduction and foreshortening is extended to exclude all traces of the original melodic entity of the exposition, and the triplets provide the sole metric and motivic content. Due to the stability of the motivic content of the development and its presentation in a process of reduction rather than elaboration which has a precedent in the exposition, displacement and contrast between the two formal sections is 41

Elizabeth Norman McKay, ‘Schuberts Klaviersonaten von 1815 bis 1825 – dem Jahr der “Reliquie”’, in Franz Schubert. Reliquie Sonate in C für Klavier D 840, ed. by Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1992), pp. 43–63 (pp. 59–60).

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solely based upon the diatonically-conditioned distance between their tonal anchors: the F sharp major tonality of the development offer the most substantial divergence from the material of the exposition. 3. Harmonic Structures in the Exposition The significance of the four-note motive as the generative element of an analogous structural evolution in which it acquires increased motivic and thematic significance is underlined by the harmonic structures which reinforce this progression and lend it formal weight. In combination with alterations to the metric context within which it is presented, this results in the evocation of a secondary structure based upon the rhetorical and expressive content of the four-note motive which, although parallel to the first-theme-group and second-theme-group delineation of the exposition, is not confined by it. The modulatory structures and their explication across the formal boundary between the first and second theme groups are unusual in themselves; the choice of B minor as the tonality of the second theme group serves as the foundation of a tonal dichotomy which extends beyond the exposition, generating formal and structural tensions in a harmonic context through which the highly original recapitulatory processes are made possible. Through the introduction of the distant tonality of B minor with the entry of the second subject, a second tonal centre, far removed from the C major tonic, is firmly established as an essential element of the harmonic structures of the movement, foreshadowing the harmonic processes which dominate the larger part of the development and the B major thematic restatement in bars 150–154.

Fig. 70 D 840/1 bars 12–16

The modulation to B minor in the transition to the second theme group (bars 50–54) is not the first reference to a tonal centre without a close and immediately evident association to the C major tonic; A flat major appears in bar 13, later strongly inflected to D flat major (from bar 14).

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It does not appear that the tonalities of A flat and D flat major are capable of providing a strong connection to the B minor tonality of the second subject. However, in light of Schubert’s inclination towards the use of enharmonic re-contextualisation centred on a single pitch in order to create harmonic ‘pivots’ and bring distant tonalities into startlingly close contact,42 the emphasis upon a single tone which results from the vacillation between G natural (implying A flat major, as the leading tone, fourth beat of bar 14 and through its function as the ‘dominant’ in the preceding C minorinflected bars) and G flat (implying D flat major through its subdominant function and position as the seventh of the A flat major dominant, for example on the fourth beat of bar 15) in this six-bar passage is significant due to the role assumed by the F sharp as the dominant of the B minor second theme group and its harmonic dominance of the development as a pedal point (frequently throughout bars 126–149). Through the presence of the enharmonic representatives of single pitch in a function which is subject to divergent but similar modes of emphasis, the potential for integrating B minor as a tonal centre is anchored in the opening bars of the exposition through veiled references to other harmonies (C minor, A flat major, D flat major, in bars 13–23, which integrate G flat into the tonal compass of the first theme group and prepare its function in enharmonic reiteration as the F sharp dominant of B minor in the second theme group). The A flat major inflection occupies a dual function, as its purpose is not only to embed the modulatory potential of the second theme group in the opening bars of the movement, but also to strengthen the tonic.43 A flat is established as a complementarily defined tonal centre which evokes contrast and distance due to the distance from the C major tonic and its integration into two entirely distinct tonal centres (A flat major and B minor), while retaining a connection to the tonal area of the opening of D 840/1. Between the tonic note and the established contrasting plane centred upon the note of F sharp or G flat is the interval of a tritone: the utmost expression of harmonic incompatibility, which is furthermore capable of evoking a leading-tone relationship to the dominant tone of G natural. The harmonic potentialities inherent in the chromatic step between F sharp and G natural are made explicit for the first time in the middle of the second theme group (bars 75–79)44 in which the vacillation between the two notes in the context of an augmented sixth chord over a sustained tonic pedal in the left hand introduces the dominant (from bar 86, prepared by two bars in which G major is established as a new tonic) and therewith the third and final area of the exposition.

42 43 44

See D 613 II: Cyclical Implications of Harmonic Structures, pages 267–270. Waldura, p. 52. The melodic step between F sharp and G natural occurs for the first time in bars 62–63, but it does not carry the significance of a transition between two distinct harmonies: instead, the F sharp acts as a chromatic preparation of a new chord.

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The resulting destabilisation of the tonic through its presence as a fulcrum for the chromatic shifts between F sharp and G natural in these five bars (75–79) is subsequently reflected in pedal point. The C natural in the left hand is drawn into a chromatically rising line which introduces the dominant as a new tonal centre (bars 81–86). The use of the tonic note as a modulatory anticipator presents the return of the primary melodic content of the second theme group (from the upbeat to bar 87) in the light of a recapitulatory gesture. In conjunction with the return to a previously cited melodic element, the implications of the expositional conclusion and its strong thematic associations with the opening of the second theme group are complex and multifarious in their effects, which result from the use of an established paradigm in the construction of the exposition as a whole, but more particularly in the structures of the second theme group. James Webster’s description of Schubert’s expositional and thematic practices describes the return to the dominant: Many of the themes and theme-groups in Schubert are frankly lyrical, in closed binary or A B A designs. Rather than prepare the second group by a clear transition which establishes the new key through its dominant, he prefers to modulate abruptly […]. Schubert’s second group often divides into two separate sections in different keys, of which the first presents the lyrical second theme in a remote key, and the second brings more nearly conventional paragraphs in the dominant.45

This is the paradigm followed by the second theme group of D 840/1; in its harmonic and thematic implications through the model of the closed binary second theme group, it gestures towards a sonata-allegro in miniature and therein reveals the formally generative function of the harmonic structures centred upon the use of F sharp or G flat as an enharmonically flexible anchor which is independent of the tonic–dominant axis of harmonic movement. The recapitulatory connotations of the return to the primary melodic material of the second theme group are most apparent in the harmonic structures underlying the melodic progression. Firstly, the B minor tonality of the opening of the second theme group is ‘reconciled’ through its reiteration and drawn into the harmonic constellation of the tonic–dominant relation, resolving something of the disruptive effect of the wide-ranging modulation. The dominant does not represent an evocation of distance at the close of the exposition in order to prepare for the still more distant and modulatory structures of the development. In D 840/1, the exposition closes not with the promise of further disruption, but with a return to the harmonically equivocal unison of the opening bars of the movement.

45

Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form and Brahms’s First Maturity’, p. 19.

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VII. Harmonic Duality and Mediant Relations in D 840/1 A sonata construct based upon creating parity between the tonal planes of the exposition and the recapitulation is also a plausible explanation for the unusual tonality of the second theme group in the exposition, which is otherwise unprecedented in the genre;46 it is not associated with any directly obvious mediant relations with the tonic, and the dominant is presented extremely late, after thirty-three bars of the second theme group in B minor. The effects of the distant tonality upon the exposition are reflected in the modulatory structures of the recapitulation and provide the basis for an overarching structure for D 840/1 in which mediant relations play a pivotal role. 1. Mediant-Conditioned Second Theme Groups It is possible that the most unusual aspect of the harmonic structures of the exposition, the B minor second theme group in the exposition, is an anticipatory result of the emphasis upon mediant relations within the recapitulation and a response to the formally-conditioned necessity of closing the exposition in the dominant, G major, while constructing a parallel passage in C major in the recapitulation. The foundational principle of harmonic parity between the exposition and recapitulation arises from the symmetrical mirroring of mediant relations within the second theme group, indicating an interpretation of the sonata-allegro model in which the recapitulation acts as a conclusive section based upon the use of symmetrical arrangements of harmonically distinguished structural areas. In the following table, the tonalities of the exposition and recapitulation are compared. The bar numbers should be taken as suggestions of approximate formal boundaries; as in the earlier sonatas, the use of thematic material in transitional functions and the presence of motivically unified content across disparate structural elements results in a construct which cannot be reproduced in a strictly linear table. However, the comparison of tonal centres across the recapitulation and exposition reveals analogous structures, independent of the fluid and indeterminately located structural divisions.

46

Költzsch, p. 110.

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Table 16 Tonal Arrangement of the Exposition and Recapitulation of D 840/1 Exposition

Development

First Theme Group

Second Theme Group

Third Expos. Area

Bars 1–45

Bars 53–86

Bars 86–104

C major (A flat major)

B minor

G major, subsequently retransition

Recapitulation

Coda

First Theme Group

Second Theme Group

Third Recap. Area

Bars 104–149

168–202

214–247

248–273

274–318

Modulatory, subsequently F sharp major

F major

A minor

C major

A flat major/ C major

Although most visible as a reversal of the modulatory dynamics between the second theme groups of the exposition and the recapitulation, the foundational principle of tonal relations based upon mediant steps is more deeply embedded in the harmonic structures of the first movement. The central function of the F sharp in connecting the disparate tonalities of the exposition and generating a harmonic structure for the movement is evident through its placement as the harmonic pivot of the movement and emphasis in the development, but it is nonetheless embedded in an overarching structure which is conditioned by the predominance of the mediant step between tonal areas. The A flat modulation of the first theme group and its function in establishing the mediant relation anchored to the tonic act as a foundational construct for the arrangement of tonal planes and generation of formal coherence and narrative continuity upon which D 840/1 rests, as the enharmonic potentialities of F sharp (as G flat) emerge in the context of an A flat major interlude in the first theme group (intermittently in bars 15–23). The F sharp is conditioned by a context of mediant relations from its first appearance, and this context becomes an increasingly significant structural reference in the course of the following formal elements. The importance of the A flat major tonality is underlined by its crucial role in the coda and the essential modulation introducing and establishing the new tonality of the second theme group is achieved by the enharmonic shift of the A flat to a G sharp (bars 50–51 of the exposition, and bars 196–197 of the recapitulation).47

47

It is notable that the precise location of the change in notational pitch-identity of the A flat is not symmetrical: this is conditioned by the formal necessities resulting from the structural placement of the tonal planes centred upon F sharp as a pitch and its primary role in shaping the processes of harmonic contrast in the development and the unusual recapitulatory procedures.

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Fig. 71 D 840/1 bars 50–51

Fig. 72 D 840/1 bars 196–199

The compositional priority of D 840/1 is supported by the manner in which modulations are achieved and the accomplishment of a symmetrically-organised structure based upon the reflection of formal elements identified by the pitch content of the tonicised harmonies and the resulting mediant interrelations. 2. Harmony as a Mode of Structural Differentiation Formal emphasis upon parity and a symmetrical arrangement of tonalities across the exposition and the development does not occur in isolation. It is not constructive to separate the roles of A flat major as a harbinger of modulation through enharmonic transition, and the function of F sharp in creating a harmonic basis for the formal necessity of recapitulation. In fact, they are two aspects of a single formal function, expressed in distinct levels of the compositional structure. This is manifest in the moment of asymmetry in the A flat enharmonic shifts in the transitions between the first and second theme groups in the otherwise symmetrical plan of the exposition and recapitulation. The result is a clear distinction between the areas of primary activity and prominence between the A flat centred tonal constellations and the F sharp major centred tonal constellations. While A flat major is prominent in the exposition and recapitulation, the tension centred upon F sharp major is not directly stated outside the development. Most prominent is the avoidance of the F sharp major dominant after its introductory presence in the modulation (bars 52–53) to the B minor second theme group of the exposition, which arrives not upon a B minor triad, but an unharmonised single note: the

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minor tonality is present by implication, but not fully realised. The harmonic content of the second theme group is marked by a significant procedure of ‘denaturing’ the implications of F sharp major as a direct dominant of B minor or B major, arising from chromatic inflections of the melodic content, including its use as a passing note and introductory chromatic step for diminished sevenths. Although frequently occurring as a harmonic inflection in the following example, a dominant–tonic cadence from F sharp major is avoided.

Fig. 73 D 840/1 bars 60–69

This has notable consequences for the underlying harmonic plan of the sonata: isolating individual harmonies and pitch-centred structures from one another and incorporating them into a formal plan lays the foundation of harmonically delineated, architectonic interactions between structural elements and presents a solution to the recapitulatory challenges which are evident in the sonata-allegro movements of the fragmentary piano sonatas of 1817 and 1818. 3. Development Functions and Harmonic Structure The harmonic function of the development is no longer directed at producing distant modulatory tensions against the tonic. On the contrary, it is an unusually stable tonal plane in which the predominant F sharp major harmony is surrounded by mediant relations: introduced through A major (bars 104–116) and established from bar 126, the modulatory excursuses (for example, C major in bars 120 and 135, as the dominant seventh of F major) are also based upon a highly symmetrical sequence of mediant modulations. From F sharp major (bar 126), the development continues to modulate upwards in minor thirds, returning through the seventh-inflected tonalities of its opening half and concluding the excursus in bar 136, once more in F sharp major. The development is distinguished through the centrality of F sharp major, but also through a transformation in the dramaturgical and structural role of the mediant rela-

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tions: in the exposition associated with the modulations between larger, structurally distinct formal elements, they are compressed and become more directly engaged in the harmonic progressions within the development. The emphasis upon mediant relations on a small scale serves to underline the pivotal role which they have played in defining the harmonic structure and the density with which they occur conforms to the convention of rapid developmental modulations while maintaining close associations with the material of the exposition. VIII. Dissociation of the Recapitulation in D 840/1 In the unfinished sonatas of 1817 and 1818, fragmentation was centred upon the entry of the recapitulation and the generation of harmonically and motivically conditioned structures which prepare it. The completed sonata-allegro movements of this period displayed a predominance of subdominant recapitulations. It appears that the modality of recapitulation in the context of the formal, harmonic, and motivic innovations driven by the composition of fragmentary sonatas had not yet reached their fruition. In D 840/1, the recapitulatory dissociation which emerged in D 625/3 as a consequence of its symmetrical treatment of tonal areas and its use of motivic differentiation between the exposition and the recapitulation is fully realised and integrated into the harmonic and motivic structures. The construction of the exposition and development is directly connected to the formal elucidation of the recapitulation in D 840/1. The movement unites three compositional aspects; harmonic delineation, motivic generation, and textural distinction, which act in conjunction in the fragmentary sonata-allegro movements of 1817 and 1818 in which the ‘recapitulatory crisis’ finds its most direct expression. In D 840/1 Schubert not only removes the threats to formal stability and completion inherent in the avoidance of motivic contrast and the use of harmonic structures which, often through the use of prominent mediant relations, avoid the evocation of an arc of tension and result in the aesthetic impossibility of composing a recapitulation in the sense of a classical moment of return and resolution. Here, he attains the concrete realisation of a new model of the integration of form and expressive content, while maintaining the established integrity of the former. The redefinition of the sonata-allegro model is almost entirely internal; the functions of exposition, development, and recapitulatory processes are altered through the presence of a harmonic structure and a mode of thematic construction, variation, and development which are antithetic to the models present in more conventional realisations of the sonata-allegro movement, but the formal boundaries and areas of content of the sonata-allegro remain almost untouched. At the most, certain elements of the formal model are no longer simultaneously executed, but no formally defined element, section, or junction is fundamentally unrecognisable or absent. It is through the juxtaposition and sequential placement of two

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strongly distinct tonal planes, the exposition and the relatively stable and harmonically contrasting development, and the primacy of mediant-conditioned tonal relations, that the highly unusual recapitulatory process of D 840/1 is made possible. 1. A New Model of Recapitulatory Function Indicated by the caution necessary for defining harmonic and thematic boundaries in the exposition and development of D 840/1, the movement places substantial difficulties in the way of isolating a single position at which the recapitulation begins. Furthermore, associating the beginning of the recapitulation with a single point in the notated manuscript does not reflect the complex and multifarious structures through which the recapitulation, better described as a fluid process rather than a formal boundary, is established. The first recapitulatory gesture appears in a cadential process which contains implications of a dominant–tonic progression, but is only a localised tonal reconciliation of the F sharp major tension. B major is experientially established in the context of a relative harmonic experience as a long-awaited resolution of harmonic tension to an anticipated ‘tonic’ in bar 150, although the absence of a harmonic expansion of the F sharp material, underlined by a deliberate process of reduction to a single note which concludes four bars before the cadence to B major aids in understanding this pre-recapitulatory process in a larger formal context.

Fig. 74 D 840/1 bars 147–156

The essential modulatory direction from an F sharp major tonal area to a B major tonal area is removed from the direct experience of a perfect cadence. Four bars of F sharp as an isolated pitch without harmonic context except that of experiential and aural retrospection act to denature the experience of recapitulation. Nevertheless, this mo-

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ment of harmonic return is the most unambiguous gesture of resolution, strengthened by its rhetorical, textural, and melodic presentation, and is prepared extensively by the stability of F sharp major, retrospectively interpreted in the function of a dominant prolongation. It is immediately evident that B major has no diatonic standing as tonic in the frame of a movement in C major; the conviction of the recapitulation rests upon a dissociation from the original tonic. It is the presence of a musical gesture of resolution to an entirely foreign tonality which reveals that the recapitulatory process of D 840/1 are more complex than the relative aural experience of the dominant–tonic cadential process and the preceding elements of the established recapitulatory gesture of reconciliation and resolution indicate. By removing the harmonic gesture of return and reconciliation from a factual resolution on the tonic, instead incorporating it into the resolution of a self-contained and independently generated harmonic and structural dynamic drawn from the content of the development, the resolution avoids the pitfalls of a utopian formalism, a single formal gesture involving harmonic resolution and a restatement of the opening material. The recapitulatory gesture of D  840/1 is a paradoxical construction in that the moment which is most strongly dedicated to reinforcing the diatonic order through ‘bringing tonal closure to the entire form’,48 the identity of the tonic is most profoundly destabilised and dissociated from the harmonic experience of resolution. The ‘problematising of the tonic in Schubert’s music’49 finds a fundamental expression in the cadential recapitulatory gesture of the first movement. The presentation of the recapitulatory tonic is no longer associated with modulation to a single tonality, but an immanent function of arrival, distinctly, if temporarily, separated from the identity and formal function of C major. There is ‘little consensus in the theoretical literature on the meaning of the false recapitulation […]’,50 which is generally conceived as ‘[…] the “deceptive” sounding of what might at first be mistakenly taken for the onset of the recapitulation […]’: it is disputed whether this is valid in a distant key distinct from the tonic, and it is also argued that the concept is an ahistoric invention.51 Furthermore, ‘false recapitulation’ is not a valid description of the recapitulatory area in D 840/1, due to its formal context. D 840/1 does not create expectations of a recapitulatory process which are undermined before being fully realised, but instead gestures at a recapitulatory cadence which is not subjected to a process of denaturation and subsequent revelation of the necessary pendant to its ‘false’ nature, the ‘true’ recapitulation. In D 840/1,

48 49 50 51

Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 19. Kramer, Unfinished Music, p. 351. Referring to a similar process regarding the destabilisation of the A flat major tonic in the third movement of D 840. Caplin, p. 277. Hepokoski and Darcy, pp. 221–222.

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there is no single ‘true’ recapitulatory moment, placing its innovative processes beyond the construct of the false recapitulation. It is possible to view the subdominant recapitulations of earlier sonata-allegro movements, either fully composed or implied, which become increasingly prominent from the year 1814,52 53 as preliminary, experimental advances into a realm of recapitulatory processes in which the tonic is not presented simultaneously with the return to the opening material, a theory that gains support from the large number of minor key movements with subdominant recapitulations, in which the harmonic ‘advantages’ of avoiding transposition of the second theme group are not present.54 D 840/1 re-engages with the aesthetic conditions of the fragmentary sonatas of 1817 and 1818. Is it possible that Schubert, with the compositional refinements of the intervening six years, also chose to return to the mode of the non-tonicised recapitulation which reached its zenith in these years? 2. Melodic Emphasis of Mediant Relations in the Recapitulatory Gesture The arrangement of the recapitulation in D 840/1 draws together many compositional threads from the preceding material while maintaining the significance, if not the harmonic primacy, of mediant relations across formal boundaries. The melodic and most audibly apparent linear movement rises from F sharp to D  sharp, once more referring to the strength and omnipresence of mediant relationships within the movement. The essential difference at the moment of recapitulation is that the mediant relation is drawn into the context of a cadence over a descending fifth (bars 149–150), acting as a melodic element, but no longer simultaneously the new tonal anchor for the following formal element, as is almost exclusively the case (with one highly important exception)55 across all of the preceding modulatory and formal boundaries of the first movement. Against the melodic emphasis of the mediant relation and the relative harmonic relations of the descending fifth, the harmonic content of the preliminary recapitulatory gesture (from bar 150) is itself capable of evoking independent connections to the 52 53

54 55

Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 99. Coren, pp. 569–70. Beginning with the Symphony in B flat major D 125 and D 279, such recapitulations remain consistently present in the following years, including the sonata movements for solo piano D 459/1, D 537/1, D 571 (incomplete, strongly indicated), D 625/1 (incomplete, possible), D 575/1, and D 664/3. Salzer, p. 122. The transition between exposition and development (103–104b) demonstrates harmonic and diastematic symmetry to the preliminary recapitulatory gesture.

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harmonic structures of the movement which are not dependent upon the context or modulatory progressions by which it is reached. The melodic contour of the recapitulatory gesture in B major has already been incorporated in order to delineate a formal boundary at the juncture between the exposition and the development (bars 103–104b).

Fig. 75 D 840/1 bars 101–106

The sustained E natural at the close of the exposition is revealed to be the fifth of the subsequent A major opening key of the development, a transition which also emphasises the mediant in its diastematic contour. This progression is repeated almost identically in the preliminary recapitulatory gesture (bars 149–150), transposed a whole tone higher. The thematic material in both sections is an extended variant which emphasises the dominant seventh on the first beat of the second full bar. At the conclusion of the development, through the manner in which the unaccompanied F sharp is resolved and integrated into B major, it becomes clear that the ‘recapitulatory’ gesture is not a return to the primary material, but a reflection of the opening of the development. Returning to variants of the harmonic and melodic content presented at the opening of the development has a twofold formal effect. Firstly, the nascent gesture of recapitulation is accompanied from its very beginnings by a sense of uncertainty regarding the ‘authenticity’ of its status as a signifier of a true return, and secondly the formal effect of the ‘frame’ of two symmetrical transitions at the opening and the conclusion of the development, like the modulatory Parekbasis in the second theme group of D 613/1,56 acts to further underline its function as a stable tonal plane and in doing so, remove the gesture of reconciliation in B major from aspiring to a universal recapitulatory function. In addition to the harmonic symmetry which emerges between the second theme group of the exposition in B minor and the preliminary recapitula-

56

See D 613 IV, 2: Schubert and the ‘Parekbasis’, pages 277–279.

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tory gesture in B major, a formal resemblance between the beginning and end of the development underlines the centrality of the F sharp major passage and strengthens function of the modulation in bars 149–150, from F sharp major to B major, as bringing conclusion to the harmonic tension. 3. The ‘Primary Recapitulation’: Thematic Closure The B major ‘cadence’ in bar 150, although evocative of closure for the development, is not tenable as a moment of recapitulation. Formally, the resulting sense of conclusion is limited in its effects, as vital elements of harmonic and structural reconciliation are not yet incorporated into a broader recapitulatory process. The primary aspects of openness which remain after the cadential and thematic close of the development in bar 150 are harmonic: a reconciliation of F sharp into the tonic is not an intrinsic element of the structures necessary for recapitulation, but a necessity derived from the arrangement of tonalities and generation of an architectonic harmonic structure in the preceding elements of the movement, which are substantially independent of the formal demands of the sonata-allegro paradigm.

Fig. 76 D 840/1 bars 167–171

The harmonic distance from C major and the unresolved nature of the F sharp-centred tonal planes continue through a modulation to D major57 (bars 156–162) and after modulating to F major (bars 167–168), the subdominant of the original C major tonic, the harmonic recapitulation is completed, introduced by another series of mediantconditioned transitions. The movement returns to the original melodic iteration of the primary thematic material (bars 168–176), with a harmonic elaboration reminiscent of the opening and conclusion of the development, most prominently the dotted figuration in the left hand on the fourth beat of the first bar. Examined from a formal perspective, the F major thematic statement from the last beat of bar 168 may be considered to be the most convincing candidate for a single moment of recapitulation. 57

The emphasis on the descending fifth as a modulatory condition bringing the development to a harmonic conclusion is almost immediately replaced by a return to the mediant relations prominent in the exposition.

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4. Dissociated Recapitulation D 840/1 diverges from the earlier proliferation of subdominant recapitulations,58 as it places the unambiguous harmonic moment of recapitulation after a preemptive thematic statement of variant material derived from the exposition in a distant tonality. The formal impact of a single moment of recapitulatory entry is not present and the thematic statement in F major is similar to the motives presented at the opening and conclusion of the development in its textural and harmonic elaboration. This negates a sense of true ‘return’ to the expressive rhetoric and harmonic openness of the expositional opening, while leaving a sense of formal ambiguity. The first bars the thematic variant of the development and the F major recapitulatory statement are similar (see bars 103–104b, 149–150, and 168–169, figs. 74–76). It is only after the rising melodic step to a dominant seventh in the development-variants and the descent to the fifth in the recapitulatory variant diverge in the second bar that the latter is recognisable as a transposed version of the unaltered melody of the expositional theme. As a result, the realisation of the full formal import of the recapitulatory gesture is delayed: only after the first bar (169) is it apparent that this is the ‘true’ recapitulation, instead of a further modulatory preparation in a different key. It is only in retrospect that one realises the recapitulation has been finally attained. This is only the smallest level of dissociation present in the formal arrangement of the recapitulation, which can can be said to consist of an extraordinarily long recapitulatory moment, expanded over the course of 20 bars.59 Additionally, the recapitulation in F major is introduced as if it were sounding for the second time.60 The F major theme appears to gesture to an earlier statement of recapitulatory thematic content, as if to say that it is itself a direct repetition, perhaps of a recapitulatory moment not subjected to the dissociation of which its appearance is a symptom. In presenting itself as an echo, it strives towards a reference to a totality of recapitulatory function which is not contained in the preceding material. The uncritical experience of recapitulation remains unrealised, a shadow cast by a formal principle which remains external to the material of the movement.

58 59 60

Coren, pp. 569–70. From the F sharp–B major cadence in bars 149–150 to the entry of the F major theme in bar 169. The unaltered restatement of material drawn directly from the exposition does not begin with a clear introduction of the original thematic material, but refers to the transitional material (from bar 13) in foreshortening, in the expanded recapitulatory process this incorporation of unaltered expositional thematic material begins eight bars before the first statement and ‘recapitulation’ of the primary theme (from bar 162).

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5. An Aesthetic of Fragmentation and the Recapitulatory Moment A single moment of recapitulation in the movement does not exist, instead being divided into two distinct thematic statements: the recapitulation itself is fragmented. The process of fracture present in the statement of the primary thematic material at the beginning of the movement is reflected in the construction of the recapitulatory processes. The varying planes upon which processes of dislocation and fragmentation occur appear to be directed at a single formal aim: evading the loaded expectation of a single moment of return and the illusion of totality in which all of the vicissitudes of the intervening musical experience can be neatly bound into a cadence on the tonic. In D 840/1 the recapitulatory processes themselves have been the subject of a fracture which was previously expressed in the fragmentary status of the sonata-allegro movements and directly in the ‘Verstummung’61 of music which finds no possible continuation of form and material. Here, a revolutionary architectonic model of the sonata-allegro is present: it does not aspire to what may be termed an all-encompassing resolutionary recapitulation, but instead accepts and celebrates the aesthetic impossibility of such an aspiration, placing an unattainable ideal of recapitulation, present only in the musical evasions and circumlocutions by which it is surrounded but never fully stated, at the centre of its processes. This may be an example of a conscious approach to fragmentation similar to the later types in the tables of the introduction; it does not affect the formal completion of the movement, but instead its relation to a moment representative of totality. D 840/1 represents the apotheosis of the fragmentary aesthetic, as its recapitulation returns to the openness and innovation of fragmentary structures, which are characterised by their physically absent but nonetheless immanent and potentially-loaded material. It is not the material which fractures and is no longer extant in a directly experiential sense, but the formal and aesthetic ideal of return is itself subjected to a process of fragmentation, and while serving as an unattainable, idealised aspirational entity it has been transmuted into a conception of an unattainable aesthetic unity. In essence, D 840/1 is an affirmation that the distance between the formal aspiration towards completion and perfection and the aesthetic content of the sonata structures is ultimately irreconcilable: the ideal of reconciliation is all the more poignant with the recognition that it will never be musically realised. D 840 brings the process of fragmentation in Schubert’s piano sonatas to a full circle: the earliest elucidations of the palpability of non-extant material are fully expressed in the fragmentation not of a physical, aural reality, but of the musical and formal principles which are no longer

61

Adorno, ‘Franz Schubert’, p. 28.

Dissociation of the Recapitulation in D 840/1

391

aesthetically tenable, present only in a fractured reflection of the ‘principle of recapitulation as resolution, the most fundamental and radical innovation of sonata style.’62 6. Recapitulatory Arrival on the Tonic What effects might such a fundamental departure from the underlying principles of the sonata-allegro model have upon the structures of the movement after the recapitulation is achieved? These are particularly associated with the ultimate the return to the tonic. Conventionally ‘the recapitulation delivers the telos of the entire sonata – the point of essential structural closure (ESC), the goal toward which the entire sonata-trajectory has been aimed. This is normally the first satisfactory I: PAC [perfect authentic cadence] within the recapitulation’s part 2 that proceeds onward to differing material […]’.63 However, in D  840/1 the ‘problematic’64 tonic is a prominent feature of the harmonic structures, and this does not change in the recapitulation. Partially the result of the necessity of reflecting expositional structures, the sonata approaches its ultimate tonic peripherally.65 As the second theme group of the exposition in B minor stands in a mediant relation to the dominant, the analogous section of the recapitulation approaches the tonic via its relative minor in a mirrored symmetry. The minor key of the second theme group (from bar 214) results in a more unusual postponement of the final tonal reconciliation: the A minor second theme group and its transition to C major in the second repetition of its thematic material (from bar 247) reinforce the centrality of mediant relations to the tonal plan of the movement. The restatement of the second theme group in the tonic diverges from the concordant area in the exposition, in which the dominant is established. Whereas the exposition is directed to creating harmonic flexibility in allowing a modulation to either the tenuously presented C major of the opening bars of the exposition or the descending fifth cadence to A major, the closing bars of the recapitulation, although composed with the single melodic line in unison characteristic of the textures of the movement, are occupied by an ornamented arpeggiation of the C major triad. The cadential establishment of the tonic is achieved.

62 63 64 65

Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 284. Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 232. Kramer, Unfinished Music, p. 351. An impression which is strengthened by the almost exception of a two-bar section of the texturally expanded thematic restatement, in which a perfect authentic cadence is anticipated by a prolonged G major dominant seventh, which resolves instead to the tonally ambiguous and unharmonised opening theme in octaves rather than a fully extrapolated C major cadence, (181–182).

392

D 840

IX. The Coda of D 840/1 1. Formal Closure and Harmonic Reconciliation After the recapitulatory solution and the final arrival on the tonic, the function of the coda in the harmonic plan of D 840/1 does not appear to be a matter of formal necessity. However, there is a single harmonic element which has not yet been fully integrated into the recapitulatory processes, which are dedicated towards a chronological reintegration of the harmonically distant areas present in the exposition. The last ‘foreign’ tonality, the B minor opening of the second theme group, is the first to be reintegrated in a gesture of modulatory reconciliation. The principle of reintegration is only applicable to those areas which are formally and structurally active as external to the tonic–dominant axis, generating a paradigm of separation and distinction. With this knowledge, the opening of the coda is of revelatory formal significance: the first ‘external’ tonality of the movement, is A flat major (which is present although not established as a modulatory arrival in bars 13–20). The coda returns to the first non-tonic harmony through a last restatement of the primary thematic material. A flat major, previously evocative of modulatory and transitional distance from the tonic and from the opening thematic material, is incorporated in the thematic and motivic content of the tonic and its associated tonal areas, from which it was excluded in the exposition.

Fig. 77 D 840/1 bars 275–285

After the remaining tonal openness has been woven into the tonic through a process of direct modulation, the coda is occupied with an emphatic restatement of the tonic: in contrast to the subtle mediant relations and characteristic chromatic inflections of the exposition, development, and recapitulation, a certain reluctance to depart from the diatonic area of the C major scale is observable in the coda after the reintegration

The Coda of D 840/1

393

of A flat major.66 In the final twenty-two bars of the movement, there is not a single divergence from the natural tones of the C major scale. 2. Reconciliation and Recapitulatory Gestures A palpable contrast between the harmonic content of the preceding formal sections of the movement is present: the coda is perhaps the most revolutionary of the multitude of innovations in the sonata-allegro model and departures from the range of formal possibilities contained by a relatively conventional expression of the sonata-allegro movement in the first decades of the nineteenth century. This coda is not ‘a sign of dissatisfaction with the form, a declaration in each individual case that the symmetry is inadequate to the demands of the material, that the simple parallelism has become constraining’,67 nor does it exist in a space beyond the conventions of the sonata-allegro which precedes it: Codas could be treated freely because of their separateness from sonata conventions. The implications of this can be provocative. The mere existence of a coda – especially one of greater length – can provide a challenge to the preceding sonata, as though the normative bringing of sonata-space to completion at the end of the recapitulation were being arraigned as insufficient to the expressive task at hand.68

The oppositional relation which is represented at lying at the heart of a coda ‘of greater length’, a descriptor appropriate to the proportions of the forty-six-bar coda of D 840/1, does not capture its essentially reconciliatory function. The movement, having arrived at its essential harmonic closure with the return of the tonic in the restatement of the material of the second theme group, reaches back to the first modulatory passage of the exposition in search of ‘unfinished business’69 with which it may occupy itself. The necessity of resolving this brief excursus is not driven by a remaining inconclusiveness in a harmonic or structural sense, but provides a last moment of emphasis upon the overarching symmetries of the movement. With a formally evocative reflection of the first modulation in the last ‘external’ tonality, reintegrated into the tonic in the form of a sequential repetition of the second phrase element of the primary thematic material, which progresses directly to a restatement of its first appearance in the exposition, the coda achieves a sense of simultaneous harmonic and thematic return

66 67 68 69

The only chromatic inflection present is a B flat (bars 290–296), unavoidable as a result of the thematic material of the transition between first and second statements of the primary thematic material (compare the exposition bars 15–20 and the recapitulation bars 175–176). Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 297. Hepokoski and Darcy, p. 283. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 304.

394

D 840

which was absent in the recapitulation. The repetition of a single motive drawn from the primary thematic content of the exposition as a sequential modulatory element presents it in the formal and rhetorical character of a harmonically-contextualised wanderer, finally given a possibility of a direct return to its original circumstances. Absent in the recapitulatory passages of the movement, a harmonic and motivic sense of progression, approach, and arrival defines the appearance of A flat major in the opening bars of the coda: paradoxically, it is the last departure from the tonic which is associated with an unadulterated moment of return. 3. The Coda as a Gesture of Reconciliation Towards Formal Convention Having examined and formulated the ontological essence the coda, it is illuminating to investigate the recurrence of A flat major from the perspective of the formal conventions from which Schubert appears to have distanced himself in the composition of the movement. The recapitulation ‘requires that important statements made in a key other than the tonic must either be restated in the tonic, or brought into a closer relation with the tonic, before the movement ends’.70 Its function, being directed at achieving formal, harmonic, and motivic resolution in ‘the most fundamental and radical innovation of sonata style’,71 is not apparent: D 840/1 shows only a limited adherence to the first of these principles, found in the presence of the second theme group in the relative minor, whereas its mode of generating formal significance which is only apparent in retrospect undermines the structures of formally revelatory clarity and an unmistakeable moment of closure upon which the recapitulation is predicated. These formal expressions of return and completion are more directly expressed in the material of the coda than in the recapitulation. The submediant opening of the coda is the most apparent point of unmediated identification with the external convention of the sonata-allegro model: ‘initiating the coda with an unexpected chord (here [Haydn, Op. 33 No. 5] the flatted submediant) will become a commonplace, and so will the return to the opening.’72 The coda succeeds in creating a unification of a possibility inherent and well-established in the conventional harmonic expression of the sonata-allegro model and the highly individual and self-directed harmonic plan of the movement. The effect of the flattened submediant in the coda following the extended cadence in C major is still that of an ‘unexpected’ modulation, achieved without mitigation, and therein adhering to the convention of departure at the opening of the coda

70 71 72

Cone, Musical Form and Musical Performance, pp. 76–77. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 284. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 314.

The Coda of D 840/1

395

while maintaining a connection to the harmonic structures of the movement.73 The final modulation away from C major establishes the primacy of mediant-conditioned harmonic connections, rendering the tonic-dominant axes which define the tonal areas directly preceding and concluding the development a phenomenon associated with the development as a distinct formal area. Therein, the presence of the flattened submediant in the coda refers not only to a single harmonically-defined area of the exposition, but to the overarching harmonic paradigm of the movement as a whole. The concluding emphasis of the coda is strongly centred upon an extended restatement of the tonic, in this sense being conditioned by the content of the preceding movement not in a reflection of harmonic statements present within the material, but responding to and alleviating a persistent absence. ‘From its inception, the sonata coda was based on the material of the main structure, and was responsive to what had already happened.’74 However, D 840/1 diverges once again from a more conventional realisation regarding the function of the coda. The ontological foundation for its harmonic content is not based directly ‘on the material of the main structure’,75 but occupies a space left open by the preceding harmonic planes: C major has been largely active as a point of orientation and tonal centre without being openly stated over extended passages. 4. Transformation of Aesthetic Fragmentation A further harmonic element which is transformed in the coda is the treatment of cadential avoidance regarding closure on the tonic in the context of the primary motivic elements. In creating a paradigm of repeated evasion or ‘disappointment’ of the expectation of a C major cadential process in the context of material which is strongly associated either with the tonic as a tonal plane or the act of return and reconciliation, the C major authentic cadence is surrounded by an aura of unattainability. In the coda, establishing the tonic as the conclusion of a cadential progression fulfils the evasive premonitions of the preceding harmonic structures. The fragmentary aesthetic established throughout the movement, expressed through the deliberately arranged inaccessibility of the tonic in a conclusive cadential sense, is drawn into an overarching narrative. In the last phrases of the movement this narrative is shown to be concerned not only with the generation and arrangement of shards and fragments, but is essen73

74 75

The A flat major references present in the exposition does not result from any formal necessity, but acts as a modulatory progression away from the tonic to prepare the enharmonic modulations of the later structures while retaining an association with it. The formal impact is, in keeping with the processes of perception and recognition active throughout the movement, retrospectively generated through the appearance of the tonality in the coda. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 304. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 304.

396

D 840

tially resolved and completed through the unifying activities of the coda, introduced by a gesture of reconciliation of the last ‘external’ tonality, A flat major. An emphasis upon completion and return is also presented in the manner in which the thematic content of the first eight bars of the exposition develops and responds to the formal imperatives of the sonata-allegro, while giving new emphasis and casting a different perspective on the internal functions of the model. The alterations to the opening phrase periods, from which the original examples of an aesthetic of fracture and fragmentation emerge, continue throughout the movement and culminate in the last and aesthetically conclusive phrase-statement. The four distinct periods of the opening undergo a process of continuing unification, and this is finally accomplished in the coda,76 in which the third and fourth periods are united and demonstrate their ability to form a continuous phrase-construct which concludes with a cadence on the tonic.

Fig. 78 D 840/1 bars 286–291

This observation of the continuum between the brief, abruptly stated four-bar phraseperiods at the opening of the exposition and their gradual extension and expansion into more fluid and continuous musical constructs is of particular import when juxtaposed with the harmonically expressive tendencies of the movement towards an arc centred at first upon the deliberate avoidance of a tonal ‘completion’ or point of anchor, and the aesthetic impact of its appearance in the coda. Like the process leading from an at first unattainable cadential reconciliation of the primary thematic material on the tonic, made palpable through harmonic and formal implications but not incorporated into the fabric of the movement until the conclusion of the coda, the progression from the four individual phrase-periods of the exposition to the extended unification into longer antecedent–consequent pairs is an internally-driven structural principle which lends coherence to the musical content of the movement while existing almost independently of the conventional, external criteria of the sonata-allegro model. Both of these structural dynamics are centred upon the aesthetic tension between the fragment and its necessary counterpart, an idealised completion. These two struc-

76

Cone, ‘Schubert’s Unfinished Business’, p. 229.

The Coda of D 840/1

397

tural processes, both dedicated to uniting the apparently antithetical states of fragmentation and completion in a single form, do not exist in a hierarchy of formal paradigms in which the sonata-allegro model is primary, but instead in an aesthetic coexistence, capable of reflecting and critically engaging with the formal processes of the sonataallegro. In particular, a single variation in the phrase-elements presented at the opening of the movement and carried through the three intervening restatements of the motivic elements at the beginning of the development, the conclusion of the development, and the conclusion of the recapitulatory area, appears for the first time in the coda, distinguished from its earlier appearances through the presence of a concluding cadence on the tonic. The cadential emphasis of a tonic cadence in the primary thematic content has been reserved for the very last bars of the movement; C major acts as an idealised formal and architectonic goal which finds its realisation for the first time during the conclusion of the coda. 5. An Integrative Approach to Fragmentation and Totality D 840/1 is a departure from the previous fragmentary compositions, in that the aesthetic of the fragmentary is invoked as an integral part of the harmonic and thematic material of the first movement, itself formally complete. A successful reversal of the deliberately created state of fracture and fragmentation at the beginning of the movement is made possible by content which remains unaltered in identity, and finds an extended mode of expression which allows an unhoped continuity and fluidity, culminating in the coda. In terms of the movement’s experientially determined narrative structure, the condition of the fragment has ontological primacy. Schubert’s engagement with the fragmentary in D  840/1 through its relation to completion and in pursuit of the potentiality of composing a transcendental progression from one to the other bears a striking similarity to the increasing interest of the early Romantic generation in fragments and their aesthetic potential: Schlegel’s assessment, which is at first related to the ideal of objective poetry, corresponds with a concept which is repeated in the early Romantic context on a higher level. It is the reinterpretation of deficits as hopes […]. ‘Our deficits are themselves our hopes; for they arise from the governance of our intellect, of which the perfection, although it may be slow, knows no limits.’77 77

Ostermann, p. 110. ‘Schlegels Bewertung, die hier zunächst noch im Blick auf das Ideal der objektiven Poesie erfolgt, entspricht einer Denkfigur, die sich im frühromantischen Kontext auf erhöhtem Niveau wiederholt. Es ist das Umdeuten von Mängeln in Hoffnungen. […] “Unsere Mängel selbst sind unsere Hoffnungen: denn sie entspringen eben aus der Herrschaft des Verstandes, dessen zwar langsame Vervollkommnung gar keine Schranken kennt.”’

398

D 840

Aspects of fragmentation in Schubert’s piano sonatas may be seen as bearing characteristics which are plausibly associated with a deficiency or defect (particularly in the light of the number of unintentionally incomplete sonata movements and piano sonatas which are marked by such elements). In D 840/1 an aesthetic of the fragmentary is presented in the context of an immanent sense of an idealised ‘Hoffnung’: Proximity makes things difficult; hope often appears easier, more self-fulfilling than it, at least the anticipation of an imminent appearance of that which is hoped for.78

In order for a reinterpretation of fragmentary ‘deficits’ to occur, it is at first necessary to create them through the presentation of fractured phrase elements and the ongoing avoidance of a tonic cadence. Only as a result of their expression is it possible to transcend their limitations and attain a state of fully-realised hope in the coda. This transcendence is made all the more compelling by the fact that the identity of the material is revealed to have been present as an expressive potentiality from the first appearance of the thematic elements. Returning the fragments of phrases to an unanticipated completion and continuity and gradually resolving the harmonic contrast of the movement is only productive of an aesthetically viable completion which is reflective of the formal impetus of the sonata-allegro movement if the processes involved are essentially unified on a material and formal plane: dialectically oppositional states of being are revealed as capable of existing within the boundaries of the same material. Continuity of material and the presentation of the vast distance between the fragmentary aesthetic of the opening and the closure of the coda produce an aesthetic transcendence of the essential distinction between fragment and totality. The last musical statement emphasises the essential unity of the movement, regardless of the fundamental incompatibility of the two aesthetic states which it embodies: the last phrase-statement of the coda underlines the fundamental unity of the opening motivic elements, defined by an aesthetic of fragmentation, and their transfiguration into signifiers of completion.

78

Bloch, p. 211. ‘Die Nähe also macht schwierig; leichter, selbst füllender als sie erscheint oft noch die Hoffnung, mindestens das Vorgefühl eines baldigen Eintritts des Erhofften.’

Conclusion The fragmentary piano sonatas demonstrate the need for a type of analytical, philosophical, and philological approach which is centred upon the tensions in their material incompletion and formal projection, a dual nature which can be more completely examined in the context of a dialectical concept of the fragment. In order to understand Schubert’s formal innovations, it has been necessary to develop a mode of analysis which deals not only with the material itself, but its immanent projections and their aesthetic consequences. Essentially, the study of these fragmentary works is an examination of objects which may never have existed.1 In their implications of totality, they place the status of the ‘complete’ sonatas for solo piano in a new light. After the examination of works which Schubert may have considered functionally complete, although they remain fragmentary, is it possible that the formally-closed sonatas are also open to an examination in search of aspects of fragmentation? I. A New Sonata Form With the composition of the last fragmentary sonata, D 840 in 1825, Schubert concluded the period of formal experimentation which began in 1815 with the composition of D 154 and simultaneously established a new formal model for the composition of cyclical works. The late style is marked by the structural and formal innovations, associated with the emergence of a harmonic and motivic re-interpretation of the sonata-allegro model, which originate in the fragmentary sonatas for solo piano and are transformed and integrated into a formal context in D 840, in which the first movement transcends the material fragmentation of the earlier compositions to attain a new mode of expressing an aesthetic totality. It is notable that the later recapitulations in sonata-allegro 1

After examining the manifold formal projections which may be inherent in the fragmentary piano sonatas, the question of performative engagement with the works appears in a new perspective. Although a detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this study, the fundamental distinction is based upon the necessity of deciding upon a single continuation, which must be deemed “aesthetically valid” or convincing for the scope of the intended performance. The calculations behind such a decision are individual and subjectively aesthetic, whereas the purpose of this discussion of the fragmentary works is to present them as they are, and as they might be.

400

Conclusion

movements do not directly restate the explicit formal fracture of D 840/1. After having developed a formal modality for approaching the recapitulation in a structure which is drawn from a juxtaposition of motivic unity and harmonic symmetry, reinterpreting the exposition and development as tonal and motivic planes which are governed by the same stability of content and evoke a process of continuing, symmetrically propelled evolution, it is not necessary to reproduce the divergence from the motivic and harmonic model of the recapitulation in later sonatas. Following the first detailed study of the piano sonata fragments as their own work category with a highly individual function within Schubert’s oeuvre, future research can productively engage in a contextualisation of these new findings regarding the relations between formal model and aesthetic content, and experimental nature of the fragments in a study of the later sonatas from a new perspective which incorporates an understanding of their position as the result of a compositional evolution influenced by and reliant upon the composition of the fragmentary sonatas and the developments which emerge from their exploratory position. The continuation of the aesthetic tropes and formal experimentation of the fragmentary piano sonatas is a productive beginning for a reinterpretation of the highly individual late works, beyond the genre of the sonata for solo piano. II. Fragments Approach the Boundaries of Form and Compositional Possibility The experimental function of the fragmentary piano sonatas, emergent over a decade of composition, was to explore the boundaries of form and the potentialities for stylistic innovation through the development of new compositional techniques for elucidating structure through a unified approach to the externally-imposed formal model of the sonata allegro based upon motivic unity, highly symmetrical harmonic plans which are increasingly delineated through the presence of distinct planes and novel modulatory processes, themselves granted structural and formal significance through symmetry and parallelism, and an approach to the formal model of the sonata-allegro which was conditioned by a dual impulse towards preservation and renewal. The external boundaries of convention, conformity to the established expectations inherent in the sonata-allegro movement at the beginning of the nineteenth century in the sense of its fulfilment of a formal arc, and the necessity for differentiation between its structural planes, were never opened to question. Instead, Schubert aspired to a reinterpretation of their function and formal significance from within, through the use of material which, although outwardly amenable to the boundaries and strictures of the sonata-allegro, remains independently capable of generating its own, internally-justified structural and formal arcs. It is this dialectic between the conservation of a formal convention and the revivification of its modality as an aesthetic construct which leads

Fragments Approach the Boundaries of Form and Compositional Possibility

401

to the material fractures of the majority of the earlier fragmentary sonatas, a circumstance which is evident in their specific relations to an ideal of totality inherent in the material itself and expressed through the almost constant presence of a fragmentation which is directly associated with a moment of formal or structural closure. The last fragmentary sonata, D  840, continues this dynamic and unifies the expansive and innovative approach to form which generates all of the earlier fragments (with the probable exception of D 567) in its unfinished last movement, while its first movement contains the model of a new formal understanding in which the inherent structures of specific musical content are drawn into a transcendental moment of reconciliation with formal convention. The necessity of approaching the fragmentary sonatas from a triple perspective which reflects the individualities of their musical material in focused analyses, their presence as physical artefacts through philological examination of the extant manuscripts, and through a realisation of their existence as aesthetic constructs through the centrality of the fragmentary dialectics between totality and incompletion, is the result of the variability of the aesthetic, compositional, and historical fragments in their divergent manifestations of different modes of fragmentation and completion. In the study of the fragmentary piano sonatas, an abiding realisation emerges: that an understanding of such fractured works requires a methodological unity. This realisation is capable of providing a new approach to the study of works which are not explicitly incomplete or fragmentary. Resulting from this approach, a recognition of the central importance of the fragmentary piano sonatas for Schubert as a composer of large-scale cyclical works is ineluctable. The long-neglected fragmentary sonatas are not of lesser artistic or musicological worth due to their incompletion. It is the openness and fascination of the visible processes of composition which will sustain the fragmentary sonatas as the source of musical and musicological study for the future.

Appendix: Unattached Movements From the works recorded in more than one manuscript,1 the impression of a compositional process which begins with the first movement, often notated until the beginning of the recapitulation, and then continues with the notation of the following movements emerges. The result is a limitation on the potentialities for fragmentation. The establishment of a work as piano sonata through the composition of all or a part of the first movement is of great assistance to the examination of the fragments, as it provides a plausible basis for the exclusion of unattached works from the category ‘sonata fragment’. It has been generally accepted that the sonata fragments always contain at least part of a first movement,2 but the evidence provided by the incorporation of two earlier movements, D 277A (which has its own catalogue number due to its first iteration appearing in combination with an entirely different trio) and the D minor Andantino which is identifiable with the slow movements of D 567 and D 568 brings a degree of uncertainty into the identification of a fragment with the genre of the sonata for solo piano. The central corpus of the work cannot be unquestioningly accepted as the only possibility for the genesis of a fragmentary piano sonata. However, it is necessary to establish a boundary between individual pieces and fragmentary sonatas, as the extrapolation of the principle established by the two earlier drafts of middle movements, resulting in an assumption that all of the unattached movements should be considered as potential sonata fragments, is untenable. The unattached movements which do not display an undeniable connection with an extant sonata, either through a process of later revision and incorporation or through intrinsic links inherent in the material of the sonata and the individual movement, are unlikely to represent a distinct sonata. A final distinction, which provides a sound basis for distinguishing the compositional process by which earlier drafts of a single movement are later integrated into a larger cyclical context and the proliferation of independent works which exhibit po-

1 2

D 567, in which the first movement exists in an earlier draft which is then followed by a Reinschrift, complete except the last bars of the finale, and D 575, which is recorded in an incomplete draft and a completed contemporary Abschrift. The single-movement fragments which occupy the caesura in Schubert’s engagement with the genre, D 655 and D 769A, are both fragments of a first movement and bear the title Sonate.

Appendix: Unattached Movements

403

tential to ‘complete’ the cyclically incomplete sonata fragments,3 is the revision and alteration by which the earlier drafts are transformed into sonata movements. It is apparently impossible to accept the first version of the two external movements as an expansion of the sonata structure without substantial formal and material changes. The unattached movements which are proposed as cyclical completions of otherwise unfinished works do not reveal a similar process of alteration and refinement in order to fulfil the function of a sonata movement. Functionally, their status is parallel to that of the first versions of the movements which were later integrated into cyclically complete sonata structures. The transition to a sonata movement, although it must be accepted as an inherent possibility if only due to the appropriate formal and stylistic characteristics and tonal symmetry, is not yet realised. The proposal that the unattached movements can be incorporated into extant works, in order to ‘complete’ a sonata which is then revealed as a fragment through dissociation rather than a truly unfinished fragment, does not fully consider the aesthetic import of the revisions to the first versions of the unattached movements. The result of this realisation, that the independent works that are chronologically, stylistically, formally, and tonally appropriate to expand the cyclical model of the fragmentary piano sonatas are nonetheless excluded from realising their potential function through the absence of a necessary return to the movements and a process of revisions and refinement, is a model in which the primacy of the chronological composition of the sonata is rendered less stable. It is clear that multiple anomalies which evince an equally valid and distinct compositional process are possible, and it is equally logical to accept that at least some of the independent compositions which present musical similarities to the forms and content of sonata movements and imply the possibility of tonal resolution in the unfinished sonatas originated through a similar process. However, without the definitive step of return and revision necessary to integrate the detached movement into a composition, the effects of this more nuanced view of the compositional processes behind the piano sonatas remain unaltered; without entirely speculative engagement with Schubert’s intentions in composing the independent works, it is impossible to distinguish between those which were intended as drafts or first versions of sonata movements and those which were written as independent compositions. Information taken from the NGA Catalogue. Cycles of shorter pieces have been excluded. All works identifiable as belonging to a genre which is excluded from occupying a position within the traditional sonata have been left out (i. e. walzer, fantasies, etc.).

3

D 349, D 505, D 506, D 604, D 612.

Status Complete Two versions, second fragmentary Complete

Fragmentary Fragmentary Fragmentary Fragmentary Fragmentary Complete Complete

Date of Composition

9. September 1812

8. April 1815

September 1815?

16. October 1815

1816?

1816?

September 1818?

June 1817?

Andante D 29

Adagio D 178

Menuett and Trio D 277A

Rondo D 309A

Allegretto D 346

Allegro moderato D 347 1813?

1816?

Work

Andantino D 348

Adagio D 349

Adagio D 505

Rondo D 506

290 bars

48 bars

84 bars

71 bars

73 bars

261 bars

6 bars

56 bars / 28 bars

82 bars / 60 bars

62 bars

Length

Table 17 Unattached Movements

E major

D flat major

C major

C major

C major

C major

C major

A minor / F major

G major

C major

Key

Finale of D 566

Slow movement of F minor sonata D 625

Slow movement of E major sonata D 459/3

Slow movement of E major sonata D 459/3

Finale of D 279

Finale of D 279

Early version of the Menuetto of D 279, with a different trio

Possible association

404 Appendix: Unattached Movements

Status Complete Complete Complete Complete Fragmentary Complete Fragmentary Fragmentary

Date of Composition

Beginning of 1814?

1816 or July 1817?

February 1818

April 1818

After 1820?

26. April 1827

Summer–autumn 1827?

Summer–autumn 1827?

Work

Menuett D 600

Klavierstück D 604

Trio D 610

Adagio D 612

Allegretto D 900

Allegretto D 915

Klavierstück D 916 B

Klavierstück D 916 C

182 bars

127 bars

112 bars

47 bars

52 bars

16 bars

63 bars

30 bars

Length

C minor

C major

C minor

C minor

E major

E major

A major

C sharp minor

Key

Independent work, dedicated to Walchers

Slow movement of D 613

‘Zu betrachten als verlorener Sohn eines Menuetts’

Slow movement of D 571/570

Possible association

Appendix: Unattached Movements

405

Bibliography I. Primary Sources 1. Manuscripts Franz Schubert, Sonate. E major, 11. February 1815 [D 154]. MHc–134. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Sonate. E major, 18. February 1815 [D 157]. MHc–135. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Sonate I. C major, September 1815 [D 279]. MHc–136. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Allegretto. C major, 1816? [D 346]. MHc–140. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Sonate. E major, August 1816 [D 459]. MHc–16261. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Sammelmanuskript. 1816/1817? [D 348, D 349, D 459A/3]. MHc–154. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Sonate I. E minor, June 1817 [D 566]. Mus.ms.autogr. Schubert, F. 25. ISIL DE-1. –, Sonate. D flat major, 1817 [D 567]. MHc–86. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Sonate II. D flat major, June 1817 [D 567]. MHc–162. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Sonate II. D flat major, June 1817 [D 567]. MHc–14943. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Scherzo and Allegro. D major and F sharp minor, July 1817? [D 570]. MHc–148. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Sonate V. F sharp minor, July 1817 [D 571]. MHc–137. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Klavierstück in A. A major, 1816 or July 1817? [D 604]. MHc–141. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Sonate. C major, April 1818 [D 613]. MHc–138. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Sonate. C sharp minor, April 1819 [D 655]. MHc–139. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Sonate. E minor, early 1823? [D 769A]. MHc–173. ISIL AT-WBR. –, Sonate. C major, April 1825 [D 840]. MHc–4125. ISIL AT-WBR.

2. Facsimiles Franz Schubert, Sonate. C major, April 1825 [D 840], in: Franz Schubert. Reliquie Sonate in C für Klavier D 840, ed. by Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen, Tutzing 1992, S. 101–120. –, The Autograph of Three Masters: (Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms), ed. by Otto Erich Deutsch, London 1942.

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Bibliography

3. Editions Franz Schubert, Fünf Clavierstücke. [D 459 and D 459A], ed. by Carl August Klemm, Leipzig 1843. –, Sonaten für Pianoforte, (= Franz Schuberts Werke X), ed. by Julius Epstein, Leipzig 1888. –, Fantasies, Impromptus und andere Stücke für Pianoforte, (= Franz Schuberts Werke XI), ed. by Julius Epstein, Leipzig 1888. –, Supplement: Instrumentalmusik, Gesangsmusik, (= Franz Schuberts Werke XXI, 2), ed. by Julius Epstein, Leipzig 1897. –, Supplement: Instrumentalmusik, Gesangsmusik, (= Franz Schuberts Werke XXI, 3), ed. by Julius Epstein, Leipzig 1897. –, Werke für Klavier zu zwei Händen. Klaviersonaten I. NGA Serie VII,2/1, ed. by Walburga Litschauer, Kassel usw. 2000. –, Werke für Klavier zu zwei Händen. Klaviersonaten II. NGA Serie VII,2/2, ed. by Walburga Litschauer, Kassel usw. 2003. –, Werke für Klavier zu zwei Händen. Klavierstücke I. NGA Serie VII,2/4, ed. by David Goldberger, Kassel usw. 1988. –, Werke für Klavier zu zwei Händen. Klavierstücke II. NGA Serie VII,2/5, ed. by Christa Landon, fertiggestellt von Walther Dürr, Kassel usw. 1984.

4. Editions with Supplements or Completions –, Sonata in E minor. Piano solo, ed. by Kathleen Dale, London 1948. –, Franz Schubert, Klaviersonaten Band 3, ed. by Paul Badura-Skoda, München 1997. –, Franz Schubert, Sämtliche Klaviersonaten Band 2, ed. by Martino Tirimo, Wien 21998.

II. Secondary Sources Abbott, William W., Certain Aspects of the Sonata-Allegro Form in Piano Sonatas of the 18th and 19th Centuries (Phil. Diss. Bloomington (Indiana University): Indiana University., 1956). Abraham, Gerald, ‘Finishing the Unfinished’, The Musical Times, 112 (1971), 547–48. Adorno, Theodor W., Ästhetische Theorie, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, Gesammelte Schriften, 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970). –, ‘Franz Schubert’, in Musikalische Schriften IV. Moments Musicaux, Impromptus, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, Gesammelte Schriften, 17, 2nd edn (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1990), pp. 18–33. Badura-Skoda, Paul, ‘Possibilities and Limitations of Stylistic Criticism in the Dating of Schubert’s “Great” C Major Symphony’, in Schubert Studies. Problems of Style and Chronology, ed. by Eva Badura-Skoda and Peter Branscombe (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 187–208. –, ‘Vorwort’, in Franz Schubert. Klaviersonaten Band 3, ed. by Paul Badura-Skoda (München: Henle, 1997), p. V–X. Barry, Barbara, ‘A Shouting Silence: Further Thoughts about Schubert’s “Unfinished”’, The Musical Times, 151 (2010), 39–52.

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Bauer, Adolf, ‘Scherzo aus der Klaviersonate e-moll ( Juny 1817) von Franz Schubert’, ed. by Bernhard Schuster, Die Musik, 21 (1928), 13–16. Benjamin, Walter, ‘Goethes Wahlverwandschaften’, in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser, 7th edn (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2015), i, 123–202. Bernhard, Thomas, Alte Meister (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003). Bisogni, Fabio, ‘Rilievi filologici sulle Sonate della maturità di Franz Schubert (1817–1828)’, Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, 11 (1976), 71–105. Bloch, Ernst, Das Prinzip Hoffnung, 7th edn (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980). Bonds, Mark Evan, Haydn’s False Recapitulations and the Perception of Sonata From in the Eighteenth Century (Phil. Diss. Cambridge (Harvard University), 1988). Braun, Michael, Hörreste, Sehreste. Das Literarische Fragment bei Büchner, Kafka, Benn und Celan (Köln: Böhlau, 2002). Brendel, Alfred, On Music (Chicago: A Cappella Books, 2001). Brown, Maurice J. E., ‘Recent Schubert Discoveries’, Music & Letters, 32 (1951), 349–61. –, Schubert. A Critical Biography (London: Macmillan and Company Limited, 1958). –, ‘Schubert and Neapolitan Relationships’, The Musical Times, 85 (1944), 43–44. –, ‘Schubert’s “Wanderer” Fantasy’, The Musical Times, 92 (1951), 540–42. Campbell, Frank C., ‘Schubert Song Autographs in the Whittall Collection’, Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, 6 (1949), 3–8. Caplin, William Earl, Classical Form. A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001). Caplin, William Earl, James A. Hepokoski, James Webster, and Pieter Bergé, eds., Musical Form, Forms, Formenlehre. Three Methodological Reflections, 2nd edn (Leuven: Leuven Univ. Press, 2010). Carlton, Stephen, Schubert’s Working Methods: An Autograph Study With Particular Reference to the Piano Sonatas (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1981). Carlyle, Thomas, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History, ed. by David R. Sorensen and Brent E. Kinser (New Haven ; London: Yale University Press, 2013). Chusid, Martin, ‘A Suggested Redating for Schubert’s Piano Sonata in Eb, Op. 122’, in SchubertKongress Wien 1978. Bericht, ed. by Otto Brusatti (Graz: Akadem. Druck- u. Verlagsanst, 1979), pp. 37–44. –, ‘Schubert’s Cyclic Compositions of 1824’, Acta Musicologica, 36 (1964), 37–45. Cone, Edward T., Musical Form and Musical Performance (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968). –, ‘Schubert’s Beethoven’, The Musical Quarterly, 56 (1970), 779–93. –, ‘Schubert’s Unfinished Business’, 19th-Century Music, 7 (1984), 222–32. Coren, Daniel, ‘Ambiguity in Schubert’s Recapitulations’, The Musical Quarterly, 60 (1974), 568–82. Dahlhaus, Carl, ‘Ein Gesamtwerk, das keines ist. Schubert, gespielt von Kempff und Schuchter’, in Carl Dahlhaus. Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Hermann Danuser (Laaber: Laaber, 2007), x, 447–49. Dällenbach, Lucien, and Christian L. Hart Nibbrig, ‘Fragmentarisches Vorwort’, in Fragment und Totalität, ed. by Lucien Dällenbach and Christian L. Hart Nibbrig (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984), pp. 7–17. Daverio, John, ‘Schumann’s “Im Legendenton” and Friedrich Schlegel’s “Arabeske”’, 19th-Century Music, 11 (1987), 150–63. Deutsch, Otto Erich, Der intime Schubert (Wien: Moderne Welt, 1925).

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Index Persons A Abraham, G. 186 Adorno, T. W. 14, 15 B Bach, C. P. E. 114, 180, 225, 245 Bach, J. S. 11 Bauer, A. 43, 185, 197 Benjamin, W. 13 Berio, L. 16 Beethoven, L. v. 11, 27, 28, 29, 32, 46, 57, 80, 91, 92, 138, 148, 160, 170, 178–183, 184, 193–196, 198, 199, 200, 205, 211, 213, 214, 225, 227, 231, 241, 245, 262, 273, 274, 278, 288, 296–298, 309, 312, 352, 354, 372 Bloch, E. 13 Brahms, J. 33, 211, 215 Braun, M. 20–22 C Carlton, S. 31, 33 Chopin, F. 205, 241 Clementi, M. 92 Cone, E. 198–201 D Dale, K. 186 Dällenbach, L. 20–22 Debussy, C. 241 Diabelli, A. 44, 126, 154, 171, 185, 210, 293 Dumba, N. 155 F Fuchs, A. 125, 153, 154, 155, 157, 172

G Grillparzer, F. 25 H Haydn, J. 73, 92, 179, 180, 205, 225, 245, 248, 308, 309, 394 Hindemith, P. 27 Hinrichsen, H.-J. 49, 51, 226, 309 Holzer, M. 52 Hoorickx, R. v. 151, 155 Hummel, J. N. 114 Hüttenbrenner, A. 204, 211, 213, 214, 352 K Kreissle, H. 293 Kurtág, G. 16 Klemm, C. A. 43, 125–127, 132, 139–141, 143, 146, 147, 151, 154, 155, 157, 165, 167, 168, 170, 175, 176 Költzsch, H. 126, 191 L Lindmayr-Brandl, A. 27, 35, 42, 48, 49, 128, 139, 151, 198, 199, 201 Liszt, F. 33, 38 M Mendelssohn, F. 49 Mozart, W. A. 27, 29, 30, 32, 114, 160, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 225, 248 N Nägeli 204 Nibbrig, C. 20–22 Nono, L. 16

416 O Ostermann, E. 20–22 P Pembauer, J. 185 Prieger, E. 43, 191 Prieger, H. 185 Prokofiev, S. 33 R Reicha, A. 41 Reimann, A. 16 Rellstab, L. 182, 183 Rousseau, J.-J. 18 Ruzicka, W. 52, 53 S Salieri, A. 52, 54, 179 Salzer, F. 271 Scheibler, L. 186, 192, 193, 199 Schlegel, F. 14, 19, 23, 397 Schober, F. v. 221 Schubert, Ferdinand 125, 151, 153–156, 171, 185, 191, 197, 291 Schumann, R. 27, 132 Steiner, G. 20–22 V Vogl, J. M. 180 W Wagner, R. 27 Weigl, T. 183 Witteczek, J. W. 293 Whistling 44, 154, 185, 191, 197 Wolff, C. 30

List of Works (Other Composers) B Bach, J. S.: Das Wohltemperierte Klavier 11 Beethoven: “Coriolan” Overture 57, 179, 182 Beethoven: Fidelio 181, 182

Index

Beethoven Ich liebe Dich so wie Du mich WoO 123 211 Beethoven: Piano Sonatas 11 Op. 2 No. 3 92, 278 Op. 7 205 Op. 13 170, 278 Op. 27 No. 2. 182–184, 231 Op. 31. No. 1 200 Op. 31 No. 2 91 Op. 49 No. 1 288, 352 Op. 49 No. 2 288, 352 Op. 54 288 Op. 57 296–298 Op. 78 288 Op. 90 80, 178, 184, 190, 193–196, 199, 200, 262, 288 Op. 101 241 Op. 106 241 Beethoven: Piano Trio Op. 1 No. 3 273–274 Beethoven: String Quartet Op. 131 179 Beethoven: Variations in C minor WoO 80 170, 298 Brahms: Piano Trio Op. 8 33 Bruckner: 9th Symphony 26 C Chopin: Etude Op. 10 No. 6 205 H Haydn: Symphony in C minor Hob. I:78 181 Haydn: String Quartet in G major Hob. III:41 394 Haydn: Piano Trio Hob. XV:31 205 M Mahler: 10th Symphony 26 Mozart: Don Giovanni 181 Mozart: Die Zauberflöte 182, 184 S Schubert, Ferdinand: Hirtenmesse 155 Schumann: Sonata Op. 11 132 Schumann: Sonata Op. 22 132

List of Works (Franz Schubert)

List of Works (Franz Schubert) D 2E, Fantasie 52, 54 D 9, Fantasie 52, 54 D 18, String Quartet 149 D 22, Menuetts and Trios 265 D 29, Klavierstück 242, 404 D 32, String Quartet 181 D 41, Menuetts 125, 151, 152, 154–156 D 41A, Fugue 151, 155 D 82, Symphony No. 1 149 D 87, String Quartet 150, 295 D 94, String Quartet 149 D 112, String Quartet 149 D 125, Symphony No. 2 149, 386 D 145, Walzer, Ländler, Ecossaises 83 D 154, Piano Sonata 29, 42, 43, 47, 52, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59–85, 86, 91, 92, 93, 110, 121, 122, 129, 203, 204, 208, 220, 222, 223, 293, 399 D 157, Piano Sonata 29, 42, 43, 47, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59–85, 86, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 99, 108, 110, 116, 121, 122, 125, 127, 129, 134, 143, 149, 150, 156, 169, 184, 195, 196, 203, 204, 208, 220, 222, 223, 272, 292, 294, 344 D 193, An den Mond 182–184 D 277A, Menuetto 103–108, 212, 402, 404 D 272, An die Sonne 182–184 D 279, Piano Sonata 29, 43, 47, 54, 55, 56, 58, 86–122, 129, 134, 149, 150, 169, 184, 196, 212, 220, 222, 242, 245, 255, 263, 265, 273, 292, 294, 333, 344, 357, 386, 404 D 309A, Rondo 109–110, 333, 404 D 310, Sehnsucht 109 D 327, Lorma 233, 254 D 328, Erlkönig 180 D 346, Allegretto 109–113, 158, 168, 169, 171, 172, 213, 265, 404 D 348, Andantino 124, 125, 151–153, 155, 168, 169, 171, 213, 216, 404 D 349, Adagio 124, 125, 151–158, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 213, 216, 254, 261, 403, 404 D 366, Ländler 83 D 384, Violin Sonata 294, 312 D 385, Violin Sonata 120, 294 D 408, Violin Sonata 120, 294, 312

417

D 459/459A, Piano Sonata 29, 42, 43, 44, 47, 54, 55, 56, 58, 86, 88, 92, 110, 115, 122, 123–177, 184, 186, 213, 216, 220, 222, 223, 245, 254, 261, 265, 273, 292, 293, 344, 386, 404 D 470, Overture 253, 254 D 493, Der Wanderer 250 D 498, Wiegenlied 151 D 505, Adagio 47, 61, 171, 185, 265, 291, 292– 295, 296, 403, 404 D 506, Rondo 169, 170, 171, 178, 185–191, 198, 213, 265, 293, 353, 355, 403, 404 D 516, Sehnsucht 153 D 537, Piano Sonata 43, 54, 56, 123, 126, 150, 154, 185, 196, 218, 220, 222, 223, 226, 264, 294, 386 D 550, Die Forelle 182, 209 D 557, Piano Sonata 43, 54, 56, 121, 150, 154, 169, 185, 196, 212, 218, 220, 222, 223, 227, 264, 294, 352 D 566, Piano Sonata 29, 43, 47, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 80, 81, 86, 103, 108, 120, 122, 125, 127, 134, 169, 170, 171, 178–202, 218, 220, 222, 223, 227, 236, 245, 262, 265, 288, 292, 293, 294, 296, 297, 298, 353, 354, 363–364, 404 D 567, Piano Sonata 29, 42, 43, 47, 54, 56, 57, 58, 92, 129, 130, 154, 185, 196, 199, 203–219, 220, 221, 223, 226, 228, 259, 264, 265, 294, 351, 401, 402 D 568, Piano Sonata 42, 43, 92, 126, 153, 154, 199, 203–219, 226, 265, 294, 402 D 571/570, Piano Sonata 43, 47, 120, 121, 128, 156, 167, 185, 192, 193, 216, 218, 220, 223, 227, 228, 230, 231–260, 264, 265, 272, 289, 292, 293, 294, 295, 306, 314, 323, 332, 336, 337, 341, 342, 348, 371, 386, 404 D 574, Violin Sonata 149, 150, 294, 312 D 575, Piano Sonata 43, 126, 154, 185, 196, 220, 223, 228, 229, 253, 259, 284, 294, 302, 325, 386, 402 D 593, Scherzi 212, 265 D 604, Klavierstück 47, 213, 231, 253–255, 293, 403, 404 D 605, Fantasie 265 D 605A, Fantasie 265 D 612, Adagio 47, 261, 264, 265–267, 268, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 293, 403, 404

418

Index

D 613, Piano Sonata 29, 39, 44, 47, 61, 121, 166, 167, 192, 193, 195, 216, 223, 227, 228, 230, 231, 236, 241, 259, 260, 261–290, 292, 293, 294, 295, 299, 302, 303, 312, 314, 318, 320, 323, 332, 334, 341, 342, 344, 347, 356, 387, 404 D 625, Piano Sonata 44, 47, 61, 120, 121, 134, 150, 167, 170, 192, 216, 223, 227, 228, 230, 231, 236, 241, 243, 250, 251, 252, 255, 259, 260, 264, 265, 272, 289, 291–330, 331, 332, 334, 335, 337, 342, 347, 350, 356, 371, 383, 386, 404 D 644, Die Zauberharfe 224 D 647, Die Zwillingsbrüder 224 D 664, Piano Sonata 44, 115, 185, 221, 226, 229, 241, 264, 294, 326, 331, 386 D 655, Piano Sonata 29, 44, 47, 204, 226, 234, 302, 331–343, 346, 347, 348, 402 D 667, Piano Quintet 175–176, 250 D 701, Sakuntala 224 D 703, Quartettsatz 25 D 732, Alfonso und Estrella 224 D 759, “Unfinished” Symphony 12, 25, 26, 49, 89, 350, 351–355, 362, 363–364 D 760, Fantasie 250–252, 333, 354 D 769A, Piano Sonata 28, 29, 44, 47, 116, 226, 234, 302, 331–333, 343–349, 402 D 771, Der Zwerg 372–373 D 784, Piano Sonata 44, 126, 130, 134, 154, 220, 221, 222, 230, 241, 243, 250, 294, 303, 334, 343, 347, 371 D 796, Fierabras 224

D 797, Rosamunde 352, 354 D 802, Variations on “Trockne Blumen” 250 D 812, Sonata for Four Hands 84 D 840, Piano Sonata 11, 12, 25, 26, 29, 44, 47, 84, 92, 103, 115, 116, 117, 169, 178, 230, 241, 250, 284, 289, 298, 326, 328, 330, 343, 347, 350–398, 399, 400, 401 D 845, Piano Sonata 33, 44, 46, 84, 92, 126, 241, 350, 356 D 850, Piano Sonata 33, 44, 46, 84, 126, 154, 241, 350, 356 D 894, Piano Sonata 33, 44, 46, 84, 120, 350, 356 D 898, Piano Trio 16, 84, 295 D 899, Impromptus 126, 158 D 911, Winterreise 16 D 929, Piano Trio 84, 295 D 935, Impromptus 126, 158 D 936A, Symphony 16 D 940, Fantasie 366 D 946, Drei Klavierstücke 126, 158 D 947, Allegro 45 D 956, String Quintet 84 D 958, Piano Sonata 44, 126, 149, 170, 250, 298, 350, 356 D 959, Piano Sonata 44, 126, 149, 200, 350, 356 D 960, Piano Sonata 44, 126, 149, 230, 350, 356

This study of the fragmentary piano sonatas by Franz Schubert, composed between 1815 and 1825, offers an individual analysis of each work, based upon a tripartite approach. It focuses on the aesthetic-philosophical nature of fragmentary works of art, the philological study of the extant manuscripts as well as recorded notational material and musical analyses. This research includes a new perspective of Schubert’s commitment to questions of form and compositional

ISBN 978-3-515-13169-8

9 783515 131698

renewal and individuality. The engagement with the incomplete, unfinished and fragmentary piano sonatas makes it possible to see the paths towards the later, more well-known compositions. In these works of the early nineteenth century, the working-processes and musical innovations of the composer Franz Schubert are seen as a development of a highly personal stylistic and formal integrity and independence over the course of a productive and innovative decade.

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