Schubert: Piano Sonatas Nos. 2, 3 And 6

Gottlieb Wallisch

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Cat No: 8557639

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Release Date: 01 January 2006

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 747313263929

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: SCHUBERT

Description
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Piano Sonatas Nos. 2, 3 and 6 In 1815 Franz Schubert committed his first piano sonatas to paper, starting a lifelong relationship with the form. A young seventeen-year-old composer set out to conquer the weighty heritage of the Viennese classics and to find his own musical language. Schubert appears here for the first time as a wanderer between worlds: the conscious struggle for his own musical legitimacy and his future intermediary r??le between the classical and the romantic, perhaps still unconsciously, as far as he was concerned, is now seen and heard. Surprisingly Schubert had already completed some string quartets and two symphonies, and had been able therefore to acquire experience in the so-called larger forms. The next due step in his development as a composer was to the piano sonata. The particular charm in these early sonatas is often of an elusive character that reveals to the listener the composer's uncertainty as to how these experiments will end. Many of these early attempts by Schubert remained as fragments or survived incomplete. Happily this is not the case with the sonatas from 1815 to 1817 here included. Only the final movement, D. 346, which is shown by analysis of the paper to belong to the 1815 Sonata in C major, D. 279, breaks off abruptly after 231 bars. The remaining movements are complete and in order. In the case of the Sonata in E major, D. 459, of 1816 we meet the very interesting rather unusual problem of five-movement form. The hitherto usual title of F??nf Klavierst??cke (Five Piano Pieces) certainly does not come from Schubert himself but was added posthumously by the publisher, probably to increase the chances of sales. Since we now do not have the complete autograph of this sonata but only copies, the conception of the work must be subject to speculation. Certainly it was possible for a great musical spirit like Schubert, who was always searching for new and apt solutions to sonata problems, to take the step of extending the then usual four-movement form to one of five movements, especially since he was later to do this again, for example in the Trout Quintet, D. 667. That the movement standing second represents no scherzo, following its title, but rather is written in the conventional sonata-form is beyond question; whether the added title 'Scherzo' came from Schubert himself is uncertain. A real scherzo is found in the fourth movement of this sonata. While the first four movements are rounded and self-contained, the finale has the direction, exceptionally rare for Schubert, of Allegro patetico, presenting a puzzle to the performer. The often lightly scored, very rugged piano movement hardly offers a mood of suffering and pathos. There is a lack of strong drama and only towards the end of the movement does Schubert come, in the coda, to an urgent onrush of sound. Generally in both D. 279 and D. 459 the piano-writing is unwieldy and unpianistic in character - it was Schube
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