Does CMG like Schubert's piano music?

[IcedNote]

I've never quite gotten into his piano music. His sonatas bore me to be frank, and I only find a few of his smaller pieces interesting at all. I've also heard pianists say that he didn't write very well for the instrument (well, when compared to Liszt, Beethoven, Chopin, and the like).

Do you have much of an opinion on his piano works?

Curious,

-G

[John F]

Schubert himself was a pianist, so I don't know where the idea can have come from that he didn't write well for his instrument. But then I don't think Chopin and Liszt define what good piano writing is, only particular aspects of it, and as for Beethoven I've only two words to say: Hammerklavier Sonata.

Schubert's sonatas are uneven but at least a half dozen are essential music for me, with the A major and B flat major posthumous ones at the top of the list. Also the impromptus and moments musicals (his spelling).

[slofstra]

His piano music is elusive. Sometimes it really grabs me, and sometimes it does not. If the D.960 doesn't do it for you then nothing else probably ever will. I need to be both relaxed and attentive to have it work its magic. 5 AM when you wake up but don't want to get up is ideal. Better load some up on your ipod and keep it at your bedside. Richter's is the best, after that any of: Fischer, Lupu, Brendel or Andsnes.

[Seán]

I love his late piano sonatas and D960 is beyond compare.

[Teresa B]

Never have been a huge fan of his sonatas. I am fond of the short pieces such as the Impromptus and Moments Musicaux.

Teresa

[Wallingford]

I think highly of his piano music--whenever he's not trying to be Beethoven.

[josé echenique]

I love his late piano sonatas and D960 is beyond compare.

I second that. Yes. Masterpieces.

[jbuck919]

Never have been a huge fan of his sonatas. I am fond of the short pieces such as the Impromptus and Moments Musicaux.

You took the words out of my mouth, and thanks for saying it first.

When I was maybe 14 there was a rare TV recital featuring a Schubert sonata, I cannot remember which one. All I could think of was "too long," and trust me, I didn't think that about anything I then knew by Beethoven. I took this to my piano teacher, dear old Mrs. Troidle, expecting some kind of insightful reproof, but she rolled her eyes and said, "Schubert was a great composer, but sometimes he didn't know when to quit."

Apologies to Donald Isler, whose recordings of Schubert I have enjoyed, short of a complete rehabilitation of my opinion.

[Donald Isler]

Well, thank you, JBuck. Sorry, though, that you and Teresa are not convinced, as I am, that his sonatas are great and important works, often even more so than his wonderful, better known short works.

[Ricordanza]

Another vote for "among the best." Besides the pieces listed above by others, another favorite of mine is his only "virtuoso" piano work, the Wanderer Fantasy.

[Teresa B]

Well, thank you, JBuck. Sorry, though, that you and Teresa are not convinced, as I am, that his sonatas are great and important works, often even more so than his wonderful, better known short works.

Hi Don, Sorry 'bout that! Needless to say, your lovely renditions of Schubert have nought to do with my personal feelings about the sonatas! In fact I wouldn't want to say I dislike the sonatas or believe they are not important works--just that I prefer Beethoven's sonatas and find myself moved more by them in general.

Teresa

[maestrob]

Schubert experimented with his Sonatas, as did Beethoven with his quartets & sonatas. Sometimes Schubert succeeded, and sometimes not. I love the Impromptus & Moments Musicals, but somehow the Sonatas are not always first-rate listening. Still I enjoy them, they are great music after all when properly played (Isler or Schiff anyone?).

[RebLem]

I am not an expert. I do not read music or play an instrument. But I have the temerity to say Pretty good, but not great.

I have a theory as to why Schubert's piano music is more popular than its quality would seem to me to justify. Its simple music, for the most part. Accordingly, he is the first truly great composer whom pianists encounter as students. For those who decide its really not for them, he may be the only great composer whose music they have ever played, and this means they are especially fond of him and his music.

[jbuck919]

I am not an expert. I do not read music or play an instrument. But I have the temerity to say Pretty good, but not great.

I have a theory as to why Schubert's piano music is more popular than its quality would seem to me to justify. Its simple music, for the most part. Accordingly, he is the first truly great composer whom pianists encounter as students. For those who decide its really not for them, he may be the only great composer whose music they have ever played, and this means they are especially fond of him and his music.

Aside from the Moments Musicaux and maybe a few pieces that are better known to others here than to me, Schubert's short piano works (and I assume that's what you're referring to) are not easy enough for young piano pupils (like myself) who are just good and not especially gifted or prodigious. At that stage of one's instruction, one is also learning pieces by Schumann, Bach, and maybe some sonata movements by Mozart. However, you have hit the nail on the head with the phrase "more popular than its quality would seem to justify." I respect the real appreciation that others, including some great pianists, have had for this music, but if I were to speculate (as you have, and I might be just as much off the mark), I would say that people expect major works like the late sonatas to be at the same level as Schubert's greatest chamber works, and/or expect the small works to be in the same league with the songs, and are influenced by their own expectations.

[John F]

Schubert's piano music is more popular than its quality would seem to me to justify.

Some of the greatest and most serious pianists of our time would disagree with this: Artur Schnabel, Wilhelm Kempff, Alfred Brendel, Sviatoslav Richter, just for starters. Nothing compels them to play any Schubert at all; it's not boffo box office. Yet they have included many of the sonatas in their concert and recorded repertoires, and Kempff actually recorded every one of them. On the other hand, I'm unaware of any major pianist of our time who disdains Schubert's sonatas, especially the last three, as a few CMG members evidently do. Nor can I think of any important critic or musicologist of our time who does. I say "of our time" because appreciation and performances of Schubert's piano sonatas had to wait until the 20th century, when he was no longer blamed for not being Beethoven, but today it's the common view. Except, it seems, in CMG.

What's going on here? What qualitative standard is being applied? I don't understand it.

[jbuck919]

Schubert's piano music is more popular than its quality would seem to me to justify.

Some of the greatest and most serious pianists of our time would disagree with this: Artur Schnabel, Wilhelm Kempff, Alfred Brendel, Sviatoslav Richter, just for starters. Nothing compels them to play any Schubert at all; it's not boffo box office. Yet they have included many of the sonatas in their concert and recorded repertoires, and Kempff actually recorded every one of them. On the other hand, I'm unaware of any major pianist who disdains Schubert's sonatas as a few CMG members evidently do. Nor can I think of any important critic or musicologist of our time who does.

Well, Schnabel probably needed a break from Beethoven and it had to be something within his technical reach, while Brendel also considers Liszt one of his favorite composers, so how reliable is he?

Seriously, maybe Schubert is a performer's composer in this respect, as is Haydn, though I rate Haydn's last three sonatas much higher than I do Schubert's.

What's going on here? What qualitative standard is being applied? I don't understand it.

What standard do you want to be applied? As far as "quality" is concerned, if I thought they were better, I would like them more. I just went back and listened to two movements of the A Major with Kempff, trying for the umpteenth time to find out what's wrong with me, and I could barely stay awake. They have no structure. They give the impression of extended improvisations and then not at the most inspired level. Their melodies are of limited appeal and tend to be elaborated or embellished in entirely predictable ways, with no rescue from harmonic or contrapuntal complexity. Are my "qualitative standards" too high? Don't think for a minute that I enjoy being frank about my opinion on this; in fact, I am almost politically cowed from expressing it, but there it is.

[IcedNote]

Don't think for a minute that I enjoy being frank about my opinion on this; in fact, I am almost politically cowed from expressing it, but there it is.

I hope CMGers don't do that regularly as it would definitely water down the discussions on the board.

-G

[jbuck919]

Don't think for a minute that I enjoy being frank about my opinion on this; in fact, I am almost politically cowed from expressing it, but there it is.

I hope CMGers don't do that regularly as it would definitely water down the discussions on the board.

I didn't mean cowed by CMG or John F in particular, but by the fact that there is no doubt that I am bucking educated opinion (though thankfully I appear not to be alone on this board). I do that sometimes, though not as often as or in the pattern in which some posters here might think; but one thinks more than twice when the composer in question is Schubert.

[John F]

When he was a boy, Schnabel was advised by the great pedagogue Theodor Leschetizky, the teacher of Paderewski and many other famous pianists, to look into Schubert's piano sonatas because of his precocious musicality. Throughout his career, Schnabel performed only music he considered better than it can be played - Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, a very few others. Impresarios wanted him to play Beethoven because that would fill the auditorium; at that time, Mozart's concertos and Schubert's sonatas were not appreciated as they are today. But he never ranked them or compared them that I'm aware of.

Some intellectual pianists like Alfred Brendel and Ferruccio Busoni have played a good deal of Liszt, much of whose piano music is musically substantial and a good deal more. But you know that, surely. If not, read Brendel's essay on the B minor sonata to learn more about Liszt and indeed Brendel.

It's absolutely OK if you don't care for Schubert's piano sonatas, whatever your reasons, but IcedNote's poll immediately shifted the ground from whether we like this music to whether it's any good, a fundamentally different question. Your impressions as you put them here do not map onto the music as I know it. Structureless? Predictable? No harmonic complexity? In Schubert, the master of the unpredictable and striking enharmonic shift? I'm at the library and about to go off duty, but when I get home I'd like to go into this further, not for the sake of argument but to make a case for this music, since that seems to be necessary.

[John F]

I wonder if Schubert's supposed fault is that he was not Beethoven. Beethoven's style was typically heroic and imposing, Schubert's typically more modest and intimate; Beethoven's coups are often architectural, Schubert's expressive. Beethoven typically based his sonata movements on motifs of no particular distinction in themselves, as the main themes of the first movements of the 3rd and 5th symphonies; Schubert, on melodies, and sometimes very long melodies.

If you insist that a sonata must be Beethovenesque then Schubert rarely satisfies. But surely, nearly two centuries later, when we have a much more open conception of the symphony than before Beethoven's 9th, we can listen to Schubert's sonatas with a more open mind for how they're made and what they do.

I just went back and listened to two movements of the A Major with Kempff, trying for the umpteenth time to find out what's wrong with me, and I could barely stay awake.

If this is the opus posthumous A major sonata, D. 959, then I'm astonished. The middle section of the second movement, Andantino, erupts with mounting violence and what I can only call rage, even psychosis, subsiding into resignation - there's nothing like this in Beethoven or any other composer before Schubert. Can you have dozed through that?

They have no structure.

The first movement is in clear-cut sonata allegro form - exposition, development, recapitulation, coda.



The second movement, despite its stunning originality, is in A-A-B-A form. The scherzo is in the same form as Beethoven's scherzos and Haydn's minuets. The finale is in rondo-sonata form, as in several of Mozart's concertos, and its coda reprises the opening theme of the first movement. If by "structure" you mean something other than this, I don't know what that might be.

They give the impression of extended improvisations and then not at the most inspired level.

If you mean that the music gives an impression of spontaneity, which is what characterizes improvisations, I agree, but what's the problem? Beethoven wrote two piano sonatas that he titled "quasi una fantasia"; was he wrong, or on the other hand, should Schubert have done so? Whether you think the music is inspired is of course impossible to discuss, being a matter of subjective opinion; I can only say that to my ears it certainly is.

Their melodies are of limited appeal and tend to be elaborated or embellished in entirely predictable ways, with no rescue from harmonic or contrapuntal complexity.

Again, whether the melodies appeal to you is at least as much about you as the melodies. Many of Beethoven's themes have little melodic appeal for me, far less than Schubert's - the theme of the 5th symphony's slow movement seems to me laboriously manufactured rather than inspired - but I don't therefore dismiss Beethoven's symphonies and sonatas. In Schubert's A major sonata, the second theme of the first movement is quite beautiful to my ears, as are several themes/melodies in the other movements.

Other works of Schubert show that he had the technical resources for harmonic and contrapuntal complexity when he wanted to use them. Indeed, Schubert's harmony is more adventurous than Beethoven's, whose range of tonalities, methods of modulation, and use of dissonance are essentially those of Mozart. Schubert's song "Die Stadt," composed at about the same time as the A major sonata, is almost impressionistic in its harmony, and the independence of its vocal and piano lines in the second stanza is contrapuntal in the non-academic sense:



Alfred Brendel has written two long essays on Schubert's piano sonatas, "Schubert's Piano Sonatas 1822-1828" (19 pages) and "Schubert's Last Sonatas" (63 pages, mostly musical examples), which I won't try to summarize in this already very long message but characterize those works' musical procedures well. Charles Rosen, in "Sonata Forms," writes that "Schubert's innovations in sonata forms are less extensions of classical style than completely new inventions, which lead to a genuinely new style - at least one that cannot easily be subsumed in classical terms." He discusses Schubert's handling of tonality in expositions, use of sequences, and what he describes as "the oscillation between two tonal levels to achieve a kind of stasis," citing the A major sonata as his prime example.

Are my "qualitative standards" too high?

As far as I understand your standards - and maybe I don't - I'm arguing that they are not appropriate to this repertoire and shouldn't be applied to it, any more than standards based on Beethoven's symphonies should be applied to every work calling itself a symphony. For a long time those standards were used as a stick to beat Mahler and Shostakovich with, and conventional critical opinion dismissed their symphonies as banal and unworthy of the name. Today most critics accept that these works are sui generis and require critical standards of their own. I'm making the same case for Schubert's piano sonatas and the new, original conception of sonata that they embody, and am surprised that it should be necessary.

None of this is meant to suggest that it's wrong not to love Schubert's sonatas as I do. But I want to get them the respect they deserve, respect and appreciation for what they are rather than disrespect for what they aren't.

An afterword:

Seriously, maybe Schubert is a performer's composer in this respect, as is Haydn

Seriously? Haydn was the most popular composer of his day, and Schubert's broad appeal to the musical public in symphonies as well as songs is surely a historical fact. Schubert offers the virtuoso performer few opportunities to shine, except perhaps in the Wanderer Fantasy, a favorite of Liszt's (in his arrangement for piano and orchestra). But maybe you mean something else?

[jbuck919]

Seriously, maybe Schubert is a performer's composer in this respect, as is Haydn

Seriously? Haydn was the most popular composer of his day, and Schubert's broad appeal to the musical public in symphonies as well as songs is surely a historical fact. Schubert offers the virtuoso performer few opportunities to shine, except perhaps in the Wanderer Fantasy, a favorite of Liszt's (in his arrangement for piano and orchestra). But maybe you mean something else?

I meant "seriously" as opposed to facetiously, as I intended my immediately prior remarks about Schnabel's and Brendel's motivation (with a Mr. Green) which you chose to take seriously. I was referring only to the piano works of the two composers, and I meant, for the pianist, a performer's composer. By that I mean that the motivation for playing them is that they are gratifying to play in spite of the fact that, as you say, "they offer the virtuoso performer few opportunities to shine" (and therefore the audience few opportunities to enjoy virtuosity if that is what they came for). Never having played a Schubert sonata (or attempted one, anyway, I am perhaps not allowing for the possibility that it might make a crucial difference and alter my appreciation if I gave it a try.

You took so much time with the rest of your comments that I feel obliged to try to do them justice, which means that, like you, I'll have to come back.

[Donald Isler]

Virtuoso opportunities to shine are not the point of the Schubert piano sonatas though some of them, such as the D Major, are quite difficult. I would hope that, before deciding that this music really isn't so great, people would at least listen to Schnabel play the last two. I think that could change at least some minds.

[ContrapunctusIX]

I can't believe this is even a debate. Schubert, especially late Schubert, is undeniably great, regardless of the genre for which he wrote OR one's personal opinions.

[jbuck919]

I can't believe this is even a debate. Schubert, especially late Schubert, is undeniably great, regardless of the genre for which he wrote OR one's personal opinions.

I see--it is because it has to be. Usually, it is because it is and that happens to coincide with one's expectations based on circumstances. But it does not have to be that way. What is your personal opinion about La Clemenza di Tito? And don't say "but everybody knows about that one."

Schubert's late sonatas did not always enjoy high favor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schubert%27s_last_sonatas

The article says that they were being compared to Beethoven's sonatas, which from the way it is worded seems to be a supposition, though it seems also to be what I am accused of doing. Nobody expects anything by anybody to be as good as Beethoven. The criterion rather is whether the sonatas are "structurally and dramatically inferior" to Schubert's late chamber works, which never went through a long period of lesser appreciation.

[John F]

I can't believe this is even a debate. Schubert, especially late Schubert, is undeniably great, regardless of the genre for which he wrote OR one's personal opinions.

Schubert's piano sonatas, even or especially the final three, were not considered great for a century after he wrote them. I'm not talking about the opinions of nobodies. Robert Schumann, probably the outstanding music critic of the time, who extolled the "heavenly length" of the great C major symphony, and moreover was the dedicatee of the three posthumous sonatas (not Schubert's decision but the publisher's, possibly hoping to buy a good review), had nothing good to say about them, as quoted in the Wikipedia article that jbuck919 links to. So their greatness has indeed been denied and therefore deniable, and for some of our friends here it evidently still is. That's why I feel impelled to come to their defense.

jbuck919's objections to Schubert's sonatas struck me as relating to the old view that to be worthy, a sonata should be Beethovenesque. Whether or not this is actually what John believes, he can say, though it's not the main issue. Whether or not, I think it's a reasonable and maybe inevitable starting point for a general discussion.

[ContrapunctusIX]

Schubert's late sonatas did not always enjoy high favor.

yes, and during his own time Bach was considered an average composer and held in lower esteem than Telemann. What's your point?

[jbuck919]

Schubert's late sonatas did not always enjoy high favor.

yes, and during his own time Bach was considered an average composer and held in lower esteem than Telemann. What's your point?

If the opinion was good enough for Schumann, it is good enough for me.

The comparison with Bach is not to the point. It might be if the next generation had thought that he was a great composer but there was something lacking in his keyboard suites. You really shouldn't try to browbeat other posters with no better ammunition than you've been using. John F thought it worth a lengthy and thoughtful defense, after which your peremptory dismissal does not contribute much to the conversation.

[jbuck919]

jbuck919's objections to Schubert's sonatas struck me as relating to the old view that to be worthy, a sonata should be Beethovenesque. Whether or not this is actually what John believes, he can say, though it's not the main issue. Whether or not, I think it's a reasonable and maybe inevitable starting point for a general discussion.

If you read the post immediately above yours, you will see that I have already addressed that. There are no "Beethovenesque" piano sonatas after Beethoven, nor could there be. I'd have to downgrade some worthy music indeed if I used that criterion.

[John F]

Virtuoso opportunities to shine are not the point of the Schubert piano sonatas though some of them, such as the D Major, are quite difficult.

And virtuosos have not disdained to play them. Sviatoslav Richter played quite a few, and both Horowitz and Rubinstein played the posthumous B flat major.

[Donald Isler]

True. Practically everyone plays the B-Flat.

[Lance]

For me, absolutely top drawer as a composer. His music has a spirituality about it that, once you're hooked, you're hooked eternally. There is quite a variety among the sonatas, and among the best—as seems to be universally acknowledged—are his final sonatas, the opus posthumous ones. Generally, I find it takes "deep" listening and concentration (exceedingly easy for yours truly when it comes to Schubert!), almost the same with Schumann. Someone once remarked that in Schumann, "to find the pearls," one needs to listen in earnest to discover the heart and mind of the composer. I believe the same applies to Schubert and I cannot fathom a musical listening life without Schubert. Schubert's Symphonies 5 and 8 (Unfinished) are among his most popular ones, but I believe they all have something wonderful to offer musically from No. 2 and upwards. While the piano was Schubert's personal instrument, he was also a great orchestrator. There is no question that much has to do with the pianist who performs these works. Among the top rank Schnabel, Haskil (in the B-flat, Op. Posth.), Friedrich Wührer (who recorded them all for Vox, but have never been reissued on CDs), Kempff (most of the time), Walter Klein, Rudolf Serkin (A major and B-flat Op. Posth. sonatas), Brendel (particularly anything of Schubert he recorded for Vox), and of course, many others, including Artur Rubinstein's recordings of the B-flat Op. Posth., particularly the earlier recording that he originally did not approve for release. Edwin Fischer was another great interpreter of Schubert, particularly the eight Impromptus.

[John F]

If the opinion was good enough for Schumann, it is good enough for me.

Even when he describes Mozart's turbulent and tragic Symphony #40 as a work of "Grecian lightness and grace"? Schumann just didn't get it about that symphony, and he didn't get it about Schubert's last piano sonatas either.

jbuck919's objections to Schubert's sonatas struck me as relating to the old view that to be worthy, a sonata should be Beethovenesque. Whether or not this is actually what John believes, he can say, though it's not the main issue. Whether or not, I think it's a reasonable and maybe inevitable starting point for a general discussion.

If you read the post immediately above yours, you will see that I have already addressed that.

I did read it, but didn't take it as a direct answer to the question. You said, "Nobody expects anything by anybody to be as good as Beethoven," which I would dispute - Mozart's concertos are as "good" in their own way as Beethoven's are in his. But anyway, by "Beethovenesque" I wasn't saying "as good as Beethoven" but rather "in the manner of Beethoven." There are other manners and styles that are as worth the composer's efforts and our hearing as Beethoven's, Bach's for example.

The criterion rather is whether the sonatas are "structurally and dramatically inferior" to Schubert's late chamber works, which never went through a long period of lesser appreciation.

By "the criterion" you mean your criterion? Fair enough. But I'd point out that Schubert's piano sonatas were not the only works of his that "went through a period of lesser appreciation." Despite Schumann's praise, the Great C Major symphony had something of an uphill climb. When Mendelssohn tried to perform it in England he had to abandon it because his orchestra laughed at the endless string figurations and other things in the finale. This was the 1840s, and Mendelssohn's own reservations about the symphony are evident from his having made cuts in it - for him the length wasn't so "heavenly." Habeneck ran into similar difficulty in Paris.

It might be better, sometimes, if you were to write for me as if you thought I'm a bit obtuse, because sometimes I am, especially when written irony and intended facetiousness are involved. I took your comments on Schnabel and Brendel as serious enough to deserve a straight response, if not for your benefit then for any others who might be reading the thread and not know enough about Schnabel's and Brendel's careers and attitudes to take your rather dismissive remarks as facetious. I defend the composers, works, and musicians I care about even when it might not really be necessary. That's just how I am.

[slofstra]

For me, absolutely top drawer as a composer. His music has a spirituality about it that, once you're hooked, you're hooked eternally. There is quite a variety among the sonatas, and among the best—as seems to be universally acknowledged—are his final sonatas, the opus posthumous ones. Generally, I find it takes "deep" listening and concentration (exceedingly easy for yours truly when it comes to Schubert!), almost the same with Schumann. Someone once remarked that in Schumann, "to find the pearls," one needs to listen in earnest to discover the heart and mind of the composer. I believe the same applies to Schubert and I cannot fathom a musical listening life without Schubert. Schubert's Symphonies 5 and 8 (Unfinished) are among his most popular ones, but I believe they all have something wonderful to offer musically from No. 2 and upwards. While the piano was Schubert's personal instrument, he was also a great orchestrator. There is no question that much has to do with the pianist who performs these works. Among the top rank Schnabel, Haskil (in the B-flat, Op. Posth.), Friedrich Wührer (who recorded them all for Vox, but have never been reissued on CDs), Kempff (most of the time), Walter Klein, Rudolf Serkin (A major and B-flat Op. Posth. sonatas), Brendel (particularly anything of Schubert he recorded for Vox), and of course, many others, including Artur Rubinstein's recordings of the B-flat Op. Posth., particularly the earlier recording that he originally did not approve for release. Edwin Fischer was another great interpreter of Schubert, particularly the eight Impromptus.

This is so true. Generally, people today are used to listening to music with divided attention. I find I can put pop or jazz on in the background, and even baroque music. Schubert or Schumann as background music is mainly irritating. But even as foreground music, I need to not be thinking about work or problems, in order to really focus on the music. I need to be both relaxed and attentive, and this kind of music helps me get there. One issue is that it works so well, I often fall asleep listening to it, especially in the early evening.
But more to the point, would it be correct to say that Schubert's late music is both polyphonic and harmonic at the same time, not quite as polyphonic as Mozart, not quite as harmonic as Beethoven. I think Schubert's late piano sonatas are in league with the Hammerklavier and extend from it. There are these very long melodic arcs, and I believe the better pianists play these in crisp time, and also without pause. (I'm thinking esp of the Andantes). The pianists I don't like insert little pauses to make shorter melodic sub-lines, and also the timing isn't in complete control. Brendel is a master of the long melodic arc, he is almost a music machine at times. (Sorry, about the rough and ready non-technical language). Against that there is the left hand to listen to, although sometimes the dominant melody is on the left hand. But what really lifts the music, and demands our complete attention, are the little hurried phrases tucked in here or there, not really trills or arpeggios because they can be quite original, and easy to miss entirely. The other thing that makes Schubert so felicitous is the slightly unexpected note. Your mind expects that the next variation will repeat in a certain way, but then it doesn't, the accent note in the next phrase is one step higher than we expect and goes from there. So this is what I find in the slower movements, anyway.

[slofstra]

I have a feeling that John (jbuck) listens like the organist that I think he is. Schubert, and Haydn also, might have too much delicacy that passes for repetitiveness. I think either one of them would be horrid on the organ. Whereas Beethoven MIGHT pass muster. I put MIGHT in capitals, before anyone jumps all over my idle conjecture.

[slofstra]

BTW, Lance, when you said "hooked eternally" are you thinking that they are listening to Schubert and Schumann in heaven?

[jbuck919]

I have a feeling that John (jbuck) listens like the organist that I think he is. Schubert, and Haydn also, might have too much delicacy that passes for repetitiveness. I think either one of them would be horrid on the organ. Whereas Beethoven MIGHT pass muster. I put MIGHT in capitals, before anyone jumps all over my idle conjecture.

I don't have any reservations about the Haydn sonatas, especially the late ones, which I love. The comparison was merely with respect to whether the pleasure they give the performer for their high artistic level outweighs considerations of virtuosity or audience appeal, i.e., that is a chief reason why they are performed by many great pianists.

But you do have a point, because I hear a lack of inspiration in passages from the Schubert sonatas that reminds me of similar things in the Romantic organ literature; however, it is more a question of repetitiveness passing for delicacy. Finally, I don't think there is much piano repertory that works on the organ at all, nor am I aware of any classy transcriptions (I don't think a schlocky one of Clair de Lune exactly rescues the concept), though there are many from the orchestral repertory.

[slofstra]

I have a feeling that John (jbuck) listens like the organist that I think he is. Schubert, and Haydn also, might have too much delicacy that passes for repetitiveness. I think either one of them would be horrid on the organ. Whereas Beethoven MIGHT pass muster. I put MIGHT in capitals, before anyone jumps all over my idle conjecture.

I don't have any reservations about the Haydn sonatas, especially the late ones, which I love. The comparison was merely with respect to whether the pleasure they give the performer for their high artistic level outweighs considerations of virtuosity or audience appeal, i.e., that is a chief reason why they are performed by many great pianists.

But you do have a point, because I hear a lack of inspiration in passages from the Schubert sonatas that reminds me of similar things in the Romantic organ literature; however, it is more a question of repetitiveness passing for delicacy. Finally, I don't think there is much piano repertory that works on the organ at all, nor am I aware of any classy transcriptions (I don't think a schlocky one of Clair de Lune exactly rescues the concept), though there are many from the orchestral repertory.

'

The great thing about the Internet is that almost anything you can think of, someone has at least tried it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_rRZaTp7wc

The first movement is almost funny. The second comes off a little better, well, as far as I went with it, that is.

[jbuck919]

If this is the opus posthumous A major sonata, D. 959, then I'm astonished. The middle section of the second movement, Andantino, erupts with mounting violence and what I can only call rage, even psychosis, subsiding into resignation - there's nothing like this in Beethoven or any other composer before Schubert. Can you have dozed through that?

That was the section that woke me up.

(John is going to be annoyed because he just commented on how he receives my less serious responses.)

Throwing a stormy section into the middle of something more languid can be a stroke of brilliance (as it sometimes is in Chopin) or it can just be a change of mood that sits there. I'm more inclined to interpret this passage as the latter, which is not to say that it is not well executed.

They have no structure.

The first movement is in clear-cut sonata allegro form - exposition, development, recapitulation, coda. ....If by "structure" you mean something other than this, I don't know what that might be.

I do indeed mean something else. After Beethoven, anyone could, and great composers frequently did, take on sonata forms (to use Charles Rosen's term) and use them as convenient models for their own compositions. That does not keep some first movements (to limit myself to that for now) from being a different animal than a classical-period Allegro. (I didn't make this up; it is a well-known point of musicology which was propounded by Rosen but is also an academic commonplace.) Though much great music was written this way, it depends on more than following the "chronological" model. It also requires that each section, or sub-section, be convincing on its own terms and that the transitions also be convincing. It is beyond my powers to describe exactly what would make it so, but I can say that while I hear it in much of Schubert, I don't hear it here.

They give the impression of extended improvisations and then not at the most inspired level.

If you mean that the music gives an impression of spontaneity, which is what characterizes improvisations, I agree, but what's the problem? Beethoven wrote two piano sonatas that he titled "quasi una fantasia"; was he wrong, or on the other hand, should Schubert have done so? Whether you think the music is inspired is of course impossible to discuss, being a matter of subjective opinion; I can only say that to my ears it certainly is.

I guess it is subjective, as is the question of appealing melodies. I've never heard anyone call the theme of the slow movement of the Fifth Symphony "laboriously manufactured," but if that's how it seems to you, OK. The only uninteresting melody I can think of from Beethoven is the principal theme of the finale of the Ninth Symphony, and I have no doubt that he chose such a trite tune on purpose so that he could transform it exactly the way he did.

Getting back to Rosen, he has written about the A Major Sonata in terms that are far more elaborate than anything I can manage. I know that I am flattering myself that he is expressing my own feelings but with greater analytical insight, and he is certainly avoiding any disparagement, but this is what he has to say. (This is from the otherwise also interesting Wikipedia article on Schubert's last sonatas. I do own and have read Rosen's book, but it's in a box somewhere, so lucky me that this is here.)

Charles Rosen, who unraveled this unique borrowing of a Beethovenian structure in Schubert's A major Sonata, has also referred to Schubert's departure from the former's style in this instance: "Schubert moves with great ease within the form which Beethoven created. He has, however, considerably loosened what held it together, and stretched its ligaments unmercifully... the correspondence of part to whole has been considerably altered by Schubert, and explains why his large movements often seem so long, since they are being produced with forms originally intended for shorter pieces. Some of the excitement naturally goes out of these forms when they are so extended, but this is even a condition of the unforced melodic flow of Schubert's music". Rosen adds, however, that "with the finale of the A major Sonata Schubert produced a work that is unquestionably greater than its model."

[diegobueno]

The many criticisms presented here about the Schubert piano sonatas are valid. Schubert didn't know how to put a sonata form together, he rambled on and on, and he made curious continuity choices. For instance, in the A major sonata, after presenting a marvelous array of thematic material, enough to furnish most composers with several piano sonatas, he devotes the development section to one little idea which had been introduced incidentally as an embellishment of the 2nd theme. WTF!

None of this matters though, because Schubert imbues all this with a quality I can only characterize as "lovability". His themes are so irresistible that I don't mind hearing him go on and on with them. I find that the most rambling of his pieces are often the most lovable. The scherzo of the D major sonata D. 850 is one of the more irresistible things in the Schubert sonatas. It sounds like Schubert on Saturday night at the local beer hall carrying on with convivial companions.

[sans maitre]

too much other music that I am interested in to devote time to Schubert - no fault of his

but between Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms & Beethoven I dont have much more brain cells for 19th century piano music

[jbuck919]

too much other music that I am interested in to devote time to Schubert - no fault of his

but between Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms & Beethoven I dont have much more brain cells for 19th century piano music

Now there's an interesting way of putting it (seriously).

[Lance]

I sure hope so! I'd love to meet all these great composers! On the other hand, THEY may not be there! :-{

BTW, Lance, when you said "hooked eternally" are you thinking that they are listening to Schubert and Schumann in heaven?

[John F]

Schubert didn't know how to put a sonata form together

That's simply not so, as an attentive listening to the first movement of the Unfinished Symphony (for example) should make obvious. In that and other movements, Schubert constructed an integrated sonata form as tightly efficient as those of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. When some of his very last works are less Beethovenesque, it isn't because Schubert had forgotten how to compose in sonata form; he was doing something new with it that his elders had not done. Works like the A major posthumous sonata are not above criticism but neither are they technically incompetent.

I've cited Charles Rosen's opinion that "Schubert's innovations in sonata forms are less extensions of classical style than completely new inventions, which lead to a genuinely new style - at least one that cannot easily be subsumed in classical terms." In "The Classical Style," "Sonata Forms," and a late essay, "Schubert and the Example of Mozart" (in "Schubert the Progressive," ed. by Brian Newbould), Rosen turns repeatedly to the A major sonata, which he also recorded 50 years ago - the only Schubert sonata he did, as far as I know. Since this happens to be the sonata that jbuck919 cited in particular as unsatisfying to him, I'll stick with it, and offer more of Rosen's analytical observations. As the most deeply informed and sophisticated writer in English on this repertoire, he has more cogent things to say than I would be likely to come up with myself.

Rosen says the finale of the A major is modeled on a particular movement of a Beethoven sonata, the finale of op. 31 #3, which begins at 4:10 of this clip:



The Schubert movement sounds nothing like the Beethoven:



Rosen says, "The borrowing is not of thematic shape but strictly of formal structure... What is most remarkable in this close imitation is its lack of constraint: Schubert moves with great ease within the form which Beethoven created. He has, however, considerably loosened what held it together, and stretched its ligaments unmercifully. Schubert's movement is very much longer, although the opening themes of both are exactly the same length. This means that the correspondence of part to whole has been considerably altered by Schubert, and explains why his large movements often seem so long, since they are being produced with forms originally intended for shorter pieces. Some of the excitement naturally goes out of these forms when they are so extended, but this is a condution of the unforced melodic flow of Schubert's music. It must be added that with the finale of this A major sonata Schubert produced a work that is unquestionably greater than its model." Judge for yourself whether you agree.

Lest it be thought that such modeling is a defect in itself, I'd point out that Beethoven modeled certain of his works closely on pieces by Mozart and Haydn, and has not been therefore accused of lack of originality. My purpose in quoting Rosen on this aspect of the sonata is to provide more evidence that far from not knowing how to put a sonata form movement together, Schubert knew very well what he was doing. If his results were often not Beethovenesque, that's an unfair objection: he was not Beethoven, he was Schubert.

In "Schubert and the Example of Mozart," Rosen writes, "There is no disputing the influence of Beethoven on the later Schubert, but his style was not in fact formed on Beethoven, to whom, as we know, he was hostile at an early stage. His early model was clearly Mozart for instrumental music, and he remained faithful to his youthful idolatry in ways that made it impossible for him ever to completely to assimilate the work of Beethoven." Rosen shows that the great C major string quintet, which seems so wholly Schubertian, is influenced in significant ways by Mozart's quintet in C major, and the A major sonata also shows the influence of Mozart's practice.

"One characteristic of Mozart's conception of large form that Schubert found useful in many works is the bursts of conventional passagework used in the second part of an exposition to round out a section with increased motion... When Schubert imitates this, it causes distress to some of his most ardent admirers... The root of the difficulty is the increased scale of Schubert's forms. Like Mozart, Schubert needs to introduce an accelerated motion later in his expositions, but he needs it at greater length, and it is not always justified, as it is in Mozart, by a display of virtuosity: unlike Mozart and Beethoven, Schubert was not a virtuoso keyboard player. The conventional nature of the material he uses in the second part of an exposition may seem, consequently, to make too great a contrast with the idiosyncratic and personal opening of the form."

Further: "In following Mozart rather than Beethoven, Schubert was not often inclined to adopt Beethoven's method, largely based on that of Haydn, [of making] the conventional material appear as if it were part of the original thematic invention of the main theme," which Rosen opines "is why so many of Beethoven's themes are constructed out of simple arpeggios or scale motifs. This was not a practice that would recommend itself to Schubert, whose thematic invention was of a very different nature from Beethoven's. In addition, Beethoven's technique resulted in forms of a very tight economy, where Schubert clearly wished to let more light and air into his creations. Judging Schubert's procedures by Beethoven standards results, therefore, in a certain misunderstanding, though it is not easy to evade this particular critical process: the efficiency and success of Beethoven's forms provided an inescapable critical model for more than a century to come."

I suppose it's passages like those Rosen describes that are among those which give jbuck919 "the impression of extended improvisations and then not at the most inspired level." Another might be what Rosen goes on to discuss: "We always know where a movement of Beethoven is headed, even if surprises may lie on the way: only at a rare moment of climax does he suspend directed harmonic movement... Schubert, however, often tries to evade the sense of a directed goal in just those places that we are accustomed to think require a real sense of direction. The middle of the exposition of the Sonata in A major of 1828 is one example: it appears to be a modulatory development, but in fact it only goes from E major back to E major, and the motion is small-scale, the larger movement being an illusion, a sleight of hand. This also leads to a long section of conventional arpeggios and is not, I think, one of Schubert's most successful ideas, though it can be played to great virtuoso effect."

However, "This destruction of large-scale direction...can be the occasion for some of Schubert's greatest inspirations, as in the development section of the first movement of this A major sonata, where the harmony oscillates: C major, B major, C major, B major, C minor, A minor, returning suddenly in this surprising way to the tonic. Appreciating Schubert's conception here, nevertheless, forces us to revise our habitual expectations of tonal form. The return to the tonic in this case is neither a final goal nor the ultimate resolution of an increase of harmonic tension: it is part of an idiosyncratic process which has suspended any conventional feeling of pressing forward in a classical development."

There's more, of course - much more - and I've already quoted enough to approach the limits of fair use. But I hope this is enough to move people to think of Schubert's music outside the Beethoven box and appreciate it for what it is rather than deprecate it for what it's not.

[diegobueno]

Relax, John. I'm on your side here. Just to let you know, my vote in the poll went to "one of the greatest", the top selection.

The Rosen quotes are good stuff:

However, "This destruction of large-scale direction...can be the occasion for some of Schubert's greatest inspirations, as in the development section of the first movement of this A major sonata, where the harmony oscillates: C major, B major, C major, B major, C minor, A minor, returning suddenly in this surprising way to the tonic. Appreciating Schubert's conception here, nevertheless, forces us to revise our habitual expectations of tonal form. The return to the tonic in this case is neither a final goal nor the ultimate resolution of an increase of harmonic tension: it is part of an idiosyncratic process which has suspended any conventional feeling of pressing forward in a classical development."

which is a more detailed and elaborate way of saying:

I find that the most rambling of his pieces are often the most lovable.

[jbuck919]

In the other thread, John F. elaborated on Rosen's comment to the effect that "If you like a piece of music, you understand it." (I am purposely stating it in if-then form, old math teacher that I am.) If that's true, then logically so is the contrapositive, i.e., "If you do not understand a piece of music, then you don't like it." I'm not sure what I think about all that, but if it's true, then maybe I don't like much in these works because I do not understand it. And that makes me uncomfortable.

[John F]

In the other thread, John F. elaborated on Rosen's comment to the effect that "If you like a piece of music, you understand it." (I am purposely stating it in if-then form, old math teacher that I am.) If that's true, then logically so is the contrapositive, i.e., "If you do not understand a piece of music, then you don't like it." I'm not sure what I think about all that, but if it's true, then maybe I don't like much in these works because I do not understand it.

On the other hand, T.S. Eliot distinguished between enjoyment and understanding. The ideal teacher, he said, will "introduce the pupils to contemporary poetry by exciting enjoyment; enjoyment first and understanding second." Indeed, he said that some of the poetry that meant most to him, he didn't think he really understood it. I think Eliot rather than Rosen is right. Certainly there's much in the arts and in the world that I don't understand and maybe never will, but that doesn't mean I don't like it. And most music lovers hardly understand music at all, do they? I suspect that Rosen was trying to disarm those who complain that modern music is difficult.

[diegobueno]

Of course, one could say that nobody during the Classical and early Romantic eras "knew how to put a sonata form together", because the concept of "sonata form" wasn't formulated until around 1826. Charles Rosen's Sonata Forms cites Reicha's Traité de haute composition musicale (1826) as the first work to set down in print a definition of what sonata form is.

If they ever were to invent a time machine, one of the first things I would do is go back to, say, 1790 and ask Mozart and Haydn just what they thought they were doing when they sat down to write a sonata or string quartet. They clearly had some definite idea, since certain traits keep reappearing in their works, the shift to the dominant (or relative major in minor key works), the repeat signs, etc. But in some sense, they were just making things up as they went along, and it's sometimes refreshing when you get a reminder of this, such as in the little improvisatory section in the first movement of Haydn's "Emperor" Quartet, from about the 108th measure to the 116th, which just plays with sounds for the sake of playing with them, a little diversion before the final push to the cadence.

I'd also like to visit Schubert as he was composing the "Death and the Maiden" string quartet (one of my favorites, by the way), and ask him what he thought he was doing at the end of the exposition, after reaching a neat little cadence in F major (the relative major) at measure 114. He could have put his double bar and expo repeat right there and it would have been fine, but somehow he felt he had to get to the dominant minor, A minor first, so he wrote 27 more bars of music which slip and slide through several different keys. It's great stuff, but it's moving in developmental territory and probably been more effectively elided with the music that comes immediately after the repeat sign, which mostly covers the same territory in C major.

In spite of that, I'm content to let Schubert be Schubert, as odd as some of his structural choices may seem.

Now I feel like I need to read the rest of Rosen's Sonata Forms.

[John F]

Haydn and Mozart may not have given their first movements the name "sonata form" that was applied to them in the 19th century, but I wouldn't say they were making up the form as they went along. The step that distinguishes sonata form from its Baroque precursors, a development section after the exposition (in place of a contrasting "trio") that heightens tension and expectation for the return to the tonic key, was taken by Haydn very early, and thereafter he and other composers stuck to this basic structure while making its elements longer and more complex. The composers may not have thought of the structure as an abstract concept or a set of hard-and-fast rules, but they mostly adhered to it in outline if not in every detail, which in practice amounts to much the same thing.

Schubert's transitions back to a repeat of the exposition are sometimes very odd and inorganic. You've mentioned one, in the first movement of the D minor quartet. Another is in the first movement of the B flat major posthumous sonata. Alfred Brendel argues that the nine transitional bars should not be played and the repeat not taken. "Which elements in the sonata justify the emergence of these transitional bars? Where are they announced? Should they be allowed to upset the magnificent coherence of this movement, whose motivic material seems quite unrelated to the new syncopated, jerky rhythm? Is the material or atmosphere of this transition taken up anywhere in the later movements? Should its irate dynamic outburst rob the development's grand dramatic climax of its singularity? Most painful to me, however, is the presentation of the trill in fortissimo: an event which elsewhere remains remote and mysterious is here noisily exposed." Granted that the exposition ends in a way that does not permit a simple return to the beginning, as Brendel observes, Beethoven would doubtless have gone straight into the development, as in the "Appassionata," but "Schubert was much more old-fashioned than Beethoven" and evidently did not feel able to dispense with the exposition repeat. So if you do get hold of a time machine that takes you back to Vienna in 1828, do me a favor and ask Schubert about this passage too.