Wollenberg S. Schubert's Fingerprints. Studies in The Instrumental Works

Schubert’s Fingerprints:
Studies in the Instrumental Works

In Memory of Derrick Puffett
(1946–1996)
Schubert’s Fingerprints:
Studies in the Instrumental Works
Susan Wollenberg
University of Oxford, UK
© Susan Wollenberg 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Susan Wollenberg has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Wollenberg, Susan.
Schubert’s fingerprints: studies in the instrumental works.
1. Schubert, Franz, 1797–1828. Instrumental music.
2. Instrumental music – Analysis, appreciation.
780.9’2-dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wollenberg, Susan.
Schubert’s fingerprints : studies in the instrumental works / Susan Wollenberg.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-2122-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4094-3401-6 (ebook)
1. Schubert, Franz, 1797-1828. Instrumental music. 2. Instrumental music-19th century–
History and criticism. I. Title.
ML410.S3W64 2011
784.092–dc22
2011010442
ISBN 9781409421221 (hbk)

ISBN 9781409434016 (ebk)
Bach musicological font developed by © Yo Tomita
III
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the

MPG Books Group, UK.
Contents
List of Figures vii

List of Music Examples ix
Acknowledgements xv
List of Abbreviations xvii
Note on the Format of Music Examples and Figures xix
1 Introduction 1
2 ‘His Favourite Device’: Schubert’s Major–Minor Usage

and its Nuances 15
3 Poetic Transitions 47
4 Schubert’s Second Themes 99
5 Schubert and Mozart 133
6 Schubert’s Violent Nature 161
7 Threefold Constructions 191
8 Schubert’s Variations 213
9 ‘Heavenly Length’ 245
10 Concluding Remarks: ‘Whose Schubert?’ 287
Select Bibliography 297

Chronology of Schubert’s Instrumental Works Discussed 309
Index of Schubert’s Works 311
General Index 313
This page has been left blank intentionally
List of Figures
2.1 D 887 and D 956, first movements, Themes I and II: key-schemes 33
2.2 D 940, outline of key scheme 43
2.3 D 887, slow movement, tonal plan of episodic form 44
3.1 D 703, harmonic palindrome 56

3.2 D 887, first movement, scheme of variations, Theme II 60
7.1 D 894, second movement (Andante), outline of form 198

7.2 D 960, first movement, Theme I: threefold designs 210
8.1 D 887, first movement, scheme of variations on Theme I 237

8.2 D 887, second movement, outline scheme 242
9.1 D 958, finale, outline of form 260

9.2 D 958, finale, outline of rondo theme 262
List of Music Examples
2.1 Schubert, ‘Lebenslied’, D 508, bars 13–24 17

2.2 ‘Lachen und Weinen’, D 777, verse 1, bars 9–35 18
2.3 D 664, slow movement, bars 60–75 20
2.4 D 911/22, D 887-iv 21
(a) ‘Mut’, D 911/22, bars 5–18 21
(b) D 887, finale, bars 1–12 22
2.5 D 940 23
(a) Bars 1–8 23
(b) Bars 37–45 23
2.6 D 894, first movement 25
(a) Bars 1–5 25
(b) Bars 65–9 25
2.7 D 795/10, D 887-ii and iii 26
(a) ‘Tränenregen’, D 795/10, bars 28–36 26
(b) D 887, slow movement, bars 219–28 and scherzo, bars 1–4 27
(a) Bars 43–9 29
(b) Bars 68–75 30
(a) Bars 1–9 31
(b) Bars 18–27 32
2.10 D 887, D 956, first movements 34
(a) D 887, first movement, bars 1–16 34
(b) D 956, first movement, bars 1–10 35
(c) D 887, first movement, bars 278–82 36
(d) D 887, first movement, bars 437–44 37
2.11 D 703, bars 46–63 39
2.12 D 810, first movement, bars 326–41 41
2.13 D 956, slow movement, bars 91–4, harmonic outline 42
(a) Bars 65–77 45
(b) Bars 65–72, reconstruction of hypothetical sequence 46
(c) Bars 65–76, outline of actual progression 46

3.2 D 173, first movement, hypothetical progressions 51
(a) Bars 31–3 51
x Schubert’s Fingerprints: Studies in the Instrumental Works
(b) Bars 19–23 51

(c) Bars 41–5 51
3.4 D 703, bars 1–34 54
3.6 Outline progressions 61
(b) Mozart, K 502, first movement, bars 114–18 61
3.7 D 759, D 956, first movements 63
3.10 D 537-i 71
(b) D 537, first movement, bars 20–28, 142–50, outline of transition
progressions in exposition and recapitulation 73
3.11 D 887, second movement 73
(a) Bars 39–43 73
(b) Bars 39–41, notional progression 74
(a) Bars 1–6 75
(b) Motifs bars 1–3, 40–43 75
3.13 ‘Der Musensohn’, D 764 77
(a) Bars 28–31 77
(b) Bars 29–31, hypothetical progression 77
3.14 D 960, second movement, bars 40–43 78
(a) Bars 20–24 79
(b) Bars 49–54 79
3.17 D 956, slow movement, outline progressions 81
(a) Bars 52–4 81
(b) Bars 59–62 81
3.19 D 760, Allegro con fuoco 83
(a) Bars 1–6 83
(b) Bars 47–50 83
(c) Bars 112–15 83
3.20 D 760, Allegro con fuoco 84
(a) Bars 45–7 84
(b) Implied progression bars 45–7 84
3.21 D 899/2, bars 77–84 86
List of Music Examples xi
3.23 D 899/2 88
(a) Bars 25–6 88
(b) Bars 36–7 88
3.24 D 899/4 89
(a) Bars 99–110 89
(b) Bars 161–71, outline progression 89
3.25 D 935/1, bars 1–48 92
3.26 D 489, D 760 96
(a) ‘Der Wanderer’, D 489, bars 1–4, 20–23 96
(b) D 760, Allegro con fuoco, bars 14–17, 176–7 96

(a) Bars 39–51 103
(b) Bars 53–65 104
(a) Bars 153–63 112
(b) Bars 183–93 114
4.7 D 664, first movement, Theme II, bars 25–33 119
4.11 D 664, finale 124
(a) Bars 1–15 124
(b) Bars 84–8 125
4.14 ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, D 118, bars 1–11 127
4.16 D 703 130
(a) Bars 27–34 130
(b) Bars 93–9 130
(c) Bars 142–9 131
5.1 (a) Haydn, The Creation, ‘Chaos’, bars 1–7 137

(b) Schubert, Symphony no. 4, D 417, first movement, bars 1–6 137
(c) Mozart, ‘Dissonance’ Quartet, K 465, first movement, bars 1–5 137
5.2 D 46-i, D 956-iii 138
(a) Schubert, D 46, first movement, bars 1–10 138
(c) Schubert, D 956, scherzo, bars 114–22 139
xii Schubert’s Fingerprints: Studies in the Instrumental Works
5.3 (a) Mozart, K 550, finale, bars 124–37 140

(b) Schubert, D 417, first movement, bars 134–43 140
5.4 (a) Mozart, K 377 (374e), third movement, bars 1–8, 17–18 142
(b) Schubert, D 485, second movement, bars 1–4, 8–9 142
5.5 (a) Schubert, D 485, first movement, bars 1–14 146
(b) Schubert, D 485, first movement, bars 1–5, 5–12,
outline progressions 146
(c) Mozart, K 465, slow movement, bars 13–16 146
(d) Mozart, K 550, first movement, bars 28–35 147
5.6 (a) Mozart, K 550, first movement, bars 44–52 148
5.7 (a) Mozart, K 550, finale, bars 1–8 149
(c) Mozart, K 550, minuet, bars 1–8 150
(d) Schubert, D 173, minuet, bars 1–8 151
(b) Mozart, K 332 (300k), first movement, bars 1–6 152
(c) Schubert, D 568, first movement, bars 1–16 152
(b) Mozart, K 332 (300k), first movement, bars 20–26 153
(c) Schubert, D 568, first movement, bars 25–35 154
5.10 Mozart, K 465, slow introduction, bars 1–10, outline progression 155
5.11 (a) Mozart, K 465, first movement, Allegro, bars 23–8 156
(c) Mozart, K 465, finale, bars 34–8 158
(d) Mozart, K 465, first movement, Allegro, bars 143–7 158
6.1 D 489, D 760 163

(a) ‘Der Wanderer’, D 489, bars 22–6 163
(b) D 760, bars 83–101 164
6.2 D 959, slow movement 166
(a) Bars 1–8 166
(b) Bars 159–66 167
6.3 D 956, slow movement 168
(a) Bars 1–4 168
(b) Bars 64–7 169
6.4 (a) ‘Frühlingstraum’, D 911/11, bars 1–8 173
(b) ‘Frühlingstraum’, D 911/11, bars 12–26 174
(c) D 959, slow movement, bars 85–110 176
(d) D 887, slow movement, bars 43–59 178
6.7 D 899/2 183
(a) Bars 1–20 183
List of Music Examples xiii
(b) Bars 83–104 184

(c) Bars 25–35 185
6.8 D 899/2, bars 60–81 186
6.9 D 899/2, bars 251–83 187

7.5 D 894, third movement, Menuetto, bars 48–52; Trio, bars 1–10 201
7.6 D 894, third movement, Trio, bars 10–30 202
7.7 D 537, third movement (finale), bars 1–66 204
7.8 D 575, fourth movement (finale), bars 1–32 206
7.9 D 575, fourth movement, bars 120–51 207
7.10 ‘Gute Nacht’, D 911/1 209
(a) Bars 7–11 209
(b) Bars 23–7 209
7.12 D 960 fourth movement (finale), bars 490–540 211
8.1 D 667, first/fourth movements 215

(a) First movement, bars 133–43 215
(b) First movement, bars 3–6 217
(c) First movement, bars 27–9 217
(d) Fourth movement (Thema), bars 1–4 218
8.5 D 667, fourth movement, bars 128–31 223
8.6 D 667, fourth/first movements 224
(a) Fourth movement, Var. III, bars 60–64 224
(b) First movement, bars 285–7 (recapitulation version) 225
8.7 D 531, D 810 227
(a) D 531, bars 1–14 227
(c) D 810, Scherzo, bars 1–4; Trio, bars 1–4 229
(d) D 810, finale, bars 1–8 230
(e) D 810, finale, bars 88–95 231
8.8 ‘Erlkönig’, D 328 232
(a) Bars 146–8 232
(b) Bars 69–76 232
8.10 ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’, D 531, bars 22–5 233
8.11 D 810, second movement [Variation IV], bars 97–100 234
xiv Schubert’s Fingerprints: Studies in the Instrumental Works
8.12 D 887, first movement, Theme I and variations (incipits) 237

(a) Bars 15–18 237
(b) Bars 24–7 237
(c) Bars 180–83 238
(d) Bars 201–4 238
(e) Bars 292–5 239
(f) Bars 301–4 239
9.1 D 929, finale/third movement 249

(a) Finale, bars 57–61 249
(b) Third movement, Trio, bars 17–20, 25–9 250
9.2 D 929, finale/slow movement 251
(a) Finale, bars 73–81 251
(b) Slow movement, bars 1–7 252
9.3 D 929, finale, bars 139–45 253
9.4 D 929, finale, bars 273–86 255
9.5 D 929, finale 256
(a) Bars 321–50 256
(b) Bars 470–93 258
9.6 D 958-iv, D 957/10, melodic outlines 261
(a) D 958, finale, bars 1–4 261
(b) ‘Das Fischermädchen’, D 957/10, bars 8–11 261
9.7 D 958, finale 264
(a) Bars 1–9, outline of counterpoint 264
(b) Bars 1–30 (in full texture) 265
9.8 D 958, finale, bars 38–53 266
9.9 D 958, finale, bars 92–116 267
9.10 D 958, finale, bars 238–61 269
9.11 D 944, third movement, Trio, bars 246–62 272
9.12 D810, first and second movements 275
(a) First movement, bars 337–41 275
(b) Second movement, bars 1–4 275
9.13 D 898, second and third movements 276
(a) Second movement, bars 128–32 276
(b) Third movement, bars 1–4 277
9.14 D 944, second movement and Scherzo 278
(a) Second movement, bars 8–10, 24–7 278
(b) Scherzo, bars 1–4 279
Acknowledgements
For their kind help with queries during the preparation of this book, my thanks
are owed to the following: William Drabkin, Michelle Fillion, Dagmar Glüxam,
Kenneth Hamilton, Xavier Hascher, Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, Elizabeth McKay,
Su Yin Mak, Reinhard Strohm, Laura Tunbridge and Neal Zaslaw; and to the staff
of the Bodleian Library, Music section and the Music Faculty Library, University
of Oxford (in particular Stephen Jordan). Professor Hascher graciously hosted my
guest lectures on Schubert during my visits to Strasbourg on a Socrates–Erasmus
staff exchange with the Department of Music, Université Marc Bloch (now
Université de Strasbourg). Benjamin Skipp provided valued assistance as College
Lecturer in Music at Lady Margaret Hall and Brasenose College while the book
was in progress. Support for my research was provided by the Board of the Faculty
of Music, University of Oxford, and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
I am enormously grateful to Walter Frisch, Xavier Hascher, Hugh Macdonald,
Nicholas Marston and James Sobaskie, who gave generous attention to reading
and commenting on draft chapters; the book has benefited greatly from their
insights and suggestions. While I am reluctant to single out anyone here, I will
just note that Professor Frisch saved me from making an unduly harsh judgement
of Schubert’s ‘Trockne Blumen’ variations, for which I am particularly grateful. I
have also profited very considerably from the wise advice and supportive response
to the book proposal given by the anonymous reader for Ashgate.
Thanks are due to Dr Duncan Williams of the Faculty of Music, University of
Oxford, for his superb technical help, and to Heidi Bishop and the editorial team
at Ashgate for all their support throughout the course of the book’s production.
Robin Hagues, formerly an undergraduate member of my Schubert seminar group
at the Faculty of Music, exhibited great patience and professionalism in preparing
the music-processed examples.
I have very much enjoyed working with all the students who attended my
Schubert seminars from the 1990s onwards, and I wish to record my gratitude to
my former colleague Suzie Clark, who co-directed the seminars with me during
her time in Oxford. Our first-year undergraduates at the Music Faculty in 2010–11
have responded with gratifying enthusiasm to the music studied in my special topic
course, ‘Schubert’s Last Decade’. Students from Lady Margaret Hall, together
with their friends, contributed expressive and accomplished performances to
the recent Schubert recital at the college, making it a truly memorable occasion.
Another former Faculty colleague, Sheila Girling Macadam, has brought not only
her technical expertise but also her musical understanding to bear on the task of
xvi Schubert’s Fingerprints: Studies in the Instrumental Works
transferring the work from manuscript to word-processed form: I am grateful for

her help and her unfailing enthusiasm for Schubert.
My family has been warmly supportive of the project throughout its gestation,
and, as always, I have appreciated their interest in my work. The late Derrick
Puffett, seeing my love of Schubert, encouraged my analytical efforts in this
direction. I hope he would have been pleased with the results, which I dedicate
to him in memoriam with enduring affection and respect, and with my warmest
thanks to Kathryn Puffett.
List of Abbreviations
Bibliographical
Brille: Schubert durch die Brille (Journal of the International Schubert Institute).
NG2: Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (eds), New Grove Dictionary of Music
and Musicians, 2nd rev. edn (29 vols, London: Macmillan, 2001 and
Grove Music Online).
NSA: Franz Schubert: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, ed. Walther Dürr,
Arnold Feil, Christa Landon et al. (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1964–).
NZfM: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.
SIUK: The Schubert Institute (UK).
Analytical
A, A1, A11, B, B1, B11 etc. denote sections of episodic forms and their successive
variants, with lower case a, a1 etc. for subsections and phrases within them. In
more complex formats, lower case letter followed by number, a1, a2, etc. refer to
differing forms of a phrase within the thematic statement; subsequent variations
therefore appear as a11 etc.
Acct: accompaniment.
Arpegg.: arpeggiation.
Bar references: superscript numbers following the bar numbers (bar 11 etc.)
indicate beats within the bar.
Capital roman numerals: I, V etc. refer to chords; lower case roman numerals: i, v
etc. refer to notes of the scale.
Enh.: enharmonic.
Inv.: inverted.
xviii Schubert’s Fingerprints: Studies in the Instrumental Works
LH: left hand.
Lower case roman numerals: i, ii, iii etc. following Deutsch catalogue numbers
(D 1-i) indicate first, second, third movements etc.; abbreviated movement and bar
references are shown combined as i: bars 1–2.
Movt: movement.
Pitch designations: C, c, c1, c11, etc. with middle c as c1.
Pizz.: pizzicato.
RH: right hand.
Theme I, Theme II, etc.: the principal themes and others stated in the first, second
and any subsequent areas of a sonata form tonal scheme.
Var.: variation.
Note on the Format of Music Examples
and Figures
In the music examples, horizontal square brackets added above or below the staves
demarcate phrases or longer passages referred to in analytical detail in the text.
Additionally, specific motifs, chords and other elements may be identified either
by asterisks or with a series of lower case letters: for example x, y, with x1, y1 and
further inflections denoting successive variants. These, and the occasional vertical
square brackets [ ] around passages to indicate hypothetical material added by
the present author, are also to be found referred to in the text. Where feasible,
examples derived from chamber or orchestral works have been provided in
reduced texture. Abbreviations of instrument names follow standard usage. Lower
case letters indicate minor keys and capital letters major keys; dotted arrows show
passing through potential keys en route without establishing them.
Chapter 1
Introduction
Schubert’s musical persona was first transformed for me in my teens, at a

memorable New Year’s party hosted by my parents’ neighbour Raphael Gonley,
a BBC music producer and keen amateur baritone, and his wife Rosalind, a
professional cellist. We had each been asked to bring a piece of music to play,
and one group introduced me to the beauties of his String Quintet, D 956,1 with
their performance of its first movement. The second theme, in its initial scoring
for the two cellos, embedded itself firmly in my memory, as did those lapidary
transitional moments that precede it.2 As an undergraduate in the late 1960s, I was
fortunate one summer vacation to be at the Edinburgh Festival in a year when
such luminaries as the Amadeus Quartet, and Isaac Stern with Eugene Istomin
and Leonard Rose, were performing the ‘late’ chamber works of Schubert. Of the
varied impressions left by this experience, perhaps the most vivid was formed
by the unprecedentedly explosive slow movement of the G major String Quartet,
D 887. From these beginnings grew an abiding interest in Schubert’s instrumental
music that has constantly resurfaced in my work since.3
1
Throughout this book, Schubert’s works are referred to by the customary Deutsch
catalogue numbers (see n. 42 below).
2
The theme is described by Scott Burnham as ‘one of the most beloved passages in
Schubert’: see S. Burnham, ‘Schubert and the Sound of Memory’, Musical Quarterly, 84/4
(2000): 655–63, 661. I have also been lastingly grateful for the experience afforded me as
a fledgling piano student during those years by the opportunity to serve as accompanist to
Raphael Gonley, thereby gaining a knowledge of the song repertoire in general, and the
nineteenth-century Lied repertoire in particular.
3
We also heard at Edinburgh that year Fischer-Dieskau, Peter Schreier and others
in recitals of Schubert songs, juxtaposed to powerful effect with the performances of
the instrumental works. Apropos of the String Quintet, D 956, a noticeable feature of its
reception history is the intensity with which people recall when they first heard it. Thus
Xavier Hascher has documented the moment when he first encountered the slow movement,
in the cinema as music to accompany a film, as cited in his habilitation thesis, ‘Symbole
et fantasme dans le mouvement lent du quintette en do majeur D 956 de Schubert’ (Paris:
Sorbonne, 2002), revised, expanded and published as Symbole et fantasme dans l’adagio
du Quintette à cordes de Schubert (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2005), p. 167. In conversation with
Peter Holman at the RMA/SMI conference (Dublin, July 2009), when I mentioned plans for
a book on Schubert’s instrumental music he immediately responded with his own advocacy
of the beauties of D 956, together with enthusiastic recollections of hearing the work for the
first time (as a postgraduate student, in a supervision session with Margaret Bent).
2 Schubert’s Fingerprints: Studies in the Instrumental Works
When I first started to read more widely on the subject, I encountered an article
by Eric Blom entitled ‘[Franz Schubert:] His Favourite Device’.4 It seemed to
me then, and increasingly as I came to know the piano and chamber works more
intimately, that with Schubert it was very much a question of a whole range of
‘favourite devices’ marking his instrumental style with its special character or
‘compositional personality’. As Robert Schumann put it: ‘Only few works are
as clearly stamped with their author’s imprint as his’.5 When, later, I was invited
by Derrick Puffett to give a paper in his series of Analysis seminars at Wolfson
College, Oxford in the 1980s, I called it ‘Some Schubert Fingerprints’. These two
notions – that of the ‘favourite device’ and the ‘fingerprint’ – have become melded
together in my outlook on Schubert as I have continued to study his music closely
over the past two decades.
Schubert was also transformed for me from the 1960s onwards through
reading various ‘life and works’ studies, and other volumes devoted to aspects of
the composer and his music. Reflecting afresh on the portrayal of Schubert in the
literature, I have the impression that of the canonic quartet of Viennese masters,
he has been the most subject on the one hand to essentially derogatory critical
evaluation, and on the other hand to quite sweeping changes in the attitudes
shown towards him and his work. (While some of these shifts in perception are
influenced by fashions in musicology more generally, they have also been fuelled
by developments within the increasingly complex field of Schubert scholarship.6)
As an undergraduate I pencilled in my copy of Arthur Hutchings’s Schubert
(published in the influential Master Musicians series) my strong objections to
some of the author’s judgements. Among passages that particularly jarred with my
growing sense of Schubert’s depths was the assertion that whereas ‘with Beethoven
the quartet reached a mystical world, at once the farthest and the innermost region
attained by any musician, Schubert gives us nothing but beauty’.7 Repeatedly
Schubert is demoted to a lower level. Summoning Hadow’s comparison of
Schubert with Keats (with reference to Schubert’s ability ‘to enchant us by sheer
sensuous beauty’) to support his points, Hutchings declares that ‘we must be
4
Music & Letters, 9/4 (1928), Schubert centenary number: 372–80.
5
Quoted in John Daverio, Crossing Paths: Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms (New
York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002/2008), p. 49 (in a different translation,
but not differing in essence from mine); cf. Marie Luise Maintz, Franz Schubert in der
Rezeption Robert Schumanns (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1997), p. 62: ‘Nur wenigen Werken
ist das Siegel ihres Verfassers so klar aufgedrückt als den seinigen’ (from NZfM, 9
(14 December 1838): 193); also in Robert Schumann, Gesammelte Schriften über Musik
und Musiker, ed. Martin Kreisig, 5th edn (2 vols, Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1914; repr.
Farnborough, Hants: Gregg International, 1969), vol. 1, p. 372.
6
For a brief summary of some of these currents, see Chapter 10; a broader survey of
recent Schubert literature is given below.
7
A.J.B. Hutchings, Schubert (London: J.M. Dent, 1945/repr. 1956), p. 110.
Introduction 3
careful to have Schubert before Beethoven on our programmes’.8 In observing

that ‘the difficulty lies entirely with the heavy responsibility handed on by his
predecessors, especially Beethoven’, it seems that Hutchings uses this assessment
against Schubert, thus perpetuating the problem.9
Where Schubert’s depths are glimpsed here, they are regarded as out of
character. Thus the G major Quartet, D 887, is pronounced as being ‘least typical
of its composer’ and its finale as illustrating ‘a new and quite un-Schubertian
kind of audacity’.10 It is significant that at the time Hutchings was writing, the
G major work could be described as ‘neglected by musicians’ in favour of the
D minor Quartet, D 810 (‘Death and the Maiden’) that preceded it. Hutchings was
evidently still coming to terms with this music when he wrote of D 887: ‘Does
it not, perhaps, give us some indication of the next technical advances he would
have made? Would the Schubert we do not know have proved, in his middle or
third period, a deeper artist than the enchanting poet?’11 The Schubert we are able
to appreciate now, in the twenty-first century, is that deeper artist.
Two particular strands in Schubert criticism may be extracted at this point from
Hutchings’s writing. One recurrent element already highlighted is the comparison
with Beethoven (among others), to Schubert’s disadvantage. Another is the view
of Schubert as childlike, fun-loving and ‘most convivial of the great musicians’.12
Both of these have undergone profound changes in the past half-century. To take
some examples of the nuances with which they have been treated more recently: Carl
Dahlhaus evokes the Beethoven comparison, in his account of Schubert’s Quartet
D 887, first movement, in order to delineate more precisely Schubert’s individual
approach to form, which Dahlhaus values on its own terms.13 Hugh Macdonald in
his study of Schubert’s ‘volcanic temper’ compares Schubert’s musical outbursts
to Beethoven’s, and concludes that Schubert’s have the more disturbingly violent
effect.14 And Elizabeth McKay’s new sifting of the documentary evidence enables
8
Hutchings, Schubert, p. 113.
9
Ibid., p. 110.
10
Ibid., p. 120.
11
Ibid., p. 118.
12
Ibid., p. 73.
13
Carl Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert: The First Movement of the G-Major
String Quartet, op. 161 (D. 887)’, in W. Frisch (ed.), Schubert: Critical and Analytical
Studies (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), pp. 1–12.
14
Hugh Macdonald, ‘Schubert’s Volcanic Temper’, Musical Times, 119 (1978):
949–52; reprinted, together with ‘Schubert’s Pendulum’ (orig. publ. in Elizabeth Norman
McKay and Nicholas Rast (eds), ‘The Oxford Bicentenary Symposium 1997: Bericht’,
Brille, 21, Sondernummer (June 1998): 143–51), in H. Macdonald, Beethoven’s Century:
Essays on Composers and Themes, Eastman Studies in Music (Rochester, NY: University
of Rochester Press, 2008).
her to place Schubert’s happier moods in the context of his bipolar nature, for
which she makes a convincing case.15
Prior to these examples, the author who first transformed Schubert for me, in
the wake of my reading of Hutchings, was Maurice Brown, with his biography
of the composer.16 The shift in attitude that Brown’s work represents became so
embedded subsequently in ways of thinking about Schubert, that its revelatory
qualities could easily now be forgotten. (The book’s dedication to Otto Erich
Deutsch is clearly significant.17) Brown situated his account of Schubert expressly
in its historiographical context when, in his foreword, he declared his wish
to ‘present the composer’ not only in the light of ‘a century of discovery and
research’, but also ‘in so far as [the discoveries] concern the aims and ideals of
modern biography in general’.18 For Brown, Schubert is seen as having ‘suffered
perhaps more than his fellow composers’ from a ‘fairy-tale approach to the musical
creator’; as Brown puts it, ‘We ask today for an interpretation of his character
based on something deeper and more suggestive than that of the simple-hearted
but idle Viennese Bohemian, who composed in a state of “clairvoyance”’.19
The image evoked by Brown here is linked with that of Schubert’s composing
as ‘sleepwalker’ and of his alleged impatience with revising his work. The abiding
impressions of Schubert’s spontaneity derived from the memoirs of his friends
need to be viewed in perspective. While in many cases he clearly was able to
pen his first thoughts rapidly, the manuscript sources, as well as revealing his
‘compositional facility’,20 bear witness to the careful revision and amplification
which he applied subsequently. Youens encapsulated these processes apropos of
Winterreise, D 911: ‘He evidently wrote the first versions of the songs in Part I at
great speed. Nevertheless, the effort of which Schubert spoke to his friends is also
apparent in the large number of revisions and emendations’.21
15
Elizabeth Norman McKay, Franz Schubert: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1996).
16
Maurice J.E. Brown, Schubert: A Critical Biography (London: Macmillan, 1966).
17
Brown acknowledges Deutsch’s work (‘in his great collection of documents of the
composer’s life’) as the fons et origo of his own interpretation; the reference here (ibid.,
p. ix) is to O.E. Deutsch, Schubert: A Documentary Biography, trans. Eric Blom (London:
Dent, 1947).
18
Brown, Schubert: A Critical Biography, p. ix.
19
Ibid.
20
See Susan Youens, Retracing a Winter’s Journey: Schubert’s Winterreise (Ithaca
and London: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 34.
21
Ibid. On Schubert’s working methods see Walther Dürr, ‘Kompositionsverfahren
und Kompositionsprozesse’, in W. Dürr and Andreas Krause (eds), Schubert Handbuch
(Kassel: Bärenreiter, and Stuttgart: Metzler, 1997), pp. 78–90. To give just a few glimpses of
this rich research territory as regards the instrumental works: an investigation of Schubert’s
revisions to the detail as well as the larger-scale aspects of his sonata forms is included
in Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der
Introduction 5
Brown’s firmly espoused change of approach to the subject impacts on our

perceptions of Schubert’s music. Indeed his biography includes, besides details
of the works composed (and those published) in each year of Schubert’s life,
evaluative commentary on the works themselves. In a generally appreciative
account of the G major Quartet, D 887, it is notable that Brown (with a very
different slant from Hutchings) responds specifically to the newness that this work
carries within it: discussing its opening major–minor gestures he perceives that
‘its novelty is still a striking feature even today, when our ears are shocked by
nothing’.22 And of the ‘famous, almost notorious episodes’ in the slow movement,
he notes, in an observation that is a salutary reminder of the limits of analysis,
that ‘even if on paper Schubert’s devices can be explained, in sound they are
extraordinary’, and ‘no attempt is made to placate the ear’.23
Besides the chronologically arranged chapters on the life and works, an
inserted chapter on ‘The Artist’ and a concluding chapter on, essentially, Schubert
reception (‘His Century and Ours’) add further valuable perceptions. In Brown’s
final chapter, a critical survey of the literature (and the attitudes that formed around
Schubert) is threaded through the author’s account of how the composer and his
music fared after his lifetime. The quality of Brown’s enthusiasm for his subject
shines through his choice of quotation with which to end, taken from a review
of the facsimile edition of the autograph manuscript of Winterreise, published in
1955: ‘Perishable leaves, fading traces … he who examines them with the heart,
and not with the clumsier outward intelligence, to him they are magic mirrors, in
which such a thing as the creative spirit is to be perceived.’24
Reflecting on the earlier phases of Schubert scholarship, Brown observed
that Willi Kahl’s ‘catalogue of all the writings on Schubert between 1828 and
1928’ numbered ‘nearly 2,000 items’, which by the end of 1928 had risen
Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1994), Chapter 3 (‘Aspekte

des Kompositionsprozesses (I): Arbeitsspüren in den Kompositionsmanuskripten’), pp.
157–220. Nicholas Marston, in ‘Schubert’s Homecoming’, Journal of the Royal Musical
Association, 125 (2000): 248–70, 253–5, has demonstrated how in the case of the B@ Piano
Sonata, D 960, the continuity draft when compared with the final version ‘reveals Schubert’s
consistent expansion of his initial conception’. The sketch leaf bearing the introductory bars
of the F minor Impromptu, D 935/1 (NSA, VII/2, vol. 5, p. 141) shows a skeletal version
of the declamatory opening theme: it is the elaboration in the final version that endows the
theme with its character.
22
Brown, Schubert: A Critical Biography, p. 272.
23
Ibid., p. 274 (the passages in question are the ‘B’ episodes of the slow movement’s
rondo structure, where, in Brown’s formulation, ‘classical tonality is completely thrown
aside’).
24
Ibid., pp. 352–3, quoting ‘C. v. D’ (Charlotte von Dach) in Der Bund, Berne,
Switzerland, 26 May 1955.
to 3,000.25 Many more thousands of items have been added in the years since.26
Another turning-point came with the publication of the New Grove Dictionary,
featuring the entry on Schubert newly commissioned from Maurice Brown and
Eric Sams.27 Over the three decades since then, the Schubert literature has grown
and branched in a variety of directions. Particularly notable in the more recent
waves of Schubert scholarship (post-New Grove) has been the emphasis, on the
one hand, on biographical and contextual studies: Raymond Erickson’s Schubert’s
Vienna and McKay’s Schubert biography, and the writings of Peter Gülke and
Ernst Hilmar, are among recent publications that have enabled the development of
a truer, fuller picture of Schubert and his time.28
Notable, on the other hand, has been the strong commitment from musical
analysts. Both the songs and the instrumental music have attracted analytical
attention of a healthily varied kind, ranging from the distinctly Schenkerian
(as with Carl Schachter’s song analyses and Xavier Hascher’s monograph on
Schubert’s sonata form) to the more broadly based.29 (A prominent strand among
these offerings has been the preoccupation with Schubert’s tonal schemes.)
Brahms’s dictum that ‘There is no song by Schubert from which one cannot learn
25
Brown, Schubert: A Critical Biography, p. 351. For a more recent survey tracing the
trends in German literature on Schubert since his lifetime, see Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen
zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, pp. 17–25.
26
For a series of bibliographical updates see Ernst Hilmar in Brille, 16/17 (1996):
5–20 (‘Die Schubert-Forschung seit 1928’) and 21–38 (‘Das Schubert-Schrifttum seit
1993’); ibid., 20 (1998): 151–7 (‘Die Schubert-Literatur von 1996 und 1997. Eine Nachlese’,
with I. Dürhammer); and ibid., 25 (2000): 95–302 (‘Bausteine zu einer neuen Schubert-
Bibliographie – vornehmlich der Schriften von 1929 bis 2000 – Teil I: Alphabetische
Ordnung nach Autor’) together with 26 (January 2001): 129–40 (‘Korrigenda und Addenda’,
with Jacques Delalande) and 141–57 (‘Bausteine zu einer neuen Schubert-Bibliographie –
Teil II: Chronologische Ordnung’); and 27 (June 2001): 117–20 (‘Weitere Addenda und
Korrigenda’) and 121–202 (‘Bausteine zu einer neuen Schubert-Bibliographie – Teil III:
Ordnung nach Stichwörten und inhaltlichen Kriterien’); and ‘Bibliographie für das Jahr’
2000 in Schubert: Perspektiven, 2/2 (2002): 236–55; 2001 in 3/2 (2003): 229–44; 2002 in
4/2 (2004): 226–42; 2004 in 6/1–2 (2006): 238–54; 2005 in 7/2 (2007): 232–46; and 2006
in 8/2 (2008): 244–57.
27
Maurice J.E. Brown (work-list and bibliography with Eric Sams), ‘Schubert,
Franz (Peter)’, in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
(20 vols, London: Macmillan, 1980), vol. 16, pp. 752–811.
28
Raymond Erickson (ed.), Schubert’s Vienna (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1997); McKay, Franz Schubert; Peter Gülke, Franz Schubert und seine
Zeit (Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1991); Ernst Hilmar, Franz Schubert in seiner Zeit (Vienna:
Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1985), trans. Reinhard G. Pauly as Franz Schubert in his Time
(Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1988).
29
See for instance Carl Schachter, Unfoldings: Essays in Schenkerian theory and
analysis, ed. Joseph N. Straus (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999);
and Xavier Hascher, Schubert, la forme sonate et son évolution (Bern: Peter Lang, 1996).
Introduction 7
something’30 has been quite extensively tested in the recent growth of specialist
literature on this part of Schubert’s oeuvre, especially in the writings of Richard
Kramer and Susan Youens.31 Various authors have explored in different ways
the connections between Schubert’s instrumental music and his songs. For me
personally, among the particular attractions of analysing the instrumental works
is their combination of a fundamentally instrumental expression with the imprint
of songlike ideas and devices, the two sides of Schubert’s oeuvre here being held
together in balance.
Recent, valuable surveys of the instrumental works range from, on the one hand,
the concise but instructive sections included in the broader accounts of Schubert’s
life and works such as Robert Winter’s in the New Grove (2nd edition, 2001 and
updated version online), and various authors in the Cambridge Companion to
Schubert, to, on the other hand, studies focused exclusively on individual genres,
such as Andreas Krause’s on the piano sonatas and Charles Fisk’s on the late
sonatas and impromptus.32 All these of course provide further bibliography, as
do two authoritative compendia published in the bicentenary year: the Schubert
Handbuch and the Schubert Lexikon.33 The trend in book-length studies of the
instrumental works has been to concentrate on one genre, medium or form, as
with Krause and Fisk, and the studies of Schubert’s sonata form by Hans-Joachim
Hinrichsen and by Xavier Hascher.34 A welcome spate of Schubert conferences
in recent years is reflected in numerous published collections of essays, among
them the proceedings of the Paris bicentenary conference (1997), the Oxford
Biedermeier conference (1997) and the SIUK meeting (2000).35 These include
30
Quoted in Daverio, Crossing Paths, p. 4.
31
Richard Kramer, Distant Cycles: Schubert and the Conceiving of Song (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994); and the following by Susan Youens, as well as her
Retracing a Winter’s Journey, already cited (n. 20 above refers): Schubert: Die schöne
Müllerin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), Schubert’s Poets and the Making
of Lieder (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Schubert’s Late Lieder: Beyond
the Song Cycles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) and ‘In the Beginning:
Schubert and Heine’, in Heinrich Heine and the Lied (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2007), Chapter 1, pp. 1–88.
32
Robert Winter et al., ‘Schubert, Franz (Peter)’, NG2, vol. 22, pp. 655–729;
Christopher H. Gibbs (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Schubert (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997); Andreas Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts:
Form, Gattung, Ästhetik (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1992); Charles Fisk, Returning Cycles:
Contexts for the Interpretation of Schubert’s Impromptus and Last Sonatas (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001).
33
Dürr and Krause (eds), Schubert Handbuch; Ernst Hilmar and Margaret Jestremski
(eds), Schubert Lexikon (Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1997).
34
Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der
Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts; Hascher, Schubert, la forme sonate et son évolution.
35
Xavier Hascher (ed.), Le style instrumental de Schubert: Sources, analyse, évolution
(Paris: Sorbonne, 2007); McKay and Rast (eds), ‘Oxford Bicentenary Symposium’;
some stimulating analytical readings of individual instrumental works, such as

those by James Sobaskie and Robert Hatten in the SIUK volume.36
The present book ranges over the variety of Schubert’s instrumental forms,
genres and types (in terms of their scoring), drawing freely on these as appropriate
for the demonstration of his stylistic fingerprints.37 These characteristic features
are found to reside in various parameters of the instrumental music: rhythm and
melody, harmony and tonality, form and design, texture and idiom, as well as
relating to the language of his songs. Embedded in Blom’s article on Schubert’s
major–minor usage is a definition of the nature of Schubert’s fingerprints:
acknowledging the universality of that particular device, Blom observed that ‘his
way of carrying it out is as startlingly and unaccountably different as his music
altogether was from that of his predecessors’.38
The approach developed in the course of this book involves close readings
of the music; these are supported by the many musical examples demonstrating
detailed points of analysis. At the heart of this endeavour is the conviction that
the qualities ascribed by Winter to the songs – ‘Schubert’s songs can withstand
the closest scrutiny because they contain so many layers of meaning and stylistic
intersection’ – are shared by the instrumental works.39 Also apropos of the songs,
Susan Youens wrote of Schubert’s ‘care for the smallest of significant details’,
again an observation equally applicable to the instrumental music.40 Behind much
of the discussion in the chapters that follow lies a systematic analytical approach,
based on asking the same questions of all the pieces studied. I have not wished to
present the resultant analytical findings in merely descriptive or statistical fashion;
however, they constantly underpin the book’s arguments and conclusions, as well
as enabling the chosen examples to be considered in a comparative context.
While the analytical argument focuses intensively at strategic points on
individual case-studies, in general the emphasis in a book of this scope has to be
on selectivity. A work such as the C major String Quintet, D 956, deserves a study
entirely to itself: indeed, Xavier Hascher has produced an account solely of its
slow movement.41 The present volume is not intended as a comprehensive survey
of Schubert’s instrumental music. Works are mentioned, and discussed, in relation
Brian Newbould (ed.), Schubert the Progressive: History, Performance Practice, Analysis
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003).
36
James Sobaskie, ‘Tonal Implication and the Gestural Dialectic in Schubert’s
A Minor Quartet’, in Newbould (ed.), Schubert the Progressive, pp. 53–79; Robert S.
Hatten, ‘Schubert’s Pastoral: The Piano Sonata in G Major, D894’, in ibid., pp. 151–68.
37
The list of instrumental works discussed (provided among the end-matter) shows
their chronology within each category and across categories: I am indebted to the model
given in Hascher, Schubert, la forme sonate et son évolution, p. 79.
38
Blom, ‘His Favourite Device’: 373.
39
See Winter, ‘Schubert’, NG2, §2: Works, (i) Songs, p. 677.
40
Youens, Retracing a Winter’s Journey, p. 164 (on ‘Der Lindenbaum’, D 911/5).
41
See n. 3 above.
Introduction 9
to the main theme of Schubert’s fingerprints, and to individual chapter topics

within that theme (though not without allowing space for the occasional ‘aside’).
Nor is the bibliography designed as a full list; rather, it contains the items referred
to in the text, together with additional sources consulted but not directly cited.
At the core of Schubert studies in the past half-century have been the scholarly
efforts invested in the Neue Schubert Ausgabe.42 New textual readings and the
opportunity to compare different versions of a piece are among the benefits of
this enterprise, as are the numerous scholarly articles and books, and the revised
thematic catalogue, produced in connection with work on the edition.
In 1988, writing of the analytical reserve (or even resistance) manifested
towards Schubert’s instrumental music, Elmar Budde asked: ‘Where, aside from all
beauty, lies the compositional essence? The question remains mostly unanswered.
One enjoys the beauty … why should one wish to understand what one enjoys?’43
Budde’s question has a built-in elusiveness that makes it all the more provocative
as a starting-point for my project. Among authors who, meanwhile, have taken up
the challenge of ‘reading’ Schubert’s instrumental works in new ways, Charles
Fisk has traced (and interpreted) a network of references in Schubert’s instrumental
music to his songs.44 Two scholars with special interests in Robert Schumann
have contributed importantly to our understanding of Schubert’s music. Reading
Schubert critically through the lens of Schumann’s reception of the composer, Marie
Luise Maintz, in her extensive account of Schubert as represented in Schumann’s
writings, provides detailed commentary and context; while John Daverio, tracing
the interconnections variously between Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, reads
Schubert’s Piano Trio in E@ major, D 929, and the Impromptus, D 935, analytically
via Schumann’s perception of these pieces.45 Schubert studies constantly move in
new directions: some of the newest work, due to appear during the production of
my own book, is contained in Elizabeth McKay’s study of Schubert’s ‘dark keys’,
and Suzannah Clark’s account of the history of Schubert analysis.
To my knowledge the notion of Schubert’s fingerprints has not previously
formed the subject of a book-length study. Each of the eight central chapters,
framed by the Introduction and Conclusion, treats a particular ‘fingerprint’.
42
Franz Schubert: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke [NSA], ed. Walther Dürr, Arnold
Feil, Christa Landon et al. (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1964–). See also W. Dürr, A. Feil, C. Landon
et al. (eds), Franz Schubert: Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer
Folge von Otto Erich Deutsch, NSA, VIII/4 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1978).
43
Elmar Budde, ‘Franz Schubert und das Lied: Zur Rezeptionsgeschichte der
Schubert-Lieder’, in Hermann Danuser (ed.), Gattungen der Musik und ihre Klassiker
(Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1988), pp. 235–50, p. 237: ‘Wo findet sich, trotz aller Schönheit,
die kompositorische Ratio? Die Frage bleibt zumeist unantwortet. Man genieβt die
Schönheit … warum soll man das, was man genieβt, verstehen wollen?’, quoted in Maintz,
Franz Schubert in der Rezeption Robert Schumanns, p. 13.
44
Fisk, Returning Cycles.
45
Maintz, Franz Schubert in der Rezeption Robert Schumanns; Daverio, Crossing Paths.
Chapter 2 takes as its starting-point Eric Blom’s notion of Schubert’s favourite

device, ‘his free and frequent interchange of the major and minor modes’.46 The
seeds of the ideas developed here were sown in my study of Schubert’s episodic
forms, in which I touched on questions of his characteristic treatment of key in
relation to structure.47 At the centre of that investigation was a consideration of
dream imagery in the poetic texts that Schubert set, and an attempt to extrapolate
from the structures and techniques generated by this imagery in the songs to the
episodic structures of his instrumental works. This chapter continues to explore
along those lines, while branching out in many directions. The setting up of
tensions between major and minor is in itself, as Blom observed, a Schubertian
fingerprint par excellence; but within this broad category there is a vast range of
different effects inviting closer inspection. In responding to this invitation, the
chapter develops ideas not only of the outwardly visible (and audible) major/
minor effects in the music, but beyond the surface of Schubert’s key structures and
their tonal and modal colouring.
Chapter 3 begins by examining more fully the poetic aspects of Schubert’s
sonata form transitions treated in my previously published work in this area.48
Poetic transitions (defined as those that go beyond the mechanics of modulation to
introduce qualities associated with poetic effect) are not confined to sonata forms:
Schubert’s transitional procedures in episodic forms such as those of the G major
Quartet (D 887), slow movement, and the String Quintet (D 956), slow movement
reward investigation from this angle. A number of other areas were suggested
in my ‘Schubert’s Transitions’ under the heading of ‘Transitional questions’ that
deserved further consideration in the future, including the treatment of transitions
in cases of ‘subdominant recapitulations’, and the connections between transitions
and retransitions; these are investigated further here. The range of repertoire
studied is expanded, in particular giving new attention to examples drawn
from the solo piano ‘miniatures’ and the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, D 760. Much of
the discussion throughout the chapter centres on the long-range implications of
Schubert’s transitional procedures for his movements (and works) as a whole. The
conclusions to be drawn from the analyses in Chapters 2 and 3 assert Schubert’s
intellectual control over his structures, as opposed to the notion described by
Miriam Whaples as the most persistent among musical myths, that of the ‘alleged
poverty of Schubert’s intellect’. 49
46
47
S. Wollenberg, ‘Schubert and the Dream’, Studi musicali, 9 (1980): 135–50.
48
S. Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Transitions’, in Brian Newbould (ed.), Schubert Studies
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), pp. 16–61; and ‘Schubert’s Poetic Transitions’, in Hascher
(ed.), Le style instrumental de Schubert, pp. 261–77.
49
See Hascher, Schubert, la forme sonate et son évolution, p. 8n., quoting M.K.
Whaples, ‘On Structural Integration in Schubert’s Instrumental Works’, Acta Musicologica,
40 (1968): 186–95, 186.
Introduction 11
For the discussion in Chapter 4, analogies with song are again developed, here
with special reference to the motto ‘Dort wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück’
(‘There, where you are not, there is happiness’) from Schmidt of Lübeck’s ‘Der
Wanderer’, as set by Schubert in his Lied D 489 of 1816.50 This motto evokes
the condition so often evident in Schubert’s second themes in the instrumental
works, whereby their tonal profiles show a strong urge to be elsewhere than in
their notional key. While the chapter highlights Schubert’s characteristic treatment
of the sonata form ‘second theme’ – a component of the form that was traditionally
somewhat sidelined in sonata form theory – it moves beyond this, to cover a wider
range of thematic elements and formal types. Another ‘musical myth’ reassessed
here is that of Schubert’s natural tunefulness. His most personal themes in the
instrumental works can be shown to be highly studied in character, and to eschew
the kinds of process such as additive construction that are associated with more
truly melodious creations. The song-derived thematic construction of some of
his best-loved instrumental themes can be contrasted with the equally ‘studied’
thematic constructions found in his more Classically orientated instrumental
works such as the Symphony no. 5 in B@ major, D 485, of 1816, with their periodic
phrase-structure.
A more extended discussion of Schubert’s classicizing tendencies is provided
in Chapter 5, ‘Schubert and Mozart’. This chapter looks closely at the signs of
Schubert’s encounters with Mozart’s music. The discussion here rests on the
perception that some of the fingerprints found in Schubert’s music are essentially
those of Mozart. The chapter aims to explore their manifestations in a more
nuanced fashion than was traditionally the case in the literature touching on this
topic. The engagement with Mozart was no mere passing phase; while his music
was a formative influence in Schubert’s earlier years, the urge to pay homage
to Mozart persisted as Schubert matured as a composer. His ‘late’ instrumental
works show that the impact of hearing, playing and studying Mozart remained
deeply rooted in Schubert’s own music, even in a work so widely acknowledged
as possessing a unique character as the String Quintet, D 956.51
The music discussed in Chapter 6 is viewed partly in the light of Schubert’s
bipolar condition. Hugh Macdonald, in his description of Schubert’s ‘volcanic
temper’, introduced such terms as ‘hysteria’ and ‘dementia’, while Robert Winter
in the New Grove ‘Schubert’ article suggests that the central episode in the slow
movement of D 959 ‘comes as close to a nervous breakdown as anything in
Schubert’s output’.52 The discussion of Schubert’s ‘Two Natures’ in Elizabeth
50
Unless otherwise indicated, translations of song texts are derived from S.S. Prawer
(ed. and trans.), The Penguin Book of Lieder (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1964).
For a preliminary study, see S. Wollenberg, ‘“Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück”:
Reflections on Schubert’s Second Themes’, Brille, 30 (2003): 91–100.
51
See S. Wollenberg, ‘The C major String Quintet D 956: Schubert’s “Dissonance”
Quintet?’, Brille, 28 (2002): 45–54.
52
Macdonald, ‘Schubert’s Volcanic Temper’: 950; Winter, ‘Schubert’, NG2, p. 683.
McKay’s biography of the composer sets the study of this topic on a new level,
documenting Schubert’s extremes of mood and weighing the evidence for their
medical implications, as well as responding to their musical manifestations.53 In
the course of considering Schubert’s ‘disturbed moods and the aggression of which
he was capable’ she characterizes the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, D 760, for example,
as an unprecedentedly grandiose work of ‘somewhat sinister exuberance’.54 The
springboard for the discussion in Chapter 6 of the present book is the recurrent
explosion of violence in Schubert’s episodic forms, as explored in my earlier work
on Schubert’s dream imagery.55 The field is now expanded to include the non-
sonata based repertoire (such as the Impromptus, D 899) as well as a range of
first-movement sonata forms; important in the latter regard is the quintessentially
Schubertian practice of transforming a theme from purely lyrical character into
an expression of extreme violence, as in the first movement of the G major Piano
Sonata, D 894. As Charles Rosen has observed, Susan McClary (in her Feminine
Endings) ‘averts her eyes from the frequent outbursts of savage violence in
Schubert’s scores’.56 This chapter confronts them.
Threefold construction (at a variety of levels) is a pervasive feature of Schubert’s
works; Chapter 7 draws together ideas about its use, and considers how its effect
might work on the unfolding of an instrumental movement. A particular strand of
Schubert’s musical persona that emerges here, perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, is
his humour. As an instrumental composer Schubert is probably not most readily
thought of as a musical humorist in the kind of framework developed, for instance,
by Gretchen Wheelock in her study of Haydn’s comic style.57 But Schubert’s
music can at times be understood in the same sorts of terms as these. His threefold
constructions possess the potential for playful and deceptive effects, for example
using the ‘false start’ trickery that exploits a ‘horizon of expectation’, as in the
opening of the finale of the Piano Sonata in A minor, D 537. At the other extreme
are the three-part constructions encountered in the late piano sonatas and chamber
works, with their multiple layers of meaning. In these large-scale movements,
an expansive threefold construction operates within the thematic groups of their
sonata forms in ways that link with other Schubert fingerprints.
The frequency with which variation is applied to thematic material in Schubert’s
instrumental music is in inverse proportion to the incidence of formal variation sets
in his output. Schubert wrote relatively few such sets of variations, partly because
he was not intent on making a career as a concert pianist, a sphere in which these
would have been regarded as de rigueur; but variations are utterly integral to his
53
McKay, Franz Schubert, Chapter 6 (‘Two Natures’), pp. 133–63.
54
Ibid., pp. 148–9.
55
Wollenberg, ‘Schubert and the Dream’.
56
Charles Rosen, ‘The New Musicology’, in Critical Entertainments: Music Old and
New (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), pp. 255–72, p. 269.
57
Gretchen A. Wheelock, Haydn’s Ingenious Jesting with Art: Contexts of Musical
Wit and Humor (New York: Schirmer, 1992).
Introduction 13
compositional approach in movements that are not formally designed, and would
not be designated, as such. Here song is again a strong factor, and not by any
means only where it is explicitly drawn on as a source for a variations movement.
Chapter 8 explores the wide range of repertoire, and the different contexts, in
which variation processes are employed in Schubert’s instrumental works. Finally
Chapter 9, in considering what Schumann called Schubert’s ‘heavenly lengths’,
confronts a characteristic of his instrumental style that has attracted particular
critical censure. The chapter stresses the point that the scale of such movements
needs to be viewed in the context of other aspects: among these are Schubert’s
cyclic and unifying processes, applied widely throughout his instrumental oeuvre,
both to works as a whole and within individual movements.
An important thread running through the analysis of the different ‘fingerprints’
in all these chapters is the perception of connections. Composers may speak of the
way in which, once they have launched a piece, it seems somehow to ‘write itself’.
In reality, the brain is making connections and developing ideas in ways which
the composer has not necessarily planned, or engineered, explicitly, but which
are afterwards definitely perceptible, and may well be fundamental to the finished
piece or set of pieces. For Schubert, at an intensive level it is possible to trace
connections across a variety of parameters in the instrumental works, sometimes
operating with almost overwhelming intensity within one work, such as the String
Quintet, D 956, or the earlier Quartettsatz in C minor, D 703. These connections
are both heard and unheard (not only overarching parts of a movement or work,
but also made by the silences in between the music), and they link the momentary
effect with the larger design.
Reflecting this connectedness, the topics of the individual chapters are
variously interlinked; for example, the discussion of major/minor strategies (‘his
favourite device’) in Chapter 2 is relevant particularly to Chapter 6 (on Schubert’s
‘violent nature’), and the material of Chapter 7 (his ‘threefold’ constructions)
is germane to Chapters 8 and 9, on Schubert’s variations and on his ‘heavenly
lengths’ respectively. Chapter 10 pulls the connecting threads of the whole
discussion together, returning to Robert Schumann’s views of Schubert (as well as
those of others) in order to sum up the many facets of Schubert as a composer; and
offering some concluding thoughts towards an answer to Elmar Budde’s question:
‘Wherein lies the essence of Schubert?’
Chapter 2
‘His Favourite Device’:
Schubert’s Major–Minor Usage
and its Nuances
Charting, in the composer’s centenary year, Schubert’s characteristic use of major/

minor juxtapositions, Eric Blom concentrated on the songs, where clearly such
effects are linked with poetic expression.1 Blom acknowledged ‘the novelty of
[Schubert’s] use of transitions from major to minor’ (and minor to major) as partly
technical, referring to ‘the decisive steps and short cuts they enabled him to make
in modulation’, but went on:
But it is a literary – and often literal – employment that gives the device the
character of a new departure, of a heading at full tilt towards romanticism, with
its striving to convert what had once served purely musical ends into a kind of
hyper-flexible vocabulary for the expression of poetical ideas in a way that was
at once more vague and more clearly illuminating than mere words.2
Within the songs, the range of the device is vast: ‘In the three cycles alone, if we
leave aside the other five hundred odd songs for the moment, there are numberless
instances of changes between minor and major’, and Blom sees these as not
only reinforcing the poetic idea but also often adding ‘a beautiful significance of
their own’.3
Taking the enquiry beyond the songs, the frame of reference can be expanded
across the whole range of the instrumental music; here Schubert’s major/minor
usage creates a vocabulary of wordless expressive effects. A network of structural
and harmonic associations surrounds the individual major/minor constructions in
the instrumental works. Their various formations, and the spread of the device
among the different genres, are matched by the variety of contexts in which they
function. My interest here is primarily in Schubert’s play on the major and minor
versions of the same key, which he exploits not only openly but also in more
hidden ways. In what follows, these aspects are explored in the instrumental music
generally, as well as in a number of specific case-studies. The topic is so far-
reaching in its implications (in the instrumental works, too, instances of the device
1
Blom, ‘His Favourite Device’. This was possibly the first study of its kind.
2
Ibid.: 373.
3
Ibid.: 376.
are ‘numberless’) that selectivity must be the basis of the discussion. Tangentially
to the central topic, the tertiary key-relationships for which Schubert has been
especially noted will naturally figure in this discussion. Numerous theoretical
frameworks have been posited (at times with virtuosic brilliance) to explain his
modulatory trajectories;4 while these can be illuminating in many ways, it is worth
sounding Blom’s caveat here: ‘One must not without clear proof regard the great
composers as having been theorists otherwise than by instinct.’5
The main emphasis in the following discussion will be on what Blom referred to
as the ‘technical’ aspects, but first a comparison across the songs and instrumental
works will pick up on Blom’s points regarding the ‘vocabulary for the expression
of poetical ideas’ furnished by major–minor effects in Schubert. In the course of
his ‘glance at the songs’ Blom identifies a series of binary oppositions linked with
Schubert’s ‘peculiar manipulation’ of major and minor modes.6 Two particular
strands in these are the dialogue format (in which, for instance, the miller speaks to
the brook, and vice versa)7 and the contrast of present and past (‘sorrow and happy
recollection’, and the variations on this theme).8 The ‘simple poetic antithesis …
matched by an equally simple juxtaposition of major and minor’ that Blom sees
in ‘Lachen und Weinen’, D 777,9 in fact masks a subtle reflection of the narrator’s
confusingly mixed emotions as portrayed by the poet (Rückert), generating a
flexibility in the musical setting. Blom sees as more complex the first verse of
‘Lebenslied’, D 508, where the poet (Matthisson) ‘hammers away so fast at his
antithetical imagery that the composer cannot possibly ring the changes with the
same frequency; but Schubert flutters from minor to major and back as rapidly as
he dare’:10 Example 2.1 shows such a passage from the verse, together with the
piano postlude. Schubert with subtlety here chooses not to match in his music the
hectic succession of paired images within the opening lines: instead, he plays out
various major and minor moves over a longer stretch of his musical setting.
The poetic topoi outlined by Blom generate a range of major/minor techniques
that find equivalents in the very different contexts formed by the instrumental
works. The ‘simple poetic antithesis’ of ‘Lachen und Weinen’ is treated by Schubert
4
See for example Richard L. Cohn, ‘As Wonderful as Star Clusters: Instruments for
Gazing at Tonality in Schubert’, 19th-Century Music, 22 (1999): 213–32.
5
6
Ibid.
7
‘Der Müller und der Bach’ (D 795/19): Blom, ‘His Favourite Device’: 375–6.
8
Ibid.: 376. The possible connection of this oppositional type with the (larger-scale)
designs of Schubert’s episodic forms in the instrumental music is considered in Chapter 6
below.
9
Ibid.: 375. Schubert sets the potentially ‘throwaway lines’ at the end of each verse
(answering enigmatically the question as to why the narrator feels thus) with a musical
refrain forming the equivalent of a shrug (the lines are: ‘ist mir selb’ nicht bewußt’ – I don’t
know myself, and ‘muß ich dich fragen, o Herz’ – I must ask you, o [my] heart).
10
Schubert’s Major–Minor Usage and its Nuances 17
Example 2.1 Schubert, ‘Lebenslied’, D 508, bars 13–24
with symmetrical fluctuations of mode (A@ major and minor): at the centre of his
interpretation is his use of the same material transformed from one mode to the
other (Example 2.2), perfectly representing the mood swings within the character.
A comparable ambivalence is seen in the slow movement of the Piano Sonata in
A major, D 664. While this is played out over a more extended length, in terms of
an instrumental movement it is relatively compact and remarkably unified, thus
sharing the lapidary qualities of the song (typical of Schubert’s Rückert settings).
The modal fluctuations in D 664-ii come to the fore particularly in Theme II
(derived from Theme I) and in the closing section: see Example 2.3, showing
Theme II in the recapitulation followed by the closing bars of the movement.This
is not to suggest that a direct connection necessarily exists between an individual
song and a particular instrumental movement (although this may be possible in
some cases). Rather, Schubert penned the instrumental instances of such major–
minor ‘topoi’ as these with a songwriter’s hand.
Naturally the Winterreise cycle, D 911 with its portrayal of what seems
essentially a manic-depressive state, furnishes examples where the major–minor
‘mood swings’ are intensified, with reference to a heightened sensibility present
in Müller’s poetry. When Schubert formed his setting of the traveller’s desperate
attempt to muster his spirits in ‘Mut’ (D 911/22), he drew on the kind of divided
character explored in more telescoped format in the finale of his G major Quartet,
Example 2.2 ‘Lachen und Weinen’, D 777, verse 1, bars 9–35
D 887 (cf. Examples 2.4a and b).11 The traveller’s state of mind as he pursues his
winter journey also swings between awareness of present misery and recollection
11
For Blom’s discussion of ‘Mut’, see ‘His Favourite Device’: 376. A comparable
instance to the G major Quartet finale’s dual-facing opening theme in the earlier Müller
cycle is seen in ‘Der Neugierige’, D 795/6, at the words ‘O Bächlein meiner Liebe’, with
the ensuing turn to the parallel minor: Susan Youens (Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin, p. 82)
draws attention to the ‘pellucid profundity’ of this setting.
Example 2.2 concluded
of past happiness, linked naturally to the seasonal cycle: for example Blom
mentions the use of the major section ‘for a reminiscence of summer’ in ‘Rückblick’
(D 911/8). This can be extended conversely to songs such as ‘Der Lindenbaum’;
(D 911/5) and ‘Frühlingstraum’ (D 911/11) where the minor-key section forms
a harsh contrast to the major-key reminiscences surrounding it. The antithesis
between dreams of past happiness and awakening to present reality engenders
disturbing contrasts in these songs which can be seen as having their equivalents,
on a larger scale, in the slow movements of Schubert’s late chamber and piano
works such as the String Quintet, D 956 and the Piano Sonata in A major, D 959.12
Some of the more spaciously laid out major–minor contrasts in Schubert’s
instrumental music suggest an operatic influence on the style (an influence that
also works on his Lieder). The opening of the Piano Duet Fantasy in F minor,
12
See Wollenberg, ‘Schubert and the Dream’; these ideas are developed further in
Chapter 6 below. William Kinderman has written in similar terms of Schubert’s music
as related to ‘the dichotomy of external and internal experience’, which he formulates as
the ‘contrast between the vision of the imagination and a bleak or threatening reality’:
W. Kinderman, ‘Schubert’s Tragic Perspective’, in Frisch (ed.), Schubert: Critical and
Analytical Studies, pp. 65–83, p. 65.
Example 2.3 D 664, slow movement, bars 60–75
D 940, while possessing regularity of rhythmic pattern and phrase-structure, has

recitative-like qualities in the expressive rising and falling figures of the melody.13
13
Eric Sams found in the Fantasy’s opening strains ‘overtones (almost overt tones)
of impassioned harangue’: E. Sams, ‘Schubert’s Piano Duets’, Musical Times, 117 (1976):
Example 2.4 (a)–(b) D 911/22, D 887-iv
(a) ‘Mut’, D 911/22, bars 5–1814
When this theme is transformed into the tonic major at bar 38, it is as if it opens out
into an aria (cf. Examples 2.5a and b).15 The return to the minor following this is
120–121, 121.
14
‘If the snow flies in my face, I shake it off; if my heart speaks in my bosom I sing
brightly and merrily.’
15
Additionally, the Fantasy’s opening theme in its F minor version corresponds
closely to a particular aria type exuding pathos, as seen in Barbarina’s ‘Ho perduto’ (Mozart,
Le nozze di Figaro, Act IV): see Nicholas Rast, ‘Une déclaration d’amour en code? La
Fantaisie en fa mineur D940 de Schubert et la comtesse Caroline Esterházy’, Cahiers Franz
2.4 (b) D 887, finale, bars 1–12
coupled with a new stylistic topic, suggesting ‘learned’ counterpoint of a notably

austere kind. These sorts of contrasts can operate on a long-term basis across the
sections of an instrumental movement, as in the Piano Sonata in G major, D 894,
first movement: here the opening theme reappears transformed in a contrapuntal
Schubert, 13 (October 1998): 5–16, 6–8. The contrast formed by the parallel major version
of the opening theme in D 940 is reflected in the Largo, which opens out from its sombre F#
minor beginnings into an F# major aria, complete with Rossinian embellishments.
Example 2.5 (a)–(b) D 940
(a) Bars 1–8
(b) Bars 37–45

setting at the start of the development section, launched from the tonic minor
before modulation away from the tonic (Examples 2.6a and b).
As a closing gesture, major–minor alternation may leave an enigmatic
impression however it is resolved: the piano postlude of a song can take on an
extra dimension by this means. In ‘Tränenregen’ (D 795/10) the piano postlude,
as well as giving new chiaroscuro to the original prelude in transforming its
second half to the minor, contradicts the ending in the voice part (which featured
an extended Tierce de Picardie, closing what began as a minor-key verse): see
Example 2.7a.16 Coupled with the delicate, mournful quality of the poetic text,
the modal fluctuations here convey the changeability both of the relationship
between the characters and of their emotional state. A comparable treatment
of the ending within an instrumental coda is seen in the String Quartet in G
major, D 887, slow movement (Example 2.7b). Here the technique is applied
to a movement that began in the minor, and closes in the tonic major, whereas
‘Tränenregen’ traced the opposite progression from its beginning to end.17 And
in the first movement of the A minor Quartet, D 804, taking its cue from the
song ‘Schöne Welt, wo bist du?’, D 677, on which it is based, similar techniques
produce a veritable study in major and minor, keeping these delicately and
dramatically in play throughout, with resonances echoing further into the
work.18
The complexity inherent in Schubert’s major–minor usage is increased in cases
where (as Blom recognized but was not aiming to explore) modulation is involved.
As it happens, ‘Tränenregen’ demonstrates a commonly used mechanism at the
simpler end of the spectrum (although its simplicity is deceptive): this is the
16
The rather fragile intimacy recollected at the beginning of the paired setting of
verses 1 and 2 (‘Wir saßen so traulich beisammen/ Im kühlen Erlendach’ – we sat so cosily
together under the cool roof of the alders) is contained within the major key; the major
mode persists in the strophic repetition of the music for verses 3 and 4, and 5 and 6, and it is
only when sadness comes to the surface and the mood is about to be broken, with the direct
speech of the last lines (‘ … es kommt ein Regen, ade! ich geh nach Haus’ – it’s coming
on to rain; adieu! I’m going home) that the mode turns to the minor for verse 7. As Susan
Youens puts it (Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin, p. 50), in this song ‘the twilight fantasy of
shared closeness is just that: a fantasy’.
17
A very different and highly explosive treatment of a piece beginning in major and
ending in minor is found in the Impromptu in E@ major, D 899/2, discussed in Chapter 6
below. While the repetition in the major in D 887-ii throws a transforming light on the
closing phrase, giving the movement a sense of ending smoothly and peacefully, the effect
of the E major triad juxtaposed with the (unharmonized) g1 at the start of the following
scherzo movement creates dislocation (cf. Example 2.7b). It also sets up notionally a further
major–minor effect spanning the two: the most readily imagined harmony underlying
the repeated g1 would be that of E minor. (Schubert retrospectively draws attention to its
original unharmonized appearance when he adds the startling harmonization towards the
end of the scherzo, at bars 131 and 141.)
18
See Chapter 7 on the Menuetto and Trio movement of D 804.
Example 2.6 (a)–(b) D 894, first movement
(a) Bars 1–5
(b) Bars 65–9

Example 2.7 (a)–(b) D 795/10, D 887-ii and iii
(a) ‘Tränenregen’, D 795/10, bars 28–36
process whereby the change to the tonic minor in the envoi, following the first
three pairs of major-key verses, leads to its relative major. This not only has the
effect of opening up the tonal horizons, introducing the flattened mediant (C)
major of the tonic (A major); it also offers the opportunity for creative exploration
of possible routes back to the tonic from this more ‘remote’ point. Crucial in this is
the role of the diminished sevenths (bars 28 and 30, asterisked in Example 2.7a),
with the supporting bassline tracing the chromatic rise from C to E for the cadence
(b) D 887, slow movement, bars 219–28 and scherzo, bars 1–4
back into the tonic major. All this endows the major resolution (and the change of
weather) at this point with a quite intense chromatic context.19
On a larger scale in the instrumental music this particular modulatory agency
can create long-range relationships across the structure and beyond it: this is the
case with the D minor Quartet, D 810, in its use of the diminished seventh harmony
derived from the song D 531 (‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ – Death and the Maiden)
on which the instrumental work is based.20 Schubert’s inventiveness in placing the
diminished seventh as modulatory agent is seen further in the Piano Sonata in B@
major, D 960, first movement. The major–minor context formed around Theme II
in the exposition here involves enharmonic reinterpretation of the G@ planted in
various layers of Theme I, to produce F# minor for Theme II, responding to the G@
major of the preceding theme’s middle section.21 The modulation to F# minor is
effected in a ‘quick transition’, where V7 of B@ major dissolves into the diminished
seventh on F;22 the longer-term resonance of this progression is heard in transition
2, to the third key area of the exposition, F major (at bars 714–741), which
manoeuvres via the diminished triad (bars 72–732) sharing all three common tones
with the original diminished seventh: see Examples 2.8a and b. This constitutes a
kind of exotic post-Classical reinterpretation of the ‘bifocal close’.23
Schubert’s major–minor usage, while widely spread throughout the songs
and instrumental music, has an individuality of effect in each case; nevertheless
it is possible to divide the various examples considered here into a number of
characteristic types and sub-types. In the discussion of D 960, we already
encountered one such type: that of enharmonic equivalence combined with minor
substitutions, whereby Schubert diverts in several stages from the ‘norm’. In the
key-scheme of D 960, first movement, viewed in one way, what would be the
normative submediant (G), which would take minor harmony, is first flattened
within Theme I and used in the major, then preserved but respelled enharmonically
19
‘Tränenregen’ sets out its chromatic credentials with its first, upbeat quaver
harmonized with what could sound like an augmented triad of F in first inversion (but
is spelled as a root position A chord with augmented fifth, E#): this hints (although only
obliquely) at a possible F# minor context rather than A major. (Did Robert Schumann have
this song in mind when he penned the opening song of his Dichterliebe cycle?) At the
close of ‘Tränenregen’ (see Example 2.7a above) the upbeat E# is not only, as originally,
reinterpreted at the upper octave (as an appoggiatura) but also juxtaposed with its alter ego,
F$, then heard in its ultimate transformation as f11, forming the peak of the final phrase.
20
See Wollenberg, ‘“Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück”’: 95–6 and Chapter
8 below.
21
Cf. the detailed discussion of Theme I of this movement in Chapter 7 below.
22
On this transitional type in general, and its use in D 960-i particularly, see
Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Transitions’, pp. 21 and 23.
23
On this classic device, most familiar from Mozart’s instrumental writing, see
Robert Winter, ‘The Bifocal Close and the Evolution of the Viennese Classical Style’,
Journal of the American Musicological Society, 42/2 (1989): 275–337.
(a) Bars 43–9
and turned into the minor in Theme II to produce F# minor, in what seems
altogether almost like a chemical process of change. Schubert’s use of tonal and
modal colouring is characterized by his perception of major and minor as two
sides of a ‘divided character’ (to use the term introduced earlier in discussing
the songs), and of their interchangeability. This latter property informs both the
explicit modulatory processes and the implicit stages in his key-schemes. Viewed
another way, the G@ major in the central section of D 960-i, first theme, is the
submediant of the tonic minor, B@ minor. Schubert emphasizes its closeness to
the tonic major in his perception, by preserving the essential pitches of Theme I
2.8 (b) Bars 68–75
in the first phrase-unit of this enhanced submediant restatement, with its opening-
out of the songlike accompaniment as well as its widening of the tonal horizon
(cf. Examples 2.9a and b).
In two of Schubert’s most experimental chamber works, the String Quartet
in G major, D 887, and the String Quintet in C major, D 956, he sets out from
the very beginning the essence of his view of major and minor. In both D 887
and D 956, the introductory bars present an intensely compressed version of the
‘divided character’ type (see Examples 2.10a and b).24 Famously, in D 887-i the
24
Both works create an overtly chromatic context in what follows, in D 887-i with
the descending chromatic fourth, or lament bass, from bars 15–23 onwards, and in D 956-i
the ascending chromatic lines in bars 26–32 and following.
(a) Bars 1–9
duality expressed in the opening of the movement is distilled even further when
it is recalled at the end, to the point where major and minor almost coalesce
(cf. Example 2.10d). It’s as if the opening bars put a proposition which is explored
in different ways in the course of the movement, including the role reversal at
the start of the recapitulation (Example 2.10c).25 In both works, the choice of
keys for Theme II responds to the major–minor ambivalence presented at the
start: see Figure 2.1. Thus in D 956-i the key in which Theme II appears, E@
major, corresponds to the tonic minor; while in D 887-i the key at the centre of
the tripartite tonal scheme of Theme II, B@ major, again represents the relative
major choice in response to the tonic minor, while the key of the outer sections
surrounding it is that of the dominant, D major, thus responding to the tonic major.
These two works will constantly form reference points, among a selection of other
25
A comparable reading of D 956 is developed in James Sobaskie, ‘The “Problem” of
Schubert’s String Quintet’, Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 2/1 (2005): 57–92.
2.9 (b) Bars 18–27
examples, in the discussion of further aspects of Schubert’s major–minor choices

that follows here.
The trajectory from tonic minor starting-point to tonic major ending of a
work (a device with a long history) could be seen almost as a commonplace of
late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century symphonic and sonata style. But
Schubert presents this minor–major trajectory in a fresh light (and with dazzling
compositional virtuosity) in his Impromptu for Piano, D 899/4 in A@. The piece
D 887-i D 956-i
Theme I Theme II Theme I Theme II
Keys G D C
[g] B@ [c] E@
Figure 2.1 D 887 and D 956, first movements, Themes I and II: key-schemes
is notated in A@ major, but begins in A@ minor. From bars 1 to 30 of its 106-bar

‘A’ section, this is the key-centre; at bar 31 the opening material is transformed
into the tonic major, in some ways reminiscent of those illuminating effects in
Schubert’s varied strophic song-forms where the tonic minor gives way to a verse
in the major. (In the Impromptu, A@ major persists from bar 31 onwards as the key-
centre throughout the remainder of the section.)
The tonic minor of the Impromptu’s opening is unusual in itself (although it
has a precedent in the Lieder, discussed below); the opening passage moreover
manifests an experimental approach suggesting the kind of dual tonality explored
later by Chopin, for example in his Scherzo in B@ minor, op. 31 (which, famously,
ends in D@ major). Like Chopin’s piece, Schubert’s Impromptu sets up a dialogue
at the start, in this case between the cascading arpeggiated figures of bars 1–4 and
7–10 and the chordal responses of bars 5–6 and 11–12. And, as with Chopin’s
opening gesture, the arpeggiated figures of Schubert’s piece prove to be two-faced,
answered first in the tonic minor (bars 5–6) and then in the relative major (bars
11–12), with identical pitches reharmonized (with just one chromatic alteration,
transforming the melodic progression into bar 13). The music then settles in the
relative, C@ major: this move provokes yet further major–minor ingenuity, with
the C@ major arpeggiation echoed in its enharmonically respelled minor (B minor),
then proceeding to its relative, D major. These key moves have an improvisatory
aspect, yet are connected with total logic at every level; the sequential route back
from B minor to A@ minor is deftly achieved by substituting chord VI of B major
(G# minor) in the interrupted cadence at bar 27, and re-entering the flat key via
another enharmonic respelling. All this clearly places the tonic, A@ major, when
it finally appears at bar 31, in a very different context as it emerges (restoring
stability) from such intense tonal exploration.
A strikingly close parallel among the Lieder is found in ‘Auf dem Wasser
zu singen’, D 774, one of Schubert’s most beautiful settings, which takes a high
level of inspiration from Stolberg’s vivid and reflective poem. The song, like the
Impromptu notated in A@ major (and sharing with it a dance-like character), begins
in the tonic minor and is based in that key for the first 26 bars of its 29-bar verse
(including the piano prelude, bars 1–8); it moves in line 3 to the relative, C@ major,
before returning to A@ minor for line 4 and repeating these two lines exactly, thus
prolonging the distance covered before the tonic major at last appears in one of
Schubert’s ‘magical’ progressions, following the setting of lines 5–6 with a subtly
tonicized IV leading to V–I in A@ minor. In a stroke of genius, the emergence into
the tonic major (during the repeat of line 6) is effected by the piano, changing minor
Example 2.10 (a)–(d) D 887, D 956, first movements
(a) D 887, first movement, bars 1–16

2.10 (b) D 956, first movement, bars 1–10
into major with its echoing figuration beneath the anchoring, long-held dominant
pedal-point in the voice. With characteristic palindromic effect, Schubert reverses
the echo in the following piano interlude to return the music to A@ minor for the start
of verse 2. The tonic major key of the piece here (unlike the Impromptu) features
in only a small proportion of the setting, its impermanence matching the fleeting
passage of time (and of human existence) conveyed in the poem. (At the same time
the sense of continuity and renewal is suggested by the strophic repetitions.) Like
the Impromptu, the song ends firmly in the major. The resemblance between the
melodic outlines as well as the rhythmic character, textures and tonal plan of the
two pieces may be an indication that the song resonated in Schubert’s mind as he
penned the piano piece.
Schubert’s exploration of the tensions between major and minor enables him to
bring fresh perspectives to the use of conventional devices. The Tierce de Picardie
2.10 (c) D 887, first movement, bars 278–82
effect at the close of D 887-i has a special status as the hard-won culmination of
the intense argument centred on major and minor throughout the movement. In
both D 887 and D 956 the ending of the whole work creates a Tierce de Picardie
in what was nominally a major-key finale (but began in the tonic minor); in D 956
this is, famously, compromised by a last, slanted gesture towards the minor.26 The
transforming effect of Schubert’s major–minor experimentation on the Tierce de
Picardie appears in two characteristic Schubertian sub-types within the genre: the
reverse Tierce de Picardie, and the extended form of the device, both of which
feature in the extremely ‘unorthodox’ sonata form of the Quartettsatz in C minor,
D 703. Here the play on major and minor is a central element in a design that
remains open to multiple interpretations.27
26
The (Neapolitan) D@ appoggiatura onto the tonic note with which D 956 ends
produces an ambivalent feeling of V of (an unheard) F minor, rather than a C tonic.
27
For recent examples of differing readings of D 703 see Hali Fieldman, ‘Schubert’s
Quartettsatz and Sonata Form’s New Way’, Journal of Musicological Research, 21 (2002):
99–146; Lewis Lockwood, ‘Schubert as Formal Architect: The “Quartettsatz”, D. 703’, in
Stephen A. Crist and Roberta Montemorra Marvin (eds), Historical Musicology: Sources,
Methods, Interpretations, Eastman Studies in Music (Rochester, NY: Rochester University
Press, 2004), pp. 204–18; Julian Rushton, ‘Schubert, the Tarantella, and the Quartettsatz,
D. 703’, in Robert Curry, David Gable and Robert L. Marshall (eds), Variations on the
Canon: Essays on Music from Bach to Boulez in Honor of Charles Rosen on his Eightieth
Birthday (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2008), pp. 163–71; and Su Yin
Mak, ‘Et in Arcadia Ego: The Elegiac Structure of Schubert’s Quartettsatz in C minor
(D.703)’, in Barbara M. Reul and Lorraine Byrne Bodley (eds), The Unknown Schubert
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 145–53. Walter Riezler, in Schuberts Instrumentalmusik
(Zürich: Atlantis, 1967), p. 28, drew attention to the unusually restricted role of the work’s
2.10 (d) D 887, first movement, bars 437–44
In D 703 the reverse Tierce de Picardie that follows the double statement
of Theme II in A@ major constitutes a violent disturbance of the lyrical mood:
structurally it marks the beginning of transition 2 in the three-key exposition of
tonic, C minor, in the movement (Riezler offers a clear, basic analysis marked by its non-
judgemental approach to this uncommonly experimental work).
D 703 (see Example 2.11).28 The violence is in a particular sense gratuitous, since the
goal of the transition is G major, the exposition’s third main key area, and A@ major,
as the Neapolitan key related to G, would have formed a logical starting-point.29
By eliding the beginning of the transition with the end of Theme II at bar 61, Schubert
increases the shock effect. In another sense, the abrupt reversion to a minor mode
here is entirely convincing since it marks the reappearance of Theme I, which was
based in the minor.30 But the passage has even further-reaching implications: this A@
minor, dramatic developmental version of Theme I heightens the effect of Theme III
when, eventually, it restores the lyrical mood, settling in G major (though continuing
to feature the chromatic fourth in the accompanying texture).
With Theme III of D 703 the exploration of major–minor possibilities
continues, since G major here represents another type within Schubert’s armoury:
that of substitution, featuring the opposite mode from the expected choice. In
minor-key sonata forms, the subsidiary areas in the exposition would normally
be the relative major (perhaps replaced by submediant major) or the dominant
minor. (Schubert’s substitution of dominant major here in a sense reaches back to
Baroque suite-movements, with their characteristic prolongation of the dominant
chord to close the first part of the binary form at the double bar.31) This choice in
D 703 has significant repercussions in the recapitulation, where, paradoxically,
Theme III (which, alone amongst the three themes of the exposition, featured an
unorthodox choice of key) is now the only one of the themes that behaves in
accordance with conventional expectations.32 Its transposition down a fifth to the
tonic major at this point is, however, given an unconventional slant; because the
recapitulatory ‘double return’ of Theme I in the original tonic minor is delayed
28
On the role of transitions in Schubert’s three-key expositions see Wollenberg,
‘Schubert’s Transitions’, 46–50 and Chapter 3 below. The second statement of Theme II (at
the octave above, a registral ‘motif’ linking the three themes of the exposition) introduces
en passant, in its cadential extension, the minor third (asterisked in Example 2.11); thus the
plunge into A@ minor at the point of cadence is not entirely unanticipated.
29
The Schubertian choice of Neapolitan minor key represents another sub-type,
discussed further below.
30
On the chromatic fourth motif forming the substance of Theme I, considered
particularly in a Mozartian context, see Chapter 5 below.
31
Baroque ‘throwbacks’ are a recurrent feature of Schubert’s instrumental writing,
not only in the early works but throughout his oeuvre: in D 703 the succession of plain
triads harmonizing the decorated chromatic fourth in the top part at bars 105 ff., sequencing
on the descending fourth in the bass (and the parallel passage at bars 269 ff.) has a distinctly
antique flavour. Further on its topical implications see Rushton, ‘Schubert, the Tarantella,
and the Quartettsatz, D. 703’.
32
The recapitulation begins with Theme II in, first, B@ and then E@ major; although
Theme I eventually reappears in the tonic, its placement is subversive of recapitulatory
practice (see below). D 703 stretches sonata form furthest within its boundaries than any
other of Schubert’s first movements.
Example 2.11 D 703, bars 46–63
continued
until the last possible moment, in coda position following Themes II and III, it
creates a large-scale reverse Tierce de Picardie.33
Of all the many striking juxtapositions, reversals and substitutions that characterize
Schubert’s intense preoccupation with major–minor relations, the choice of Neapolitan
minor is one of the most powerful.34 For Schubert in general each type and sub-type
within his major–minor spectrum represents not a single entity but a whole range
of possibilities for its use and effect, and this is certainly true of the Neapolitan
minor. Following, especially, precedents in Mozart, the traditional usage whereby
the 3
^ on the flattened supertonic replaces the pre-cadential IIb chord is extended
in Schubert’s vocabulary to produce the tonicized Neapolitan. When this is then
reinterpreted as the tonicized Neapolitan minor, its effect can be extremely sinister,
as in the coda to the first movement of the D minor Quartet, D 810 (Example 2.12).
At this moment it is as if the music glimpses the abyss; it seems unlikely to be
coincidental that this dark-hued ending immediately precedes the slow movement
variations on the song ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’, D 531.35
33
Schubert’s preferred usage for Theme II in the recapitulations of his minor-key
sonata form movements is to preserve the major mode; following the return of Theme I in
the tonic minor, this would normally create an extended minor–major effect, constituting a
large-scale Tierce de Picardie.
34
On the peculiar power of this harmonic element see Christopher Wintle, ‘The
“Sceptred Pall”: Brahms’s Progressive Harmony’, Brahms 2: Biographical, Documentary
amd Analytical Studies, ed. Michael Musgrave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987), pp. 197–222.
35
The whole quartet, like the song, plays on minor–major effects. The classic
account of the quartet’s relationship to the song is C. Wolff, ‘Schubert’s “Der Tod und das
Mädchen”: analytical and explanatory notes on the song D 531 and the quartet D 810’,
in E. Badura-Skoda and P. Branscombe (eds), Schubert Studies: Problems of Style and
Chronology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 143–71.
Example 2.12 D 810, first movement, bars 326–41
The import of Schubert’s choice of the apparently alien key of F minor for the
central episode of the String Quintet in C major, D 956, slow movement, is spelled
out in the coda (bars 91–4). Here, in a variant of the traditional pre-cadential usage
(whereby an intervening chromatic chord, here the augmented sixth, mediates
between the Neapolitan and the tonic ^4), it is the Neapolitan minor, F minor, that
is heard at the start of the progression. At the same time as fulfilling its cadential
function (as replacement for the standard major triad on the flattened supertonic
forming the Neapolitan), F minor here is tonicized by reference to the implied

V7–I progression that originally launched the central episode, and which is now
made explicit. Schubert with brilliant economy superimposes the dual meanings
onto the F minor harmony at this closing point of the movement: on one side it is
interpreted as tonic, and on the other as (minor) Neapolitan within E major (see
Example 2.13 for the harmonic outline of the passage; Example 3.18 below gives
the passage in full). The utterly compressed presentation of F minor here throws
into sharp relief its extended use in the central episode, where it elicits a drawn-out
expression of anguish.36
Example 2.13 D 956, slow movement, bars 91–4, harmonic outline
At a larger structural level, the choice of Neapolitan minor vis-à-vis the work’s
overall tonic governs the key relationships between individual movements making
up the two great keyboard fantasies, the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, D 760 (based on the
song ‘Der Wanderer’, D 489) and the piano duet Fantasy in F minor, D 940. In the
‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, C# minor, the key of the substantial extract from the original
song on which the slow movement variations are based, acquires a new dimension:
although it is not juxtaposed directly with the work’s tonic, C major (the key of
the outer movements), it stands in relation to it as enharmonic Neapolitan minor.
In the kind of interlocking key relationships characteristic of Schubert, the slow
movement’s key of C# minor forms a discrete minor–major pair with the key of
the trio to the following scherzo movement, now respelled as D@ major. Again this
is not directly set beside the overall tonic, C major, but stands in a longer-term
Neapolitan relation to it.37
In the F minor Fantasy, D 940, a more intensive relationship is built around the
enharmonic Neapolitan minor, F# minor: as the key of the two central movements,
the Largo and the Allegro vivace (scherzo), F# minor is heard in relation to the
minor–major alternations contained within the two outer movements that frame
it (see Figure 2.2. for an outline of the work’s key-scheme). Because the first
movement ends in an extended Tierce de Picardie, F major is juxtaposed with
F# minor (for the beginning of the slow movement). And because the end of the
following scherzo movement in F# minor is then juxtaposed with the tonic minor
36
For further discussion of the String Quintet slow movement see Chapters 3 and 6.
37
The immediate status of D@ here is as subdominant to the scherzo key, A@. On
the inter-movement transitions in both D 760 and D 940, see Chapter 3 below. A leaning
towards C# minor is conspicuous in another C major work, the ‘Grand Duo’, D 812.
i Allegro iii Allegro

iv Tempo
[Movement] molto ii Largo vivace [Trio] [Scherzo]
I
moderato [Scherzo]
Bars 1–121 122–64 165–273 274–313 314–438 439–571
Keys (start/ f/F4 f# f# /F# D [F#]/D f# /F#:V4 f [F]/f
finish) [F#]/f#:V
Inter-movt vii [enh.]- i v- i iii - i @vi [enh.]- i
progression
(bassline)
Figure 2.2 D 940, outline of key scheme
when the work’s opening material returns at the start of the finale, the enharmonic
Neapolitan minor at the centre of the work is enclosed in an extended F major–
minor pair. Schubert explores ways of crafting harmonic connections at the
junctures between movements, including enharmonic moves, for example turning
V of F# major at the end of the scherzo and trio movement into augmented sixth
of F minor for the finale.
Besides the explicit major–minor uses of the various types discussed so far, the
sense of a notional major/minor subtext can be extracted from what I have termed
elsewhere Schubert’s ‘elliptical’ progressions.38 Among the many possible ways
of reading Schubert’s key schemes, this suggestion draws its rationale from his
acknowledged preoccupation with the major and minor forms of a given key as
‘two sides of a coin’ with properties of flexibility and interchangeability in their
use. Taking the example of the G major Quartet, D 887, slow movement, it is
possible to understand the ‘remote’ tonal relationships of the ‘A’ and ‘B’ sections
within the framework of its episodic form by means of major/minor substitutions
(see Figure 2.3).39 Thus the move from E minor to G minor for section B bypasses
the implicit intervening step that could have been spelled out, that of G major.40
The G minor of section B, first statement, then functions as minor Neapolitan to
the F# minor of its second statement. Sections A1 and B1, in B minor and D minor
respectively, reproduce, transposed, the elliptical progression between the original
A and B sections, thus setting up parallel relationships across the sections. Far
from being a random collection of keys for coloristic purposes only, the design
is tightly knit by these interlocking connections. The movement’s key scheme is
altogether richly layered, featuring explicit play on minor–major juxtapositions
such as are frequently used in the songs for a variety of expressive ends (as Blom
noted): d–D between sections B1 and A11 as well as e–E within section A11.
38
See for example Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Transitions’, p. 29.
39
See Wollenberg, ‘Schubert and the Dream’: 144, n. 17 (where the diagram,
however, was imperfectly printed).
40
On the transition between the sections see Chapter 3 below. The episodic form of
D 887-ii is discussed further in Chapter 6.
Sections A B A1 B1 A11
Keys e g–f# b d D–b–e–E
[Notional steps] [G] @ii–i [D]
[Major/minor] [maj. - min.] [maj. - min.]
Figure 2.3 D 887, slow movement, tonal plan of episodic form
The sense that Schubert’s choices in deploying major and minor are designed
rather than random is felt particularly strongly in cases where the modulatory
trajectory could demonstrably have been very much more simply driven towards
its goal. Clearly Schubert could at such junctures have taken the simpler path; but
the breadth and complexity of his tonal and modal outlook provides an alternative
route that opens out the music’s expressive range. This can give a particularly
powerful effect to the proceedings in his development sections, such as that of the
G major Sonata, D 894, first movement. One way, as shown here, in which the
technique enables Schubert to inject newness into his harmonic progressions is in
subverting what would otherwise have worked as an exactly sequential underlying
chordal pattern (cf. Examples 2.14a–c for the developmental passage in D 894-i,
and the reconstruction of the hypothetical sequence, together with the outline of
Schubert’s actual progression).
The element of surprise has been present in the various examples discussed in
this chapter; here it works particularly in the E@ minor chord that so unexpectedly
follows C minor, at the point where the sequence breaks (bar 71). This surprise
minor chord contradicts the E@ major harmony heard at bar 66: its configuration
as a ^4 on B@ pairs it in the opposite direction with the reinterpretation of B@ as
bass of the B@ minor root position triad at bar 73, which itself is then reinterpreted
with its parallel major on the other side of the V chord at bar 74 (as bracketed in
Example 2.14c). These intensely powerful pairings begin to suggest the poetic text
of ‘Lebenslied’, discussed above. Other elements work together with the harmony
to produce the effect of stored-up power being released in this passage; besides the
contrapuntal force mentioned earlier, these include the transformation of Theme
I (in the aggressive upward arpeggiations) and the pianistic texture, straining
against the medium with the kind of writing later associated with Brahms’s piano
sonatas.41 The liberating effects of Schubert’s major–minor explorations work
in a variety of ways. Here, besides the surface features that so powerfully make
their momentary impact, a longer-term structural implication is contained in
the passage. Where Theme I and Theme II in the exposition represented lyrical
(almost pastoral), and dance types respectively, thus evading the essential contrast
prescribed in textbook terms, the development section now makes the different
choice, exaggerating such thematic contrast in pitting the newly energized Theme I
41
The extremes of mood in this movement are considered further in Chapter 6 below.
Example 2.14 (a)–(c) D 894, first movement
(a) Bars 65–77

2.14 (b) Bars 65–72, reconstruction of hypothetical sequence
2.14 (c) Bars 65–76, outline of actual progression
derivatives against Theme II, which preserves and re-embroiders its dance style
with increased delicacy of character (bars 76–8).42
Mention was made earlier, also, of the multiple choices afforded Schubert by
his formulating the opening material of the first movements in D 887 and D 956
as modally ambivalent. Apart from the depth it gives to the movements in which
it figures, this too has a longer-term impact on the unfolding of the sonata form.
The keys ‘remote’ from the tonic of the movement that feature in the presentation
of Theme II in both works prove to respond to the modal duality inherent in the
treatment of the tonic at the start. These proceedings seem to define a new version
of sonata form. Where textbook theory treats the major-key movement, with
dominant as second area, as normative, and minor-key movements as a deflection
from that norm, Schubert creates a dual major–minor movement type, enlarging in
his instrumental works on the equivalent effects found in his songs.
As Robert Winter summed up, apropos of the songs: ‘Schubert’s predilection
for major–minor contrast, and for minor-keyed inflections within a major context
and vice versa, derives from Mozart but goes far beyond him. Along with Brahms,
he ranks as the greatest major–minor colourist in Western music.’43 Schubert’s
instrumental music, with its myriad reflections on major and minor, belongs with
the songs in this deservedly exalted evaluation.
42
The suggestion of a distorted re-run of exposition happenings is heightened by the
presentation of Theme II here, set off by the pause and prepared by V of its key.
43
Winter, ‘Schubert’, NG2, §2: Works, (i) Songs, p. 679.
Chapter 3
Poetic Transitions
Schubert’s transitions are most readily thought of in a sonata form context where,
characteristically, ‘a transitional move is effected almost imperceptibly from
one key to another’, with a suddenness that gives the new key ‘the quality of
a revelation’.1 The poetic resonances of these transitional moments extend far
beyond their immediate impact.2 Probably the most familiar examples are those
found in the late piano sonatas, chamber works and symphonies, among them
the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony, D 759, the ‘Great’ C major Symphony, D 944, the
String Quintet, D 956, and the G major String Quartet, D 887, as well as the B@
Piano Sonata, D 960. Collectively these demonstrate Schubert’s inventiveness in
deploying his transitional strategies, and their far-reaching effect on the movements
to which they belong.
The poetic qualities of Schubert’s transitions are not confined to the late
works, however. They can be traced back at least as far as 1815, where in the
first movement of the G minor String Quartet D 173 the transition produces
an expressive effect ‘beyond the merely architectural or engineering aspects’
of the modulatory process.3 Perception of the overtly Classical roots of the
work (Mozart’s 40th symphony is evoked from the start of D 173) should not
be allowed to obscure the new ‘Romantic’ transitional approach manifested in
the first movement.4 The influence of the transition here reaches back beyond the
accomplishment of the move to the new key, and forward into the second theme
itself. Built into this extended perspective are such properties as a reluctance to
leave the tonic; prevision of the new key that lies ahead; and nostalgia for the tonic
following the departure from it, all of which correspond to some of the nuances
of poetry.
At moments where a move to the relative major could be possible, it is as if the
music stands on the brink but draws back each time into the tonic (Example 3.1,
bars 221–2 and 33). The new key is almost glimpsed; the sequence at bars 31–33
would have required only one more step to take it into B@ major, while the scalic
descent beginning at bar 192, notable for its expressive use of octave displacement
(marked ‘x’ on the example), could easily have continued into B@ at bars 224–231
(see Examples 3.2a and b for the hypothetical outline progression in each case).
1
Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Transitions’, pp. 16 and 22.
2
A preliminary definition (and demonstration) of ‘poetic’ processes is found in
Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Poetic Transitions’; see esp. pp. 261–2 and 265–6.
3
Ibid., p. 268.
4
Further on the Mozartian elements in D 173 see Chapter 5 below.

Poetic Transitions 49
continued
In fact the harmonic and chromatic treatment of the scale figure in bar 221–2,
and the octave displacement it features, exactly foreshadow the approach to the
relative major when the transition is finally achieved: see Example 3.2c.5 (In its
earlier appearance it is deflected to lead back to a counterstatement of Theme I in
G minor, at bar 25.)
Perhaps Xavier Hascher’s statement (in summing up the critical literature) that
Schubert is seen to show ‘a difficulty in leaving the tonic’ could be regarded not
in the sense of an inability to launch into the necessary processes of modulation,
but rather as showing a poetic impulse, endowing the departure from the tonic
with emotional properties.6 While the music in the examples discussed above
is distinctly instrumental in character, its effect is generated by a songwriter’s
5
In the second version of the passage the displacement and the diminished seventh
chord (marked with arrows in the examples) are conflated at bars 42–3.
6
Hascher describes ‘une difficulté … à quitter le ton principal’ in contrast to ‘une
modulation brutale’ that typically follows. See Hascher, Schubert, la forme sonate et son
évolution, p. 10.
Example 3.2 (a)–(c) D 173, first movement, hypothetical progressions
(a) Bars 31–3
(b) Bars 19–23
(c) Bars 41–5
instincts. Where, after the further glimpse of a way to the relative major, again
drawing back (bars 32–3), the transitional move is accomplished, it is swiftly done
(see bars 43–5). This need not be interpreted as ‘brutal’ (perhaps better translated
as ‘brusque’), in Hascher’s formulation: the octave displacement here is certainly
more abrasive, but the essential outline progresses smoothly from tonic to relative
major with an almost Bach-like linearity (Example 3.2c). With lyrical ease, the
second theme beginning in B@ at bar 45 floats back into G minor (bars 50–53) to
summon up the tonic again before proceeding to reach another new destination,
the exposition’s third key area of D minor, the dominant minor.7
Far from holding up the action, the moves to and from the tonic give this
exposition a sense of mobility, in that a conventional approach to setting up the
‘polarity’ of first and second key areas is replaced by an impression that all three
keys featured here (G minor, B@ major and D minor) are held in play throughout
the proceedings. A crucial aspect of the ‘three-key exposition’ is its implied need
7
This is the first instance of Schubert’s having ‘the best of both worlds’ in exploiting
the key choices associated with Theme II in minor-key sonata form expositions: the
alternatives traditionally available – relative major or dominant minor – are here both
adopted. This idea is developed and further nuanced in the later instrumental works (its
major–minor possibilities were noted in Chapter 2 above, apropos of the first movements
of D 887 and D 956).
for two transitions.8 In the first movement of D 173 Schubert (for the first time in
his instrumental music) explores a range of transitional procedures in response to
the opportunities this structure offers. For the first transition, with the definitive
move to B@, he chooses the ‘quick’ type, achieved within the space of one bar
(though completing a linear progression that is traced over a dozen bars, from bar
33 onwards).9 The second transition, to D minor, is of the extended developmental
type at the opposite end of the spectrum, emerging from the apparent (but abortive)
re-statement of Theme II in B@ at bars 614–53: see Example 3.3.
In accord with the fluid treatment of key and sub-section here, the sharply
delineated contrapuntal development of Theme II with which this transition begins
has in fact been loosely anticipated in the canonic treatment of the theme within
the preceding bars (Example 3.3, bars 614–53), and the key in which the second
transition launches its proceedings reverts once more to the tonic. The ‘best of both
worlds’ scenario, and Schubert’s sleight of hand in keeping all three exposition keys
constantly in play, are expressed in the double approach taken here: the move to
D minor (already set up at the close of the first statement of Theme II with the
series of definitive cadences at bars 75–6 and following) is accomplished first from
G minor, arriving in D minor (bar 71) by a sequential route, and then re-approached
from B@ (bars 78–9), transformed into the augmented sixth chord to trigger the
cadence into D minor forming the exposition’s close. The exposition of D 173,
first movement is altogether an exciting and expressive early display of Schubert’s
compositional virtuosity. Among the features prophetic of later works is additionally
the transformation of the lyrical second theme into dramatic topos in transition 2.10
A direct line leads from D 173 to Schubert’s next completed quartet first
movement in a minor key, the Quartettsatz in C minor, D 703.11 The transitional
techniques explored in the earlier work are here intensified, in a movement
altogether more intensely conceived. For the move to the second key area of its
three-key exposition, the harmonic agent of transition is signalled – indeed, singled
out – at the climactic point in the opening statement where the pile-up of imitative
entries explodes and comes crashing down in a prolonged Neapolitan chord (bars
9–10: see Example 3.4). In this first appearance, with its sforzandi and plunging,
widely looped arpeggiation, the D@ ^3 chord has a distinctly disruptive effect.
8
See Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Transitions’, p. 28.
9
The complete progression is outlined in ibid., p. 48, Example 2.14b.
10
For an extended discussion of this type of process see Chapter 6 below.
11
While the status of D 703 is in one sense incomplete, since it belongs to an unfinished
quartet (with only a fragment of the slow movement extant besides the first movement), in
itself it is perfectly finished. Werner Aderhold notes its connection with two earlier C minor
chamber works, the Overture for String Quintet, D 8 and the the quartet fragment D 103,
as well as with a later work in that key, the Piano Sonata D 958: see ‘Das Streichquartett-
Fragment c-moll D 703’, in W. Aderhold, Walther Dürr and Walburga Litschauer (eds),
Franz Schubert: Jahre der Krise 1818–1823, Arnold Feil zum 60. Geburtstag (Kassel and
Basle: Bärenreiter, 1985), pp. 57–71, p. 58.

Example 3.4 D 703, bars 1–34

(Its harmonic function here, paradoxically, is the conventional one, as preparatory

chord to the V–I cadence.12) In the compressed counterstatement of Theme I that
follows (beginning at bar 13), the Neapolitan harmony is ‘tamed’, transmuted at
the equivalent point into the standard IIb chord (bar 17). On its third appearance,
where the counterstatement merges into a brief moment of transition, it reverts
to the flattened Neapolitan and now reinterprets what was originally a chromatic
chord within the tonic key as the diatonic subdominant harmony in what is to be
the second key area, A@, again used with pre-cadential function (bars 23–4). As in
D 173, the resonances of the transitional progression reach back into the opening
section of the exposition, in the case of D 703 keeping the two versions of the
supertonic chord, and its various meanings, in play.
Theme II continues to reflect on the meaning of that original explosive
chord, setting down within its first phrase the D@ ^3 harmony, and tonicizing it
with its preceding dominant seventh (Example 3.4). In fact this phrase creates
a freely-conceived harmonic palindrome (see Figure 3.1).13 Thus, no sooner has
the music moved to the new key area than it revisits (or summons up a memory
of) the point of departure, retracing the route by which it travelled. Schubert
here achieves a perfect and skilfully paced combination of ‘quick transition’
with a sense that its ramifications reach beyond the moment.14 The transitional
moves at various junctures in the Quartettsatz present collectively an index of
Schubertian fingerprints: these include a Neapolitan ‘subtext’, setting up D@ and
Figure 3.1 D 703, harmonic palindrome
12
See Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Transitions’, p. 46, which traces the Neapolitan
through the movement to its ultimate closing function.
13
Brian Newbould has highlighted Schubert’s penchant for ‘mirror’ effects in other
contexts: see B. Newbould, ‘A Schubert Palindrome’, 19th-Century Music, 15/3 (Spring
1992): 207–14, and ‘Schubert im Spiegel’, Musiktheorie, 2 (1998): 101–10.
14
Further on the ‘quick’ transitional type see Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Transitions’,
pp. 16–28. The apogee of this type is reached in the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony, D 759, first
movement (ibid., p. 22).
A@ alongside the C–G tonic–dominant axis;15 nostalgia for the keys left behind;
‘false’ transitional or retransitional procedure (where the key set up is subverted:
see the return of Theme II in B@ at bar 195, which is prepared as if for G major or
minor);16 and the threading of motifs through different parameters of the music,
as with the palindromic motif, marked ‘x’ on Example 3.4.17 Taking its cue from
D 173, first movement, transition 2 in the three-key exposition of D 703 is again at
the opposite end of the spectrum from transition 1, unfolding in a long-limbed but
tautly constructed developmental passage (bars 61–931). Apart from its many other
attractions, D 703 provides, following on from D 173, a display of transitional
tours de force.
The Quartettsatz showed Schubert exploiting the intricate connection of
transition to second theme which was to characterize many later nineteenth-
century sonata forms. The most fully worked-out and expressive examples of this
process are found in the first movements of the String Quartet in G major, D 887,
and the C major String Quintet, D 956. Together, in each of these movements,
the transition and second theme ‘form a richly-woven complex in which several
tonalities are implicated’.18 Furthermore, these several keys are (as noted above in
D 173, first movement exposition) kept in play over long stretches of the music, to
the point of seeming almost on the brink of coalescing. In the case of D 887, one of
the keys thus kept in play, B minor or major, is in fact a ‘ghost’ key, implied by the
false transitional build-up and then subverted: the deception is maintained with a
masterly sense of brinkmanship up to the moment of arrival of the second theme, at
bar 643, infecting the upbeat first note of the theme itself (Example 3.5). Thereafter
it exerts a kind of fascination, drawing the music back, as if magnetically, to the
dominant chord (F#) of B minor/major that formed the point of arrival of Theme
II, a reversion that is emphasized by Schubert’s construction of the second theme
here as a set of variations.19
15
Compare the treatment of C major in the String Quintet, D 956, first movement;
see the exploration of its tonal subtext in Wollenberg, ‘The C major String Quintet D 956:
Schubert’s “Dissonance” Quintet?’: 45–54.
16
In the compound deception set up here, the entry of the second theme subverts
the expectation of the recapitulatory return of Theme I at this point (which, in typical
Schubertian non-tonic fashion, might well have appeared in the dominant minor).
17
This motif, characterized by its neighbour-note figure, is woven into the music’s
fabric with unprecedented intensity, for example forming an accompanimental line in various
parts of the texture of Themes II, III and IV (the new theme introduced immediately after the
double bar), thereby creating a disturbance to the lyrical character of the themes themselves.
Further on the relationship of the motif to the scheme of D 703, see Chapter 7 below.
18
Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Poetic Transitions’, p. 273.
19
Some of these aspects are discussed from a different viewpoint by Scott Burnham
(‘Landscape as Music, Landscape as Truth: Schubert and the Burden of Repetition’, 19th-
Century Music, 29/1 (2005): 31–41): taking his cue from Adorno, Burnham foregrounds the
role of ‘repetition’ rather than that of variation in D 887-i.

Even before the variations unfold, the theme reverts, almost as soon as it has
asserted its own key of D major, to the F# major chord that deceptively introduced
it (see bar 68), and then (bars 73–4) is unable to keep away from that chord
before completing its first statement with a perfect cadence in D: the ‘infection’ is
pervasive. The variations on Theme II are then suffused with references back to that
signal chord of F#, which potentially has an almost hypnotic effect on the listener
(Figure 3.2 gives, for reference, a chart of the variations and the developmental
episodes with which they are interspersed, in the exposition and recapitulation).20
Not only the particular chord but the progression in which it features forms a
reference point, so that it later appears transposed, and is also summoned up by its
absence where it is implied by a single note, or unison/octaves, unharmonized.21
In D 887-i, the ‘wrong’ dominant is set up transitionally to prepare for the entry
of Theme II: Schubert has thwarted the classical procedure involving a dominant-
led route directly to the second key area. However, in the unexpected progression
20
The classic study of D 887, first movement is Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert’.
The scheme of the variations on Theme II as outlined in Figure 3.2 reveals the combinatorial
nature of the final variation, with its accumulation of references to previous variations, thus
crowning the whole set, whose unfolding altogether changes the conventional balance and
relationships of the sonata form components.
21
Compare the initial approach and subsequent re-approaches to Theme II at bars
64, 77, 109 (with Theme II in B@) and 141 in the exposition; and (parallel to the first two
of these) bars 343 and 356 in the recapitulation (transposed down a tone: Theme II is here
recapitulated in the unconventional key of the subdominant). The third (and final) approach
to Theme II in the recapitulation leads at last to the tonic G major at bar 388.
Bars Sections Keys Comment

Exposition
64–77 Theme II D Introduced by V of b/B:
Theme in v1
77–90 Variation 1 D Theme in v2 with v1 triplet
countertheme
91–109 Episode 1 d 4 a*4 g Ending on V of g
109–22 Variation 2 B@ Introduced by V of g:
Theme in vc with pizz. acct
122–41 Episode 2 B@, a, b Ending on V of b**
141–54 Variation 3 D Theme in va with v1
countertheme and pizz.
acct
Recapitulation
343–56 Theme II = Variation C Introduced by V of a/A:
4 Theme in v1 staccato with
vc countertheme (legato)
356–69 Variation 5 C Equivalent to Variation 1
369–88 Episode 3 c4g4a4e Ending on V in e:
equivalent to Episode 1,
adapted
388–401 Variation 6 G Variation of Variation 5;
refers also to Variations 2
& 3. Theme in v2 with vc
countertheme (legato) and
pizz. acct plus v1 triplet
countertheme
* Pivot chord of B@ becomes Neapolitan chord in A minor.

** Episode 2 resolves the ambiguity inherent in the first appearance of the transitional F#
major chord: in Episode 2 it emerges from a clear B minor context.
Figure 3.2 D 887, first movement, scheme of variations, Theme II
that is repeatedly retraced as the second theme unfolds, he has in fact made use of
a classical harmonic device. This is the move from V of VI to V7 of I (as marked on
Example 3.5), with I in this case being the local tonic, D major. But this classically
validated progression is in the ‘wrong place’ here: its use, in Mozartian terms, was
normally to lead back with retransitional function from the end of the development
section to the recapitulation (cf. Examples 3.6a and b).22 Schubert from his early
22
In Mozart’s K 502 (Example 3.6b), the minor form of V of VI is inserted, smoothing
the way back from G minor to B@ major, whereas in Schubert’s more elliptical progression
instrumental works onwards showed himself perfectly capable of handling

classical transitional procedures with aplomb.23 As his imaginative approach to
form and harmony evolved, he explored new ways of drawing in, and skewing, the
classical conventions within the frame of those nostalgia-laden poetic transitions
that mark so many of his most powerful instrumental movements, among them the
first movement of D 887.
Example 3.6 (a)–(b) Outline progressions
(b) Mozart, K 502, first movement, bars 114–18
In the same way that the two minor-key movements, D 173, first movement
and the Quartettsatz, D 703, formed a pair in their approach to transition, so the
G major Quartet, D 887, is closely linked with the work that follows it in the
succession of Schubert’s string chamber music, and that crowns this part of his
oeuvre: the String Quintet in C major, D 956. Among the elements that link the
two works is the treatment of transition within first-movement sonata form. The
many attractions – indeed, the beauties – of the String Quintet include, in its first
movement, the particularly intimate connection of transition and Theme II, a
process already seen in D 887 and earlier works but here reaching new levels of
intensity. In combination with the leisurely lyricism of Theme II itself this creates
an extraordinary richness and depth. The transition-and-second theme ‘complex’
that is formed here is again a veritable catalogue of Schubert’s strategies. The
Quintet’s first movement builds up towards the arrival of its second theme in
analogous fashion to the first movement of the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony, no. 8 in
B minor, D 759; both movements display the energy and drive normally associated
this stage in the process remains unheard (Example 3.6a). Burnham (‘Landscape as Music’:
33, n. 3) observes the unusualness of the progression in its placing here by Schubert,
without relating it to the wider question of Schubert’s transitional procedures (within which
it belongs to the category of ‘false transition’ as identified in Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s
Transitions’, p. 16).
23
See ibid., pp. 37–45.
with the transitional process, in passages that in fact do not leave the tonic.24 The
move to the second key area is then accomplished in both cases with a ‘quick
transition’ pared down to essentials (cf. Examples 3.7a and b).
In the String Quintet, first movement, the moment of transition (bars 59–601) is
then absorbed into what follows, with a ‘re-run’ of the approach to the second theme
(Example 3.8, at bars 792–81) introducing the varied restatement of that theme,
which runs from bar 81 through to bar 100. All this is reminiscent of the proceedings
in the G major Quartet. The Quintet first movement’s second theme, like that of
the G major Quartet, is then repeatedly drawn back to the agent of transition that
first prompted its appearance. Here, in D 956, the ‘magnetic attraction’ is formed
by the single note g’ that was originally transformed in the transitional move from
C to E@ major. The second theme circles round this note, constantly returning to it
in different harmonic contexts. Its ultimate transformation is to become the tonic
of the third key in this ‘three-key’ exposition: G major (reached definitively, at the
upper octave, at bar 100; cf. Example 3.8, bar 79, where it is first reached, but only
temporarily). In fact the different harmonic interpretations of the g’ within the first
statement of Theme II trace the tonal scheme encompassed by the three keys of
the entire exposition, though not heard here in order of their appearance: E@, G and
C majors (asterisked in Example 3.8).25
David Beach has suggested that in a case such as the first movement of
D 887, Theme II has ‘the character more of a transition than of a theme’.26 This
comment could be applied even more justifiably to the first movement of D 956,
since its second theme is open-ended: having begun in E@, it ends in G major, thus
effecting the move to the next (and final) key-centre of this three-key exposition.
But Beach’s proposition is true only in terms of harmonic and tonal aspects.
Thematically, in both the G major Quartet and the String Quintet, Theme II has
the character of exactly that: very definitely a theme, moreover with variations.
And the second key area seems for Schubert more than a mere stepping-stone to
the third, not only because of the lavish thematic investment he makes in it but also
because of its longer-term meaning in relation to the exposition’s design. In this
respect it has the effect of allowing both possible alternatives Schubert might have
seen as available for the second area (one being third-related: forms of the mediant
or submediant, and the other being the dominant) to be used in his themes II and
III, rather than limiting the choice to one only.
24
Where D 759-i rounds off this ‘pseudo-transition’ with a perfect cadence in the
tonic, D 956 cadences at the equivalent point on, but not in, the dominant.
25
Schubert builds in a characteristic ambiguity to bars 63–5, which form a Phrygian
cadence onto G, holding open the possibility that this could be chord V of C minor (or, with
Tierce de Picardie, C major). Although this is unfulfilled at this stage, it later transpires at
bar 71, moving so much more magically there from E@ into C major.
26
David Beach, ‘Harmony and Linear Progression in Schubert’s Music’, Journal of
Music Theory, 38 (1994): 1–20, 7.
Example 3.7 (a)–(b) D 759, D 956, first movements

An area of his sonata forms where Schubert habitually exercised a wider

choice than recognized by any conventional theory of the form, is that of the
recapitulation. The ‘subdominant recapitulations’ which have been regarded as a
Schubert speciality in fact represent but one among several possibilities of non-
tonic recapitulatory returns of Theme I explored in his instrumental works. (The G
minor Quartet, D 173, brings its first theme back in the relative major, thus reversing
in mirror fashion the exposition keys of Themes I and II.) Within the category of
subdominant recapitulation, conventional assumptions as to the limitations of the
device have proved unjustified. The once current suggestion, rightly discredited
by Malcolm Boyd, that Schubert’s subdominant recapitulations offered an ‘easy
way out’, theoretically requiring no adjustment to the transition beyond the
necessary transposition, immediately falls when minor-key movements featuring
non-dominant second key areas in the exposition are considered.27 In these cases
Schubert shows a characteristically inventive approach to the relationship between
the two transitions in exposition and recapitulation.
The Piano Sonata in A minor, D 537, first movement, plays with transitional
ideas in its exposition that impact in unpredictable ways on the recapitulation’s
27
See Malcolm Boyd, ‘Schubert’s Short Cuts’, Music Review, 29 (1968): 12–21.
Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik
Franz Schuberts (‘Das “Reprisenproblem”’, pp. 124 ff.) pays particular attention to the
question of ‘routine’ and ‘non-routine’ treatment of the recapitulation in Schubert.
continued

transition (Example 3.9 gives the opening portion of the movement).28 The
convention whereby a counterstatement of Theme I merges with the transition
is twisted here into a deceptive move: at bars 6–10, an ambivalent C tonality
is substituted for the tonic A minor in the second hearing of the moto perpetuo
semiquaver dance-style efflorescence (marked ‘b’ on Example 3.9) that acts as
consequent to the dotted-rhythm antecedent ‘a’ (with its chording in superimposed
thirds and sixths, evocative of what was to be a hallmark of Brahms’s piano
writing).29 The opening phrase then re-enters in the relative major, as if it might
be the beginning of Theme II in a monothematic movement (though making a
rather early appearance in that case). This C major statement contains within it
the fragment in dotted rhythm (labelled ‘x’ in Example 3.9), harmonized with
a dominant seventh, that later introduces the rightful Theme II in F major at
bar 28. Between these two V7 chords (asterisked on the example) an intensely
layered passage combines a chromatic rising scale (with at its peak a minor–
major progression), a series of augmented sixth chords (bars 20 and following),
various motivic fragments related to the surrounding material, and a particular
note, highlighted – the flat sixth of F, D@ – which serves here to trigger the cadence
into the second key area, and is echoed thereafter throughout the remainder of the
exposition, providing a recurrent minor colouring within the major.30
The transitional passage discussed above (bars 11–26) travels further afield before
regaining the impetus towards its intended destination. The digression to E@ at bars
16–17 enables the music to reach F minor by sequential step; the dramatic ratcheting
up of the key here, with accompanying crescendo, recalls the Italian overture
techniques that were so influential on early nineteenth-century Viennese instrumental
style generally. At the corresponding juncture of the recapitulation, the transition is
given a neat twist (Example 3.10a). It transpires that in the exposition the transition
already contained the necessary element to prepare the entry of Theme II in the tonic
major in the recapitulation: that is, the augmented sixth chord on F (cf. bars 20–21 and
144–5).31 In its first appearance, interestingly, this chord was left unresolved, finding
its resolution only at the end of the exposition. In the recapitulatory version of the
transition it achieves its ultimate resolution into the tonic major (see Examples 3.10a
and b). And in the recapitulation the F$ continues to colour the major key, in parallel
28
It is because of this unpredictability (among other reasons) that the notion of ‘finishing’
sonata movements left unfinished by Schubert is fraught with impossible guesswork.
29
The V9 chord here implies C minor, but resolves onto C major.
30
The multiple functions of the D@ include its placing at the close of the exposition as
appoggiatura onto the augmented (‘German’) sixth chord on F, which is assigned a double
meaning: first, to lead back to the exposition’s repeat in A minor and, secondly, reinterpreted
as V7of B@ minor, to continue in sequence into the development section.
31
Bar references from the double bar onwards follow the numbering in NSA (rather
than Ferguson’s in the Associated Board edition: Howard Ferguson (ed.), Schubert:
Complete Pianoforte Sonatas (3 vols, London: Associated Board of the Royal Schools of
Music, 1978), vol. I, no. 2).
continued
to the role of the D@ within F in the exposition. A network of relationships between

F and A results from all these proceedings, and in the coda (which is altogether a
brilliantly conceived ending to the movement) the possible meanings of F within and
beyond an A minor context continue to be reflected on.32
32
With the return of Theme I in the coda, at last in the tonic minor, we are reminded
of the fact that its opening antecedent phrase originally peaked conspicuously on the note
f '', which was invested with multiple meanings already within the opening statements.
Example 3.10 (a)–(b) D 537-i
continued
3.10 (a) concluded
Beyond the sonata form context, the ‘quick’ type of transition finds a special
place in Schubert’s episodic forms, where it can acquire shock value in moving
the music onto a new plane, or may mediate by stages between one section and the
next, still travelling a long distance in a short time. In both cases, such episodic
transitions build on the strategies developed in Schubert’s sonata form transitions.
Within his episodic forms – rondo-like sectional arrangements of ABA and its
compounds or variants – the transitional moments or longer passages of transition
have a variety of functions combined with the primary purpose of modulating to the
3.10 (b) D 537, first movement, bars 20–28, 142–50, outline of transition

progressions in exposition and recapitulation
key of the following section. In the first type of quick transition identified above,
where ‘shock value’ is at a premium, concentration is at its most intense in the
episodic transitions such as those of the G major Quartet, D 887, slow movement,
and the String Quintet, D 956, slow movement. In both these examples, the new
key is apparently a ‘remote’ choice.
The technique seen in D 887-i, where an unharmonized melodic line summoned
up the transitional progression heard earlier, is condensed further in these slow
movements where it evokes an unheard progression. In the slow movement
of D 887 the chromatic fall travels fast from the starting key of E minor to the
disruptive G minor music of the ‘B’ section (Example 3.11a). To have harmonized
it would have been to dilute its sinister effect and to overstate what is so much
better left unstated (Example 3.11b shows the notional chord progression).33
Example 3.11 (a)–(b) D 887, second movement
(a) Bars 39–43
33
An alternative reading would interpret the melodic line as a potential bass line to
the transitional progression: I am grateful to Nicholas Marston for this suggestion.
3.11 (b) Bars 39–41, notional progression
This melodic transition has the effect of highlighting the E and E@, which (as
the major and minor sixth) belong in the constellation of elements forming the
major–minor ambivalence around the work’s overall key of G. And within the
slow movement, E–E@ link up with the D#–E inversion embedded conspicuously
in the accompanying texture to the opening theme: see Examples 3.12a and b.34
A structural detail links the slow movement’s transition with the first movement
of D 887: in both movements, the transition is re-run to introduce successive
statements of the second theme. (This therefore takes place within the ‘B’ section
of the slow movement, with the transitional passage now transposed to lead to
the restatement of the G minor material in F# minor at bar 63.) Since the slow
movement is in the compound form A B A1 B1 A11 (with coda), the transition has
a chance to reappear later, linking A1 to B1; and as the central A1 section follows
the pattern of the ‘improper’ rondo in being out-of-tonic, the transition here is
again transposed, now leading from B minor to D minor (bars 1184–1221).35
These regular recurrences at key points between contrasting sections, or between
subsections delineated by contrasting keys, lend this brief transition a powerful
aspect in the plan of the whole. Beyond its tonal context, it also picks up on the
relatively fleeting, march-like repeated crotchet figures heard in the ‘A’ theme,
intensifying them in preparation for the extreme intensity of the dotted-rhythm
version that marks the ‘B’ material.
With its march topic and repeated chords, the transition in D 887-ii is one
among the many ‘Winterreise moments’ in Schubert’s instrumental works; its
measured tread evokes ‘Gute Nacht’ (D 911/1), the opening song of the cycle.
Among Schubert’s transitions in the instrumental music, it is perhaps in the
34
While in this case for string players, D# and E@ are not necessarily identical, other
instances confirm Schubert’s penchant for notating enharmonic equivalents that drive his
modulatory explorations (examples from the shorter piano pieces are discussed later in this
chapter: see esp. n. 52 below and the discussion to which it refers).
35
On ‘improper’ rondos see Malcolm S. Cole, ‘Rondos, proper and improper’, Music
& Letters, 51 (1970): 388–99.
(a) Bars 1–6
(b) Motifs bars 1–3, 40–43

episodic transitions of the slow movements (and single piano pieces)36 that the
song connection most readily presents itself. As I have written elsewhere, ‘the need
for a quickly-effected modulation in expressing a poetic text is obvious’,37 and it is
partly this connotation that gives the elliptical transitions in the instrumental works
an impression of possessing songlike qualities. Besides the surface resemblance
to specific songs, which may in some cases (as with the Winterreise reference
suggested above) pre-date the songs in question, a deeper absorption of techniques
associated with songwriting runs beneath some of Schubert’s strategies in his
instrumental transitions.38
One of the most well-known and magical instances of an elliptical transition in
Schubert’s songs is that of ‘Der Musensohn’, D 764, highlighted in the literature
from Capell onwards for its enchanting change of key between verses 1 and 2
(reproduced between verses 3 and 4) in an ‘exotic’ third-related move to the mediant
major (Example 3.13a).39 Sheer joie de vivre (and the eager impatience expressed
at the start of verse 2) inform this particular transitional moment.40 Between the
end of one verse and the beginning of the next, the note b1 is transmuted from
third of G major to tonic of B major, with just the single common tone between
the two keys. As in the case of D 887-ii, to have spelled out the progression (in
the piano interlude, in the case of the song) would have destroyed the effect by
overstatement: Example 3.13b shows the implied progression in Schubertian
terms, via the augmented sixth.41
The move works equally effectively in the opposite direction, as comparable
examples from the piano sonatas show. In the minor-key slow movements of the
Sonata in B@ major, D 960, and the Sonata in C major, D 840 (the ‘Reliquie’),
the tonic note becomes the third of the submediant major for the ‘B’ section of
their episodic forms.42 The ‘A’ section of D 960-ii at its close spreads the notes
of its tonic (C# minor) chord through a total of three and a half octaves, finally
36
This latter category denotes here such works as the fantasies for solo piano and
piano duet, and the impromptus.
37
Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Poetic Transitions’, p. 261.
38
References to song in the discussion that follows focus on transitional progressions,
defined for this purpose as those that link the verses of a song, or the subsections within a
verse. For a particular angle on the relationship of the instrumental music and the songs see
Maurice J.E. Brown, ‘Schubert: Instrumental Derivatives in the Songs’, Music & Letters,
28 (1947): 207–13.
39
See Richard Capell, Schubert’s Songs (London: Ernest Benn, 1928), pp. 180–81.
40
The words at this point are: ‘Ich kann sie kaum erwarten, die erste Blum im Garten
…’ (I can scarcely wait for the first flower in the garden). The version of the song discussed
here is the ‘Zweite Fassung’ of 1828.
41
Adorno noted the exact correspondence between the key-move in D 764 and the
Trio of D 887-iii: see Burnham, ‘Landscape as Music’: 33–6.
42
The basic outline is, in D 960-ii, ABA1; and in D 840-ii, ABA1 B1 A11 with a sonata
form aspect to its key scheme (section B being in A@, and B1 in the tonic major).
Example 3.13 (a)–(b) ‘Der Musensohn’, D 764
(a) Bars 28–31
(b) Bars 29–31, hypothetical progression
sounding the fifth, G#, which becomes the leading-note of A major for section ‘B’
(Example 3.14). Thus, here, a tiny moment of ‘spelling-out’, enabling the LH to
return to its bass register, intervenes in what could have been the silence between
the end of ‘A’ and beginning of ‘B’. A more elliptical move is made in D 840-ii,
where the transformation of the note C from tonic of the ‘A’ section to third of A@
major for the ‘B’ section takes place within the silence between the close of ‘A’
and start of ‘B’. Here the final tonic chord at the end of the ‘A’ section is sounded
without its fifth, opening the way to the addition of A@ at the beginning of the next
bar to form the new tonic.43 In both D 960-ii and D 840-ii, while the key relationship
between the main sections is closer than in ‘Der Musensohn’, sharing as they do two
common tones, the suddenness with which the new key arrives nevertheless has the
effect (comparable to the song) of moving the new section into a different dimension.
Characteristically, Schubert endows the ‘quick’ instrumental transitions in his
episodic forms with a meaning far beyond their momentary effect. In D 840-ii, it
transpires that the transition from section A to section B forms part of a pattern of
‘mirror’ effects, with clear correspondences between transitions and retransitions.
The retransition from section B that prepares for the varied return of the opening
material (A1) is brilliantly conceived; the ‘B’ material is heard in the bass at bars
49–52, with chordal punctuation in paired quavers in the RH recalling the opening
43
See Example 3.15a below.
Example 3.14 D 960, second movement, bars 40–43
rhythmic shape of the ‘A’ theme.44 This combination of elements from both sections
leads to the virtuoso combinatorial display at bars 52 and following, whereby the
original ‘A’ theme is now accompanied with the ‘B’ material, spun in semiquavers
in a tenor voice, forming a distinctive countertheme enclosed within the 4-part
texture. (The textural fragment in this layout at bars 52–3 evokes ‘Gretchen am
Spinnrade’, D 118, with the spinning semiquavers and repeated bass pedal, and
expressive cantabile phrases in the top voice.45) At bar 49, with the beginning of
the retransition, the ‘B’ material in the bass arpeggiates the chords of A@ major and
then C minor, juxtaposed in reverse order to that of the transition between sections
A and B (Examples 3.15a and b).
The mirror pattern is preserved in the second transition, from sections A1 to
B (bars 74–5), together with the subsequent retransition to the final return of A11
1
at bars 104 and following (this latter section now features only vestiges of the
‘B’ material in the LH, as the movement draws towards its close). In this second
retransition, the LH figure with its major–minor arpeggiation (bars 101–3) again
effects a reversal of the progression that in this case originally took the music from
minor to major, simply by transforming its cadential third.
The reinterpreted third, as seen in ‘Der Musensohn’ and in the slow movements
of D 960 and D 840, is one of a number of tricks Schubert has up his sleeve
in the collection of legerdemain effects that shape his transitions. A comparable
device (and one to which he is particularly attached) is the instant transformation
of the tonic note to become the leading-note of the new key. In the ABA1 (plus
coda) form of D 956, slow movement, as Xavier Hascher has pointed out,46 the
keys of the ‘A’ and ‘B’ sections, E major and F minor respectively, are linked by
the enharmonic equivalence of their thirds. But unlike the mediant or submediant
move, the move directly from E major to F minor would have been ungainly. The
44
This texture has been foreshadowed at bars 30–32; section B, while possessing its
own distinctive theme, shares numerous elements with the ‘A’ material, most obviously the
rising scale figure.
45
Cf. D 118, opening bars, given in Example 4.14 below.
46
In his guest lecture, ‘Apropos of the slow movement of Schubert’s C-Major Quintet
D 956’, University of Oxford, Faculty of Music, 15 May 2000.
(a) Bars 20–24
(b) Bars 49–54

isolation and repetition of the note E following the A section’s tonic closure (bars
28–9: see Example 3.16), now trilled with the semitone above to cadence into
F minor, is a brilliant stroke.

Typically, this progression is of more than momentary import (although its

effect at the moment of transition is extremely powerful in itself). Its resonance
continues far into the ‘B’ section and beyond. As in D 887, so in D 956 the slow
movement shares transitional features with the first movement: in both movements,
though in different ways, the material heard in the new key is imbued with echoes
of the transition that introduced it. Example 3.16, already in the first bar of the F
minor episode, shows the persistence of the vii–i motif (E–F) that is to continue
beyond this, threaded through the second cello line. The retransition to A1 plays on
the semitonal motif (vii–i) in a sequence that was already planted during the ‘B’
section (compare bars 52–3 with bars 59–61, now played at the opposite dynamic
extreme: Examples 3.17a and b plot the outline progressions). It is in the tonal
playout of the coda that the ‘moment of transition’ is summoned up once again
(bars 91–4: Example 3.18) in order to re-invoke and to tame, finally, its wilder
elements, while leaving a lingering sense of disturbance in the memory.
Example 3.17 (a)–(b) D 956, slow movement, outline progressions
(a) Bars 52–4
(b) Bars 59–62
Beyond the sonata-type cycles of the piano sonatas, chamber works and
symphonies, the individual piano pieces explore the possibilities of tonal and
transitional design within a variety of formal experiments. Among them the
‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, D 760, constitutes a special case. Like the F minor piano duet
Fantasy, D 940, the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy compresses majestically into its notional
single-movement form a set of four individual movements: in D 760 these
comprise an opening Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo, a variations movement
(Adagio), scherzo (Presto, with inbuilt trio) and fugal finale, Allegro.47 Besides this
influential formal experiment, its special status clearly stems from the connection
to the song, D 489. With a view to focusing on the transitional procedures of the
47
Shortened reference to ‘the Allegro’ in the course of the discussion that follows
here is always to the first movement.
opening Allegro, it will be helpful first to clear up some confusion about its formal
design, as evinced particularly in the Introduction to the Associated Board edition
of the work.48 Howard Ferguson declares there that ‘it might appear at first sight
48
Howard Ferguson, (ed.), Schubert: Fantasy in C, The ‘Wanderer’ D. 760 (London:
Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, 1983).
that the melody of I [the Allegro con fuoco], bb. 112–131, is completely new, thus
suggesting rondo-form rather than sonata-form; but it is, of course, a development
of bar 2 of the 2nd subject (I, b. 47f)’. (The reference to rondo would have been
justified more by the return of the opening material in the tonic after Theme II.)
In fact the themes introduced at bars 1, 47 and 112 constitute the three principal
thematic statements in a quasi-sonata form ‘three-key’ exposition (see Examples
3.19a–c). Perhaps the term ‘development’ used by Ferguson of Theme III might
more appropriately be replaced by the idea of a ‘generative process’ here, with
each successive theme growing subtly from the previous theme or themes (as
marked by ‘x’ and ‘y’ on the examples).
Example 3.19 (a)–(c) D 760, Allegro con fuoco
(a) Bars 1–6
(b) Bars 47–50
(c) Bars 112–15

The two transitions of the Allegro’s three-key exposition deploy a variety

of tactics. Transition 1 is a clear example of the sonata form device of ‘false
transition’, of the type that sets up the expected Classical modulation but
then diverts to a more exotic key-choice for Theme II (thus comparable with,
for example, the transition in D 956-i). From the C major of the first thematic
presentation and the counterstatement (bar 18, marked pianissimo in contrast to
the fortissimo of the opening) the transitional build-up is directed apparently, via
the diminished seventh harmony, towards the dominant, reaching it definitively
(it seems) on the second approach, with the perfect cadence into G major at bar
45. The characteristic reinterpretation of the third that follows, with the note B
highlighted in bar 45, essentially descending chromatically to meet the third of
E major in bar 47 (Example 3.20a), and becoming the fifth of this key, brings
with it a reference to the keys of the original song ‘Der Wanderer’ (C# minor and
E major). The juxtaposition of G major and E major harmonies with only a single
thread of melodic line linking them is potentially jarring. But beneath this lead-in
is an implied harmonic progression of a smooth kind (G:I; e/E:V7c; E:I), as shown
in Example 3.20b.
Example 3.20 (a)–(b) D 760, Allegro con fuoco
(a) Bars 45–7
(b) Implied progression bars 45–7
As suggested above in connection with Ferguson’s invoking of rondo, episodic

aspects invade the sonata form plan here, with the reversion to Theme I in C major
after Theme II has played in E major; from C, the music then moves sequentially
to A minor, and it is this key that forms the launching-point for transition 2.
The powerful developmental passage in A minor beginning fortissimo at bar 83
gives way to a dialectic between the quieter lyrical phrases introduced at bar 963
and echoed again at bar 103, and the violent, dissonant and chromatic material
reasserted at bar 100 and then again at bar 105. This latter material, with its rising
sequential build-up, suggests that the music is ‘on the move’; but at this stage
its destination is unpredictable. Here, at bars 105–8, the juxtaposition of keys is
achieved with deliberately jarring effect, apparently unmitigated by the kind of
underlying ‘smooth’ progression contained in transition 1. However, the shock
tactics used at the moment where the harmony is wrenched onto the dominant
seventh of E@ (marked ffz) mask a logical set of connections. First, the G# heard in
the bass at bar 107 is reinterpreted enharmonically to become the seventh of the
V7 chord in the next bar; and, secondly, the note A onto which that G# resolves
becomes the leading note of B@ (the latter instantly taking the seventh to become
V7 of E@). The ‘missing links’ here create a compressed effect designed to jolt;
but Theme III by way of compensation for the drama that has preceded it settles
soothingly into a generously proportioned, lyrical thematic expression of its key.
Moreover it is introduced by a series of gradations both anticipating and winding
down into the theme itself. These ‘winding-down’ bars are centred on the A–B@
motif (derived from ‘y’ of Theme I) that originally wrenched the music towards the
key of Theme III, its violent effect now being gradually dissipated. This initially
brusque transition thus proves both connected and sympathetic to its surroundings.
In the passage discussed above, the direct connection between the surprising
harmonic move to V7 of E@ and the settled, lyrical Theme III in that key is formed
primarily by the precipitate downward scale joining the ‘surprise’ chord to the
anticipatory figures that wind down towards the theme’s arrival. Elsewhere in
Schubert’s transitions a scalic rush of this kind contains within itself the crucial
transitional move. Turning to the shorter individual piano pieces published
in sets, we find a powerful example of this process in the Impromptu in E@
major, D 899/2. The transition from section A to B of its alternating sectional
form is, significantly, launched at bar 80 from the tonic minor (to which the ‘A’
material has been repeatedly drawn). The transition’s ascending upward triplet
scale, marked with a crescendo, forms the equivalent of a conjuring trick: on
one side of it the music is in E@ minor; when it emerges at the other side, an
enharmonic respelling of G@ (where the scale peaked) has landed it in B minor (see
Example 3.21). A comparable trick is played in a later work in the same key, the
Piano Trio in E@ major, D 929 (first movement, transition 1): see Example 3.22.
For a composer possessing, as Schubert did, a rich tonal imagination, a
particular key could be linked with a cluster of associated key-colours in his mind;
in this case E@ major is paired with the minor enharmonic equivalent, B minor, of
its harmony on the flat sixth of the scale (C@).49 The apparently simple device of the
scale-figure bridging two areas of the form is invested with far-reaching harmonic,
tonal and modal choices: this is true both of the piano ‘miniature’, D 899/2, and
49
In D 899/2 the C@ can be traced back through the music of the ‘A’ section, and is
reiterated particularly insistently in the bars immediately preceding the transitional move
(see bars 77–9).
Example 3.21 D 899/2, bars 77–84
of the large-scale chamber work, D 929. In both, the crucial G@ harmony that,
enharmonically respelled as an F# major chord, propels the music toward B minor,
has already featured prominently in the cluster of keys around the tonic. D 899/2
apparently begins again in the tonic minor at bar 25, but twists away immediately
into its relative major, G@. When the ‘beginning again’ effect recurs at bar 36, the
same pitches (with chromatic adjustment in the second bar) are now harmonized
not in E@ minor but in G@ major (cf. Examples 3.23a and b). Already, ambivalent
properties are associated with G@. In the three-key exposition of D 929-i, this
element is introduced more dramatically over a longer stretch, but the run-up to
the transition to Theme II is coloured by similar harmonic and tonal choices to
those of D 899/2.
Within the set to which it belongs, the companion piece to D 899/2 in terms of
transitional tactics is D 899/4 in A@ major.50 Again here an enharmonic relationship
governs the transition to the central ‘B’ section functioning as trio to the ‘scherzo-
like’ outer sections.51 What would have been a relatively unsurprising choice
of the subdominant, D@, for the Trio is enhanced by its respelling as C#, and by
the use of the minor form of the subdominant (reasserting the influence of the
tonic minor heard at the start of the piece). Transitionally the simplest of devices,
and one often applied to V/V at the end of Classical first-movement sonata form
transitions, that is the introduction of the flattened seventh, here turns the tonic into
V7 of the subdominant (Example 3.24). But the enharmonic reinterpretation that
follows transforms it into a more ‘exotic’ key-move. (The idea has been planted
50
On its key-scheme and modal mixture see Chapter 2 above.
51
The scherzo reference is suggested by Thomas Kahlcke in the notes to Alfred
Brendel, Schubert: The Complete Impromptus (Philips CD 456 061–2, 1997), p. 5.
continued
Example 3.23 (a)–(b) D 899/2
(a) Bars 25–6
(b) Bars 36–7

Example 3.24 (a)–(b) D 899/4
(a) Bars 99–110
(b) Bars 161–71, outline progression

earlier with the enharmonic change at bars 19–271; and it is noticeable that the
flattened seventh, G@, that effects the transitional move has been repeatedly built
in to section A, from bar 39 onwards).52
Schubert’s careful matching of corresponding elements is shown in D 899/4
both in the transition to section B (where the two bars of V7 on either side of the
sectional divide, first in D@ and then in C# minor, form an enharmonically matching
pair); and in the retransition to section A (bars 159–70: Example 3.24b gives an
outline of the progression). There the long appoggiatura first heard as a 9 8 onto
the V7 chord in bars 109–10, and echoed throughout the Trio section, falls to the
dominant seventh of G# minor, and the matching pair of enharmonically related
V7 chords on either side of the change of key-signature (bars 163–4, 169–70)
mirror those of the transition and its follow-up at the beginning of section B. Neat
correspondences such as these exert control over formal detail in a piece whose
main material exudes a freely improvisatory character.
A particularly fluid relationship between transition and Theme II is seen in the
Impromptu in F minor, D 935/1.53 The form of the piece (essentially ABCABC),
while clearly consisting of a three-key exposition and recapitulation, also, with its
double presentation of a set of three themes, closely resembles the episodic forms
favoured by Schubert in his larger-scale works for some of their slow movements
and finales. Whereas in the three-key expositions of D 173 and D 703 the two
transitions belonged first to the ‘quick’ type and secondly to the more extended
developmental type, in the F minor Impromptu the relationship is reversed, with
the longer transition occurring between Themes I and II (sections A and B of the
tripartite form). However, this transition behaves deceptively. Indeed a certain
ambivalence is present from the start of the piece. The declamatory dotted-
52
Practical considerations would dictate the preference for B minor (in D 899/2) and
C# minor (in D 899/4) rather than C@ minor and D@ minor: obviously fewer accidentals are
involved. But the notional ‘sharpening’ and the visual setting apart of these two sections
by their enharmonic respelling affects the perception of their keys, comparable to the
effect of the F# minor Theme II in the Piano Sonata in B@ major, D 960, first movement.
(Commentators have noted Schubert’s penchant for the keys of C# minor and F# minor
generally in his late works.) In a different context, but also supporting the idea that notation
creates a sense of distance, James Sobaskie (‘Schubert’s Self-Elegies’, Nineteenth-Century
Music Review, 5/2 (2008): 71–105, 77–8) suggested apropos the key-signature and metre
of the G@ Impromptu, D 899/3 that ‘the visual effect of these notational rarities may have
been meant for the pianist, intended to elicit the elevated state of mind essential to a sublime
performance’. Clearly the popular ‘easy’ editions of D 899/3 transposed to G major missed
the point. Heinrich Schenker felt (regretfully) obliged to base his analysis on the G major
version since, as he explained, Schubert’s original version in G@ was virtually inaccessible
at the time (see H. Schenker, Der Tonwille: Pamphlets/ Quarterly Publication in Witness
of the Immutable Laws of Music, ed. William Drabkin (2 vols, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2005), vol. 2, p. 137).
53
For a discussion of this piece in the light of Schumann’s critical reception, see
Daverio, Crossing Paths, pp. 47–58.
rhythm gestures of the opening bars (Theme 1a) have the character of a dramatic
introduction: when the music begins to drive forward in moto perpetuo at bar 13
(Theme 1b), drawing on the etude-like semiquavers of bar 9, it is as if at this point
the first theme proper has arrived belatedly, rather as in the first movements of
D 667 and D 956, with their sense of a reflective introduction preceding the launch
of the more energetic first theme (Example 3.25).
In D 935/1, the counterstatement of Theme Ib (bars 17–21) effects a transitional
move into the relative major. At this point topical discourse, already high on the
agenda, takes over, with the concert-style version of Theme Ib in the new key
expressing a ‘brilliant’ pianistic topic (bars 21–42), complete with a passage in
double octaves.54 The light concert style and virtuoso brilliance of this passage
mask a characteristic intricacy of transitional procedure. By the time Theme II
finally arrives in A@ major at bar 45, an extended episode has intervened between
two moments of transition. Theme II, a beautiful, songlike chordal version
of Ib, marked sempre legato, could have entered at the first of these moments,
bar 21, in A@ (and indeed the episode begins as if this were the case). By the end
of the episode, the music has revisited the tonic F minor (bars 33–4) and from
there sequenced frenetically until it settles on the doubled-octave F as if it were
dominant preparation for Theme II. The second, now definitive, transitional move
into A@ major then unexpectedly follows (thus putting the preceding build-up in
the category of ‘false’ transition).55 It is as if the F is repeated until it melts into
F@, flat sixth of A@ major, to launch the V7–I cadence into the second theme.56
The progression that achieves this surprising last-minute twist has in fact been
predicted very audibly in bars 21–30, during the earlier A@ passage forming the
first part of the ‘episode’. Transition, episode and themes here work together in a
blend across the sectional divisions within the exposition.
The transition from Theme II to Theme III brings to the fore the prevailing
songlike character associated with these themes; as Daverio observed, theme III
is a ‘Dialogue without Words’, in the kind of format used by Felix Mendelssohn
in his Duetto, op. 38 no. 6 in A@ major.57 Again Schubert highlights an element
by repetition, in this case prolonging the arpeggiated chord of A@ major until it
54
The topical designation of ‘brilliant’ style used here refers to the definition
established in Leonard Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form and Style (New York:
Schirmer, 1980) pp. 19–20. The transformation of thematic material through different
topical character becomes a feature of later nineteenth-century sonata writing (the process
is perhaps most familiar from Liszt’s B minor sonata).
55
On this transitional type see Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Transitions’, p. 16.
56
This device is seen in a variety of other contexts, including the ‘Great’ C major
Symphony, D 944, first movement transition, and the ‘inter-movement’ transition in the
piano duet Fantasy in F minor, D 940, from scherzo to finale.
57
F. Mendelssohn, Lieder ohne Worte, vol. 3 (Bonn, 1837); see Daverio, Crossing
Paths, pp. 51–2. The impression of a self-contained piece within the Impromptu is
reinforced by its internal repeated-section form.
Example 3.25 D 935/1, bars 1–48

continued
dissolves into the minor at bar 69 for the entry of Theme III. Following the return
of the opening theme (Ia) at bar 115, he deftly transforms Ib into the tonic major
in the counterstatement, and reproduces the ‘concert-style’ episode, transposed,
with an emphasis on D@ now triggering the progression into the tonic major for
Theme II. The rather symmetrical form of the piece is completed by a return
to the tonic minor for theme III and the final recall of the ‘Introduction’, Ia, as
postlude. The clear expository and recapitulatory tonal scheme in D 935/1 fixes
its various transitions in an unmistakable sonata form frame, while the equally
distinct character of the three main thematic areas allies them with episodic forms.
A special category of transition is created in cases where the individual
sections have an even more pronounced character than in D 935/1, becoming the
equivalent of separate movements, as in the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, D 760, and the
piano duet Fantasy in F minor, D 940. Here the ‘joins’ between movements explore
a rich vein of transitional procedures. Particularly in the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy these
passages are invested with a weighty significance, partly through their connection
with the song. Between the opening Allegro in C major and the central Adagio
in C# minor (the enharmonic, and minor, form of its Neapolitan), the process
of transition is first adumbrated with the A@–G (i: bars 160–62 and following).
Characteristically, the figure is repeated, and the note G isolated, until it dissolves
into G# (bar 167); from this point on, the path to C# minor for the Adagio is clear.
The material used takes not only its rhythm (another familiar Schubert fingerprint:
the dactylic ± Öµ) from the song, but also, significantly, its harmonic progression
(see Examples 3.26a and b). This revolves around the augmented sixth chord (here
used in its ‘French’ form) on A, falling to the dominant, G#. In the song, this
questioning progression underpins the words ‘[und immer] fragt der Seufzer wo?
immer wo?’.58 Schubert’s music, and not only in the ‘Wanderer’ fantasy, asks this
question by such harmonic means particularly at formal junctures where it is on
the brink of entering a new tonal region: the recurring low trilled G@–F in the first
movement of the Piano Sonata D 960 in B@ major is a case in point.59
For the transition from the Adagio of D 760 to the Presto (scherzo movement)
in A@, two particular tactics are in evidence: the introduction of figures anticipating
the scherzo’s opening theme (see bars 236 and following) and the harmonic
preparation, here again approaching via an augmented sixth chord (on E, the key
in which the song ended) at bar 2443–4. Finally, in the transition from the scherzo
to the fugal finale, Schubert follows through from the ‘French’ sixth of the ‘immer
wo?’ motif on A@–G (iii: bars 545–51), after an intervening chromatic build-up,
by substituting an augmented sixth of the ‘German’ type (bars 586–93), again
on A@ falling to G, thus with dominant preparation coming full circle to C major
for the finale. The linked set of inter-movement transitions, coupled with their
references to the song, are among the elements that hold the four ‘movements’ of
D 760 together in a tighter framework than the notion of fantasy might suggest.
Moreover, it is with the recalling of the augmented sixth on A@, the chord that
served as transitional agent from scherzo to finale, that the resolute final cadence
of the whole fantasy is prepared (bars 704–20), at a length entirely befitting the
scale of the work.
Having mastered early in his career the Classical transition crafted in Mozartian
fashion, with clear dominant preparation and distinctly set off from Theme II,
Schubert developed in his sonata forms from at least the G minor Quartet, D 173
58
‘And my sighs constantly ask where?’ Further references to the questioning motif
occur throughout D 760, beyond the confines of the central variations movement based
on the song: besides the opening Allegro, cf. for example iii: bars 267–74, 295–302 and
following; and, reinterpreted harmonically, iv: bars 655–8.
59
The ‘questioning’ motif formed by this harmonic progression is linked with
moments of aporia in Schubert’s instrumental writing (where what comes next is more
than usually unpredictable): see, for example, the opening passage of the Piano Sonata in
A minor, D 845, first movement, and its subsequent reappearances. Further ramifications of
the wanderer’s question (and its eventual answer) in the instrumental music are considered
in Chapter 4 below.
Example 3.26 D 489, D 760
(a) ‘Der Wanderer’, D 489, bars 1–4, 20–23
(b) D 760, Allegro con fuoco, bars 14–17, 176–7

onwards what might be called an ‘anti-Classical’ transitional type, with its poetic
resonances and fluid relationship to its surroundings. In his episodic forms the
transitions, together with any retransitions, could serve to create a controlled
framework for music that in other respects could represent the wildness of
unbridled fantasy.60
60
Further on movements of this type see Chapter 6. A special case considered in
detail there is the slow movement of the Piano Sonata in A major, D 959, where fantasia
style invades the transition.
Chapter 4
Schubert’s Second Themes
With the intricate fashioning of his ‘poetic’ transitions, Schubert implicated

his second themes in a non-Classical transition-and-second theme complex:
it might appear that the second themes could thereby lose some of their own
distinctiveness. But a systematic survey of this element in his sonata forms shows
Schubert investing his second themes with a very particular character. In what
follows, this conclusion is supported by a series of case-studies, expanding on
my previously published work.1 These second themes are explored here in a
Schubertian framework beyond that of the Marxian definition that accords them
a distinctly lesser status in the hierarchy of sonata form elements.2 The topic is
expanded further by considering Schubert’s second themes in the context of other
thematic components, and other formal designs beyond sonata form. While the
second themes can profitably be viewed in the light of specific poetic reference in
the songs, a more general relationship to song can be seen in Schubert’s thematic
construction in the instrumental works. This goes beyond the conventional view
that both the songs and the instrumental music show Schubert as, above all, a
supreme melodist, or tunesmith.3
1
Wollenberg, ‘“Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück”’.
2
Adolf Bernhard Marx, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition (4 vols,
Leipzig, 1837–47), vol. 3, and the discussion in Marcia J. Citron, Gender and the Musical
Canon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 132–44 (‘Music as gendered
discourse’). Susan McClary’s statement in Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality
(Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), p. 69, that in Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’
Symphony, D 759, the ‘lovely, “feminine” tune’ (Theme II) ‘with which we are encouraged
to identify’ is then ‘brutally, tragically quashed in accordance with the destiny predetermined
by the “disinterested” conventions of the form’, seeing ‘Schubert’s ‘rejection of the pretty
theme and the affirmation of brutal reality at the end of the “Unfinished” Symphony’s first
movement’ as confirming the ‘inevitability of second themes yielding to first’ (ibid., p. 143)
clearly echoes the assumptions built into nineteenth-century sonata form definitions. But in
fact, looked at another way the situation here is less clear, since both Theme I and Theme II
of D 759-i begin lyrically but go on to release a markedly more powerful expressive effect
within the exposition, paralleled exactly in the recapitulation.
3
This notion is linked with the popular image of Schubert (expressed in the nickname
‘Schwammerl’) that has traditionally coloured the perception of his musical style, as
discussed generally in Chapter 1 above. It is certainly true that Schubert displayed a gift for
creating melodies that, once heard, imprint themselves on the hearer’s memory: an example
of a brief but powerful melodic statement possessing such qualities is at the opening of the
Klavierstück, D 946/1 in E@ minor. Many other factors make this piece memorable (not least
The starting-point for the first part of this enquiry could be Leonard Ratner’s
proposition that ‘thematic statements clarify and give profile to their respective
keys’.4 Considered in this light, Schubert’s second themes have a distinctly
unsettled relationship to the ‘respective keys’ in which they find themselves, at
least notionally, situated. As with the poetic transition, so the complex tonal profile
of the second themes is perhaps most familiar from examples in the late works.
But again with this phenomenon, a much earlier manifestation is found in the first
movement of the String Quartet in G minor, D 173. As observed in the preceding
chapter, its second theme keeps references to no fewer than three keys in play. And,
far from representing tonal ramblings, these relate, with great cogency, to the three
main key-centres of the exposition as a whole. Here then in embryo is the kind
of construction better known from one of Schubert’s greatest second themes, that of
the String Quintet, D 956, first movement.5 Within the prevailing Mozartian idiom
of the G minor Quartet, D 173, the second theme is firmly focused on its three keys,
driving purposefully through them to its goal.6 Nevertheless, it possesses a non-
Classical property of a highly significant kind: that is, its tonal open-endedness.7
(The situation is further complicated by the existence of a precedent in Mozart: the
second theme of the G minor String Quintet, K 516, first movement performs its
own transition within its first eight bars.8)
the unusual choice of key), including its modal duality, with tonic major and minor in play
both within the piece and in relation to the next in the set, as demonstrated by René Rusch
Daley in her paper ‘Schubert’s Drei Klavierstücke, D. 946, Nos. 1 and 2, and the Case of
the “Missing” C Section’ (16th Biennial Conference on 19th-Century Music, University of
Southampton, July 2010). The D 946 Klavierstücke have generated a number of published
studies: a recent contribution is Elizabeth Norman McKay, Schubert: The Piano and Dark
Keys (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2009), pp. 106–115.
4
Quoted in Hascher, Schubert, la forme sonate et son évolution, p. 29n. from L.
Ratner, ‘Harmonic Aspects of Classic Form’, JAMS, 2 (1949): 159–68, 167.
5
Other aspects of the thematic construction of these two examples are discussed
further below.
6
As I have shown elsewhere, this theme closely resembles Rossini’s in the Act II
Quintet of Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816), a finding that serves to emphasize their common
roots in the Italian opera buffa tradition. See Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Poetic Transitions’,
pp. 269–70, Exx. 3a and b.
7
See Ex. 3.1 above.
8
See Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Poetic Transitions’, p. 273, Ex. 5, bars 30 and following.
Derrick Puffett first drew my attention to the unusualness of these proceedings. Seemingly
uniquely for Mozart, the second theme introduced at bar 30 here begins in the tonic and ends
in the relative major. This trajectory is seen in my reading as resulting from ‘a reluctance
to leave the tonic which is so strongly felt that the arrival in B@ is delayed until well into …
theme II’ (ibid., p. 274). An alternative interpretation would see the true arrival of Theme
II as delayed until the key of B@ has been more firmly established; I am indebted to Neal
Zaslaw for this observation. In either case, Mozart blurs the boundaries here.
Schubert’s Second Themes 101
Perhaps the most remarkable feature that emerges on examining the

presentation of the second theme in D 173-i is the fragile status of its ‘official’
key, B@ major. Of the 16-bar statement of Theme II, only the first four bars are
in this key. The following four bars revert to the tonic key (which Schubert had,
characteristically, found rather difficult to leave), while the remaining eight bars
place the cadential phrases of the theme in the exposition’s third key, the dominant
minor. This kind of statistical profile, together with the reversion to the tonic, and
the exercising of multiple choices among the possibilities for the second key area,
are all characteristic features of Schubert’s later second-theme treatment. As with
its transitional procedures (discussed in the previous chapter), so with its treatment
of Theme II, this apparently Classically orientated quartet movement moves with
a broader vision beyond its relatively contained framework.
The tonal profile of Schubert’s second themes in the sonata form first
movements of his late piano and chamber works is overwhelmingly of the
‘unsettled’ type, developed to a fine art. Collectively they display a whole cluster
of symptoms of their condition. And this condition can be defined with reference
to a specific song, Schubert’s ‘Der Wanderer’, D 489.9 This is not to suggest that
the song necessarily influenced the instrumental works directly as regards their
second-theme treatment, but rather to draw from Schmidt von Lübeck’s poem,
in Schubert’s setting, a sense of what is expressed tonally in these instrumental
themes. The quintessential figure of the Wanderer is in himself, even without any
further elaboration, an expression of Romantic sensibility simply by virtue of his
constant, unsatisfied wandering: ‘Ich wandle still, bin wenig froh’ (I wander in
silence, with little joy).10 Significant for the discussion here is the question that
follows these opening words, ‘und immer fragt der Seufzer: wo?’ (‘and my sighs
constantly ask: where?’), together with the answer that is added when it returns
at the end: ‘“Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück”’ (‘“There, where you are
not, there is happiness”’).11 The oracular nature of this declaration is pointed up by
Schubert’s recitative-like setting of the words.
In the intervening sections of the song, Schubert responds to the elaboration
of the wanderer’s state that unfolds in the poem. For obvious reasons, landscape
is a vital element in the wanderer’s reflections, reaching a peak with his vision
9
Schubert here set verses by Schmidt von Lübeck, ‘an otherwise obscure doctor and
public administrator’ (John Reed, The Schubert Song Companion (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1985), p. 137).
10
The translations given here are based freely on Prawer, Penguin Book of Lieder,
pp. 36–7.
11
The full text of the final verse is:
Ich wandle still, bin wenig froh,/ und immer fragt der Seufzer: wo?
Im Geisterhauch tönt’s mir zurück: / “Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück”.
(A ghostly whisper returns the answer: ‘There … ’)
For a preliminary study of the song’s ethos in relation to Schubert’s second themes, see
Wollenberg, ‘“Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück”’.
of the ‘yearned-for land’: ‘Das Land, das Land, so hoffnungsgrün’ (‘The land, the
land, so green with hope’).12 The restlessness, the vision of elsewhere, the constant
searching contained in ‘Der Wanderer’, are all characteristic of Schubert’s second
themes within the sonata form designs of his instrumental music. The ‘symptoms of
their condition’ to be examined here are, as suggested above, manifested primarily in
their tonal profile: they concern especially the status of a theme’s notional key, and
the significance of the keys to which it may be drawn away from that starting-point.
Taking first of all a relatively mild case of the syndrome as shown by an
apparently tonally more settled theme, we find in the Piano Sonata in C minor,
D 958, first movement, a disturbance introduced after the first few bars of the
second theme that leads to a breakaway move. Despite the conventional choice of
relative major for Theme II here, Schubert expands its horizons beyond Classical
expectations. The introduction of D@ in the accompanying chordal texture at
bars 46–7 (see Example 4.1a) unsettles the ‘local tonic’; in retrospect the noticeable
leaning on the subdominant harmony, A@, within the first four-bar phrase unit becomes
more meaningful as the music moves flatwards, sequencing into D@ at bar 48.
The pianissimo dynamic here enhances the sense of a distant vision, or ‘vision of
another tonal scene’, far beyond the immediate surroundings.13 Structurally this
passage has the effect of parenthesis: the music could theoretically have proceeded
directly from bar 481 to bar 502, if with some considerable awkwardness at that
juncture. The variations format allows this fleeting vision of another landscape
to be recalled, now creating a diatonic relief to its more intensely chromatic
surroundings (Example 4.1b).
While, as suggested above, the character of Schubert’s second themes is formed
strongly by their tonal profile, before continuing to document the manifestations
of their ‘longing for elsewhere’ we might touch on another aspect that in its way
also has a powerful effect: that is, their melodic construction. Remarkably, the
first six bars of Theme II in D 958, first movement, proceed entirely in stepwise
fashion, marked legato (and already incorporating a variant, with the octave
pedal wrapped around the theme in bars 44–5). The point at which this stepwise
movement is broken, widening out to a third, is exactly the moment where the
D@ enters the chordal texture, offering the chance of greater tonal freedom. The
chant-like melodic formation has a special attraction of its own, but another factor
is involved: the relative simplicity of the melodic construction lends itself to the
variations treatment that ensues. (A close parallel to this is seen in the second
theme of the G major Quartet, D 887, first movement.14)
The longing manifested by the tonal character of Schubert’s second themes
takes a variety of forms. Perhaps the most intensely felt symptom is their ‘nostalgia
12
See ibid., 91, for a comparison with Mignon’s Lied, ‘Kennst du das Land’ (D 321).
13
Wollenberg, ‘“Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück”’: 92. The move, also
characteristically for Schubert, sets up repeated reference to the Neapolitan area in relation
to the original tonic of the movement.
14
See Example 3.5 above; further on the variations design in D 887-i see Chapter 8 .
(a) Bars 39–51
for the tonic’.15 The continual pull back to the key they have left behind hampers
their sense of belonging to their new key, evoking the words set later by Brahms
in his Lied op. 63 no. 8 (‘Heimweh, II’): ‘O wüsst ich doch den Weg zurück’
(‘O could I but find the way back!’).16 Most effortful in this direction is the second
theme of D 956-i. Again (so that this is evidently acquiring claims to be counted
as a Schubert fingerprint) the melodic line moves, chant-like, by step, until a way
back to the tonic is glimpsed, when it opens out to a fourth in order to prepare
the Phrygian cadence at bars 63–4 (see Example 3.8 above). As I have noted
elsewhere, the dominant on which this settles is not the local dominant, B@ major,
15
This notion may have originated with Westrup apropos of D 956, first movement,
second theme: J.A. Westrup, Schubert Chamber Music (London: BBC, 1969), p. 20 (‘… the
music reverts almost nostalgically to C major’).
16
See Prawer, Penguin Book of Lieder, pp. 98–9. Klaus Groth’s poetic text expresses
a longing to rest, ‘to cease all searching’ and return to the land of childhood, knowing only
‘gentle dreams’.
4.1 (b) Bars 53–65
but ‘it is, rather, G major, dominant of the original tonic key, which is prolonged
here in exquisite fashion for two bars, like a precious memory that one is reluctant
to leave’.17
One of the factors that lends this theme its exquisite character is Schubert’s
unerring sense of pacing here: bars 63–4 do not resolve into C major (this resolution
would have come too soon). The yearning is prolonged, and it is only after restarting
Theme II in E@, with the added dotted-rhythm upbeat figures in the second cello
17
Wollenberg, ‘“Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück”’: 93. The dwelling on
the G major chord here could be regarded as two-pronged, simultaneously looking back to
C major, poised on its dominant, while presaging the exposition’s third key area of G
(I owe this point to James Sobaskie).
part, that the resolution into C is now achieved by a non-dominant route. The E@–E$
upbeat figure that does this at bars 70–71 is of crucial significance to the movement
as a whole, evoking the major–minor ambivalence contained in its treatment of the
tonic key, as discussed in Chapter 2 above. Reversion to the tonic within Theme II
can itself take a variety of forms. In the ‘Trout’ Quintet, D 667, first movement, it
is as if at the point where the statement of the second theme approaches closure in
its key, which is the Classical choice of the dominant, E major, it takes a last look
back at the tonic key (bars 88–90: see Example 4.2) before doing so.18 The cadential
closure that follows is apparently unproblematic. But a chromatic detail introduced
in the lead back from A to E major (marked with an asterisk on the example) contains
the seeds of a greater disturbance to the tonality that is to ensue.
Following the restatement, rescored (thus a variation) of Theme II, which
replicates the brief diversion to A major and the return to E major noted above –
as if directly prefacing the expected closing section of the exposition in the
dominant – a surprising return to A major intervenes. This is no mere subdominant
approach confirming closure in E. Rather, it launches a developmental passage
(bars 100–09: Example 4.3) featuring fragmentation of material from Theme II,
contrapuntal elaboration and tonal exploration beyond the exposition’s horizons at
this point, with the turn from A major to C major in bars 106–9. The pianissimo
marking emphasizes the mysterious character of this intervention. The significant
detail here that effects the move first to A, then to C major, has grown from the
chromatic lead back commented on above (and asterisked on Example 4.2), in a
mirror image. And the whole passage ‘in parentheses’ at bars 1003–1141 proves to
have a longer-term resonance in a number of respects.19
Most immediately, C major offers a familiar Schubertian ‘way back’, in this
case towards the closing E major section of the exposition, by transforming the
C chord into an augmented sixth (bar 1094) in a passage replete with intricate
chromatic detail, mirroring and echoing the earlier semitonal motifs. Looking
further ahead, the C major interpolation, with its split octave tremolo pedal in the
piano animating the sustained C pedal in the double bass, predicts the opening of
18
This kind of proceeding links in with the importance of memory and reminiscence
in Schubert’s instrumental music, a quality recognized by numerous commentators including,
among nineteenth-century critical sources, Robert Schumann in his review of Schubert’s
‘Great’ C major Symphony, D 944, NZfM, 12 (1840): 81–3, in Schumann, Gesammelte
Schriften über Musik und Musiker, ed. Kreisig, vol. 1, pp. 459–64 (see Music and Musicians:
Essays and Criticisms by Robert Schumann, trans., ed. and annot. Fanny Raymond Ritter, 4th
edn (London: William Reeves, 1920), pp. 48–56, also Schumann on Music: A Selection from
the Writings, trans., ed. and annot. Henry Pleasants (New York: Dover, 1988), ‘Schubert’s
Symphony in C (1840)’, pp. 163–8); and, among discussions in modern scholarship, Carl
Dahlhaus (‘Sonata Form in Schubert’) and Scott Burnham, ‘Schubert and the Sound of
Memory’, Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000): 655–63, together with the articles by John
Daverio, Walter Frisch and John M. Gingerich in the same issue, which Burnham introduces.
19
The superficially ‘sociable’ nature of the ‘Trout’ Quintet has perhaps precluded the
work’s receiving as intensive analytical attention as it might be thought to deserve.
the development section (see Example 4.4). Taken together, these three areas – C,
E and C majors – form a tonal palindrome. But for a longer-range meaning we
need to return to the opening of the movement. In the introductory ‘curtain’, the
passage of F major marked pianissimo (bars 11–18) has a very similar effect to
the C major intervention later.20 The ramifications of the F–C tonal subtext
20
Brian Newbould introduces the apt term ‘curtain’ in his study Schubert and the
Symphony: A New Perspective (London: Toccata Press, 1992), p. 106 and p. 112. Schubert’s
pervade not only the first movement, but the work as a whole (most obviously
in the choice of key for the second movement, Andante in F major). Finally, as
introductions are referred to in similar terms by James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy,
Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-
Century Sonata (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 89. Probably Schubert’s
most atmospheric use of the device is at the opening of the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony, D 759,
with its ‘oracular’ pronouncement (see Gülke, Franz Schubert und seine Zeit, p. 197).

regards that glance back at the tonic, A major, towards the close of Theme II with
which this discussion began, we find that it generates a particular effect in the
parallel portion of the recapitulation. There the transposition (at bars 2803–822)
down a fifth produces one of the glimpses of D major that are threaded through the
various movements, linking them to the work’s centre: the variations on the song
‘Die Forelle’, D 550, transposed to D major for the purpose.21
21
Further on the song and its role in D 667 see Chapter 8 below. On the circularity
in tonal and harmonic terms between Theme II in exposition and recapitulation of another
Because reversion to the tonic within the second area of a sonata form
exposition is so clearly a Schubert fingerprint, the alert listener may be primed to
pick up the signals even when they are not followed through. Thus in the ‘Great’
C major Symphony, D 944, first movement, with the ‘Turkish’-style second theme
beginning in E minor, the tonal instability perhaps partly attributable to the exotic
stylistic frame of reference leads the harmony almost teasingly towards a V7 chord
in C, but constantly deflects its resolution into that key (bars 153–63 and bars
183–93: see Examples 4.5a and b).22 The V7 chord offers a gateway to the tonic
that is left unbroached: the possibility of return so tantalisingly held out at each
approach remains unfulfilled. Notable on the second approach is the diversionary
overture-style peroration in G major, the exposition’s eventual end point;23 the
fourth and final approach brings an even more dramatic twist to E@ (Example 4.5b,
bars 1874–93), linking with the movement’s A@–E@ subtext. The transposition
down a fifth at the parallel point in the recapitulation produces an A@ harmony,
completing the reference.24
As implied earlier, a symptom of tonal instability common to many of
Schubert’s second themes is the denial of their key by a series of ‘avoidance’
tactics; this can sometimes be taken to the kind of extreme noted above in the case
song-based chamber work, the String Quartet in D minor, D 810 (‘Death and the Maiden’),
first movement, see Wollenberg, ‘“Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück”’: 96.
22
On the link with the movement’s introduction see Chapter 9 below.
23
A stylistic element that strongly influences Schubert’s symphonic writing (among
other areas of his oeuvre) is that of the overture with its rapid, ‘sensation-seeking’ pile-up
of keys in sequential or other repetitive designs.
24
These E@ and A@ harmonies act as dominants to the keys of the interludes that
follow (in which the fragment of the introduction is recalled).
(a) Bars 153–63

4.5 (b) Bars 183–93

of D 173, first movement, where we found only a quarter of the total second theme
was in its appointed key. In the String Quintet first movement, Theme II initially
luxuriates in its given key, the flattened mediant major, but the pull of other places
leaves the theme as a whole with only half of its 40 bars ‘conceived within the
framework of E@ major’.25 The most extreme case seems to be the Piano Trio in E@
major, D 929, first movement. The exposition here is a tour de force, its transition
one of Schubert’s most exhilarating feats. After this level of excitement, Theme II
when it enters is incapable of settling down. As I have observed elsewhere:
Its perturbations are expressed in, once again, a chronic tonal instability, to such
an extent that the theme appears … to be ‘of no fixed tonal abode’. During the 42
bars of this section, the second theme’s ‘official’ tonality of B minor – prepared
by its dominant – appears only in the first seven bars. On the other hand, the
second theme regains the tonic (E@ major) twice, for a few strongly-defined bars
in that key, before modulating to the dominant … .26
More perhaps than any other of the themes considered here, Theme II of D 929-i
gives the impression of searching for its desired place, akin to the wanderer in the
song and, as a corollary, experiencing dissatisfaction and restlessness within each
area it briefly inhabits before moving on. This theme perhaps comes closest of all
to the idea of the eternal wanderer. As in the String Quintet, so Theme II here is
open-ended, finishing not in its starting key of B minor but in B@, the exposition’s
third key area.27
By comparison with their second themes, the opening themes of Schubert’s sonata
form movements can be said generally to be more firmly rooted in their appointed
tonic key. But their tonal profiles may nevertheless be complicated in ways that do
not so much unsettle the tonic as serve to signal (and perhaps explore) areas that will
be significant in the movement’s tonal scheme and beyond.28 The tripartite statement
of Theme I in D 960-i (discussed in Chapter 7 below) sites its central section in
G@, enharmonically predicting the key of Theme II, F# minor. But the wrapping
of the tonic B@ major in the outer sections around this keeps it anchored. While
25
Wollenberg, ‘“Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück”’: 94.
26
Ibid.: 94–5; the phrase ‘no fixed tonal abode’ is cited from Kenneth Hamilton,
Liszt: Sonata in B Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 36.
27
Such behaviour, while supporting David Beach’s suggestion (apropos of D 887-i)
that Schubert merges themes and transitions (see Chapter 3, n. 26 above), does not negate
the thematic character clearly delineated from the preparation and start of Theme II. The
E@–[C@] b–B@ trajectory traced in the three-key exposition of D 929-i is suggestive of the
equivalent progression in D 960-i, with its flat submediant, enharmonic and Neapolitan
relationships: see further below.
28
Where the first movement features an introduction or ‘curtain’ (in the tempo
of the movement and continuous with what follows) before Theme I proper enters, the
introduction typically takes this function vis-à-vis the tonal scheme, as in D 667-i.
the punctuating G@–F trill, making its first appearance in the movement during the
opening part of Theme I, already points the way, there is an even more significant
indication of G@ within the phrases of the theme. The sequential descent (returning
from a briefly tonicized chord II, bars 134–153) in the LH from G through G@ to F
contains within its short space the whole trajectory of the work’s finale.
The Sonata in A major, D 664, possesses one of Schubert’s most beautifully
made first movements: the whole work has an exquisite quality that should not,
however, be allowed to divert attention from the tonal (and other) subtleties beneath
its polished surface.29 Theme I of the first movement has a distinct air of setting a
tonal agenda. The strategies employed here are very similar to those of D 960-i,
Theme I. In D 664-i, Theme I indicates, within its closed tonic statement, the cluster
of keys around the tonic that will drive much of the music not only of this movement
but also of the other two movements of the work. Here a tonal subtext of B minor–F#
minor is firmly placed on the work’s agenda at the start. The tripartite structure of
Theme I in D 664-i most obviously, in terms of non-tonic moves, places its central
section in the submediant, F# minor (bars 84–121: Example 4.6). But within the outer
sections, tonic-based, that surround this, another off-tonic move introduces the
equally significant key of B minor. Tracking these two keys through what follows,
we find Theme II, after its initial (very early) closure in its key of E, revisiting the
tonic with the backward glance at A major in bars 283-4–301 (Example 4.7); this
leads it to summon up the F# minor tonality linked with that key in Theme I, with
the V ^3 at bar 303 that launches the chromatic descent to V of E in order to re-close
in that key. And that chord is a reminiscence of the V ^3 of F# minor on which the
central area of Theme I constantly harped.
Further into the movement the development section opens by mimicking phrase
a1 from the eight-bar first section of Theme I (whose format is the Classical a b
a1 c, arranged in two-bar units). In phrase a1 there, rather subtly and with piquant
effect, the exact pitches of the original melody are reproduced, re-harmonized in
B minor, with just one change at the end to give the required dominant (cf. Example
4.6, bars 1–2 and 5–6). Within that context, B minor constitutes a tonicized chord
II, preparing the perfect cadence in the tonic that forms phrase c in bars 7–8. At
the start of the development section Schubert takes his cue from the close of the
exposition, in E major, constructing the equivalent a1 phrase now transposed a
fourth down: its key as a result is F# minor. And at the close of the development
section, the retransition is played out in a way that emphasizes the A major–F#
minor ambivalence of Theme I: the retransition here makes a dual approach to
the recapitulatory ‘double return’ at bar 80 (see Example 4.8). Launched on each
29
The popular designation ‘little’ A major sonata to distinguish it from D 959 may
have contributed to the relative neglect analytically of D 664. Another factor in this is the
uncertainty over its date, which might seem to hamper the kind of enquiry that traces a
chronological development through a genre. Krause, Die Klaviersonaten Franz Schuberts,
seems to treat D 664 as definitely a work of 1819 (p. 116 and p. 143) while listing it as it has
been traditionally dated (1819/1825?) in his Table A, p. 14.

Example 4.7 D 664, first movement, Theme II, bars 25–33

approach from the classic dominant pedal point (animated by the dactylic figures
from Theme II), it cadences the first time too abruptly in A, without enabling a smooth
run into the return of Theme I. On the second approach a stroke of genius provides
the vision of a far more imaginative route, finding the way back by means of the F#
minor passage from the central section of Theme I, which with a natural ease (and
a non-classical progression at this point) leads seamlessly into the recapitulation.
Tracking B minor and F# minor beyond the first movement, we find in the
monothematic sonata form of the middle slow movement (Andante) that this
movement’s opening theme, too, contains an ambivalence towards its tonic and
relative minor (D major and B minor): see Example 4.9.30 The element of ambiguity
is heightened in Theme II (based on Theme I), which begins by hovering on the
dominant of its apparent key, B minor, then moves to the dominant seventh of F#
major (if we read its modal identity from the preceding context), contradicting
this in the next bar with F# minor (see Example 4.10); this then remains the key of
Theme II through to its (deflected) close at bars 25–6.31 The ‘piquant’ effect here
is intensified by the long appoggiaturas (asterisked on the example), which have
acquired more acute dissonant implications than in the opening theme.
Theme I of the sonata form finale (Allegro) continues to refer to B minor
and F# minor within the first paragraph of the movement, as if inheriting these
elements from the preceding movements.32 The finale additionally recalls the
relationship between the keys juxtaposed at the exposition’s close and the start of
the development in the first movement, that is, E major and F# minor. The trick of
reproducing the pitches of the opening phrase with new harmonic interpretation
seen in the first movement is reused with Theme I of the finale at the beginning of
the development (see Examples 4.11a and b, pp. 124–5). The compact format of D
664 serves to intensify the presence of these harmonic and tonal correspondences.
It is thus now possible to extend the suggestion made apropos of Schubert’s
second themes, that ‘it is the tonal plan of these themes that gives them their
special expressive force’ also to the opening themes of his sonata form movements,
where it renders these, too, ‘all the more meaningful in relation to the movement
structures in which they figure’.33 Another factor in forming their character
is at work behind the scenes; this is the variation process with which Schubert
characteristically elaborated on his themes, not only in sonata form movements,
30
Just prior to this, the coda of the first movement provides a reminder of the ‘tonal
agenda’ in its reflections on Theme I, using phrase a1 (B minor) and an interrupted cadence
onto the submediant, F# minor, before the final cadence.
31
The transitional nature of the proceedings (referring to Beach’s formulation: see
n. 27 above) is belied by the thematic character strongly signalled by the melodic lead-in at
bar 15 (what Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, p. xxv, call ‘caesura-fill’)
and the new accompaniment texture in bar 16.
32
It also reviews the key of the slow movement, D major (bars 12–13, 16–17) among
these.
33
Wollenberg, ‘“Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück”’: 96.
continued
but also in episodic forms. Returning to the first case of tonal instability cited
above, we find that the ‘simple’ stepwise contour noted there in Theme II of D
958-i lends itself particularly to the diminution-style minore variation with its
moto perpetuo semiquaver figuration built around the notes of the theme at bars 67
and following (Example 4.12; cf. Example 4.1a).34 More subtly, the predominantly
34
This forms the second variation on the theme within the set.
stepwise lines of the ‘A’ theme in the A major Sonata, D 959-ii are an effective
vehicle for the variation in texture around the theme on its return in section A1.35
The unitary melodic character observed in these examples is complemented
by, often, a remarkably unitary rhythmic definition of the theme. One of the most
extreme examples is Theme II of D 887-i; each individual phrase unit is formed
in the ‘x’ rhythm of the first until the whole pattern comes round
again, with a rhythmic variation at the beginning.36 (This kind of rhythmic profile
was taken up by Brahms, for example in the variations theme of his Sonata in E@
major for Clarinet and Piano, op. 120 no. 2, third movement.37) Even in a theme that
35
Further on the whole ABA1 design of D 959-ii see Chapter 6 below.
36
For the theme, see Example 3.5 above.
37
A different kind of affinity between Schubert and Brahms in respect of their thematic
construction is seen in the opening of Schubert’s A minor Quartet, D 804, where the first two
two-bar phrases are essentially based on a shared rhythmic and intervallic pattern, decorated
Example 4.11 (a)–(b) D 664, finale
(a) Bars 1–15
apparently unfolds in leisurely lyrical fashion, such as Theme II of the ‘Unfinished’

Symphony, D 759, first movement, it transpires that an obsessive patterning formed
and developed in the second phrase; compare Brahms’s identical procedure in the first four
bars of his Sonata in F minor for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 120 no. 1, first movement (also
based, like Schubert’s theme, on the descending triadic motif). For an extended study of
Brahms’s thematic construction see Walter Frisch, Brahms and the Principle of Developing
Variation (Berkeley, CA and London: University of California Press, 1984).
(b) Bars 84–8
of tiny fragments is the basis of the thematic construction: see Example 4.13 (with
the motifs marked ‘x’ and ‘y’ basically making up the whole line).38
The second theme of D 759-i can be seen to be constructed along the same sort
of generative lines as some of Schubert’s most expressive song melodies. In fact,
spinning out as it does from the two intervallic cells introduced at the start, the
falling fourth and the upward step, it resembles exactly the process that produces
the vocal line in the Lied ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, D 118 of 1814 (Example 4.14).39
The second theme of D 759-ii, starting in the interesting choice of the relative (C#)
minor at bar 64, also spins out in a long and seemingly unending line, primarily
38
On a possible Mozart model for its overall construction, see Beth Shamgar, ‘Schubert’s
Mozart: Some Reflections on the Stylistic Origins of the “Unfinished” Symphony’,
Mitteilungen der Internationalen Stiften Mozarteum, 35/1–4 (1987): 84–104; and Chapter
5 below.
39
Folk tradition may also be at the root of such themes: Gülke, Franz Schubert und
seine Zeit, p. 197 (see also p. 214, n. 76) notes the correspondence between Theme II of D
759-i and a Viennese popular song.

Example 4.14 ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, D 118, bars 1–11

from a single interval, the ascending third: the tonal space it characteristically opens
up touches on F major (bars 74–5) and resolves into C# major, reinterpreted as D@
(bars 82–5 and following). The solo woodwind colours applied to the melody (first
clarinet, then oboe, then flute) enhance the magical effect.
Most obsessive of all in their construction are those themes that exist in a
symbiotic relationship with their accompaniment (again a feature detectable in
Schubert’s Lieder, where it can carry multiple meanings in relation to the poetic
text).40 Among instrumental examples are the themes of the Quartettsatz, D 703,
and the Piano Sonata, D 958, first movement; and the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony,
D 759, first movement, Theme I, which happens to share the Quartettsatz’s
returning-note motif, also shared by D 958-i (see Example 4.15). Where such
‘symbiotic relationships’ of theme and accompaniment are combined with
references among the themes of a movement, as in the Quartettsatz and D 958-i,
the network of connecting motifs becomes almost overpoweringly intense (see
Examples 4.16a–c for the motivic references among Themes II, III and IV of
D 703, and cf. Example 3.4 above (bars 1–13) for their collective reference back
to the characteristic motifs of Theme I).41
A special case is formed by the accompaniment to Theme II of D 887-i, which
feeds totally from its tune for its rhythmic character. This ‘homorhythmic’ process
again is ideally suited to the ensuing variations treatment of the theme, allowing
the texture to unfold in different ways, and using the quartet medium imaginatively
in doing so. But the co-dependent relationship shown in the original presentation
of Theme II here goes a step further, connecting its accompanimental texture to
Theme I by means of the reference to the chromatic fourth motif that formed the
bass to that theme, now deftly embedded in Theme II’s violin 2 and viola parts.42 If
Schubert’s themes indeed merge, as Beach suggested, with transitions, they can be
seen also to merge with their accompaniments and with the surrounding thematic
elements. It is a sign of Schubert’s compositional virtuosity that all this can be
achieved while preserving (indeed intensifying) both the memorability and the
strongly marked character of his instrumental themes.
40
This too is found in D 118 (‘Gretchen’).
41
As an experiment, regarding their thematic interconnections, if Theme II (Example
4.16a) is transposed to G major its relationship to Theme III (Example 4.16b) becomes
abundantly clear.
42
See Wollenberg, ‘“Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort ist das Glück”’: 94, citing Dahlhaus,
‘Sonata Form in Schubert’, p. 8.

Example 4.16 (a)–(c) D 703
(a) Bars 27–34
(b) Bars 93–9

(c) Bars 142–9

Chapter 5
Schubert and Mozart
For Schubert, Thursday 13 June 1816 was, as he began in his diary entry, ‘a
clear, bright, fine day’ which ‘will remain [with me] throughout my whole life …
O Mozart, immortal Mozart …’.1 Thus he described the experience of hearing a
Mozart string quintet at a Viennese musical salon to which he himself contributed
performances. As Elizabeth McKay puts it, quoting from these ‘few pages of a
rare document in Schubert’s hand, a notebook, in which he recorded events and
thoughts’ for five days during June 1816 (and later, on 8 September), Schubert here
‘enthused over the beauties of the music and the unforgettable impression it made’.2
This entry from what is essentially the composer’s private diary throws light on his
deep devotion to Mozart’s music and on the impact this particular work, the string
quintet he heard that day, could have on his impressionable and receptive musical
mind. More than that, he felt it deeply imprinted on his heart (‘ins Herz tief, tief
eingedrückt’) and believed that such beneficent impressions had the power to touch
our souls enduringly (‘O wie unendlich viele solche wohlthätige Abdrücke eines
lichtern bessern Lebens hast du in unsere Seelen geprägt’).3 His words convey the
intense spiritual and perhaps even physiological effects of listening to the work
presumably for the first time. It was certainly not Schubert’s first encounter with
Mozart.4 But it is the first such documentary record the composer has left us of what
was indeed to be a lifelong love of Mozart’s music.
1
McKay, Franz Schubert, p. 61 (quoting from Deutsch, Documentary Biography,
pp. 42–3). Also quoted (from O.E. Deutsch, Schubert: die Dokumente seines Lebens
(Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1964), NSA, VIII/5, p. 42 f.), in Walther Dürr, ‘Von Modellen und
Rastern. Schubert studiert Mozart’, in Mozart-Studien, I, ed. Manfred Hermann Schmid
(Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1992), pp. 173–93, p. 173: ‘Ein heller, lichter, schöner Tag wird
dieser durch mein ganzes Leben bleiben … O Mozart, unsterblicher Mozart …’.
2
McKay, Franz Schubert, p. 61. The location of the salon, and which precise work
from amongst the Mozart quintets was performed, are unknown.
3
Quoted in Dürr, ‘Von Modellen und Rastern’, p. 173. The passage is described by
Dürr as ‘a “romantic” hymn’ (‘ein “romantischer” Hymnus’). Interestingly, Maintz (Franz
Schubert in der Rezeption Robert Schumanns, p. 56) produces a parallel observation
regarding Schumann’s reception of Schubert when she refers to his 1838 review of Schubert
sonatas as being couched ‘in almost hymnic tone’ (‘in geradezu hymnischen Ton’).
4
McKay refers also (Franz Schubert, pp. 22–3) to his acquaintance with Mozart’s
symphonies through orchestral rehearsals at the Stadtkonvikt (Imperial and Royal
Seminary) in Vienna where he was accepted as a pupil and choirboy in 1808; and (p. 28)
to his having seen Die Zauberflöte by 1812. The evidence for Schubert’s encounters with
Mozart’s music is summarized at greater length in Shamgar, ‘Schubert’s Mozart’: 84–9.
An aftermath occurred when in 1824 Schubert borrowed the scores of

Mozart’s string quintets from Josef Hugelmann, ‘a keen amateur musician’, who
had transcribed them for piano duet; Schubert claimed to have taken them with
him ‘by mistake’ on his visit to Zseliz, where he was house guest and musician
of the Esterházy family at their country estate during the summer.5 As McKay,
following Deutsch, documents, Hugelmann was (reasonably enough) angry on
learning that they had not been left as arranged with Schubert’s brother, Ferdinand
for collection by their owner.6 Perhaps Schubert’s ‘mistake’ stemmed from a
reluctance to relinquish these precious copies of works by Mozart that meant so
much to him, and this may have lain beneath the display of annoyance that he
himself put on in a letter to Ferdinand (who had patiently asked: ‘Please do let
me know where the music in question might possibly be, so that I may pacify this
raging monster’).7 Besides this, Mozart’s works were regularly in the repertoire
of the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, whose concerts Schubert attended
and was involved in.8 Isolde Steinhauser makes the point that Schubert in Vienna
would have encountered, and even worked alongside, musicians and others who
had played a part (perhaps literally) in Mozart’s life.9
The biographical considerations set out above represent some of the main
documented traces of Schubert’s opportunities to form an attachment to Mozart’s
music. (Others are mentioned in the course of the discussion that follows.) A source
of a different kind is formed by Schubert’s music itself, which arguably bears witness
to his absorption of Mozart into the sound world and compositional concept of his
own works. In the literature dating from the earlier twentieth century, it became
almost a commonplace to refer to the influence of the trio of ‘Viennese Classical
masters’ (Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven) on Schubert. Thus Jack Westrup, in the
symposium edited by Gerald Abraham, traced specific relationships to individual
works of these three in Schubert’s chamber music. Regarding the early string trios,
Westrup commented: ‘The style is very much what one would expect from a boy
who had been brought up on the eighteenth-century classics … in Vienna.’10 Mosco
Carner in the same volume sees Schubert’s first three symphonies as modelled on
5
McKay, Franz Schubert, pp. 198–9.
6
Ibid., p. 199.
7
Ibid.
8
See McKay, Franz Schubert, p. 75 on Schubert’s appearing ‘on a list of composers,
including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven’ whose music was to be performed in the society’s
1818 season.
9
Isolde Steinhauser, ‘“ … die Zaubertöne von Mozarts Musik”: Mozart-Aspekte bei
Franz Schubert’, Acta Mozartiana (Mitteilungen der deutschen Mozart-Gesellschaft), 25
(1978): 104–22, passim.
10
Jack Westrup, ‘The Chamber Music’, in Gerald Abraham (ed.), Schubert: A Symposium
(London: Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 88–110, p. 88.
Schubert and Mozart 135
Haydn and Mozart; Carner characterizes the fifth symphony as Schubert’s ‘conscious
farewell to the two masters of his youth’.11
The suggestion conveyed by these and similar observations in the Abraham
volume is that Schubert’s indebtedness to these models in his early works was
a prelude to finding his own voice.12 At the opposite extreme is Charles Rosen’s
contention that ‘in his large instrumental works [Schubert] was always tied to
Mozartian principles’; this suggests a dependence of a very general kind that
Schubert never shook off.13 Certainly Schubert’s engagement with Mozart was
manifested in his music beyond the stage where it was (as Westrup and Carner
observed) a formative influence in Schubert’s earlier years. The traces of Mozart
in Schubert’s music in fact form a complex, many-faceted phenomenon that resists
generalization. Its manifestations and nuances are explored here, drawing together
the diverse threads from the literature and the musical works, and offering new
perspectives on the topic.
Discussions of Schubert’s links with Mozart are to be found scattered through
the existing literature, ranging from relatively brief references in general surveys
of his music and life, to individual articles focusing specifically on the subject.
A particularly substantial investigation is contained in Dürr’s article exploring the
question of modelling by Schubert on Mozart: Dürr’s interest here is primarily
in their sonata forms, which he documents in detail in order to exemplify the
relationship between their formal designs.14 Musicologists in recent times have
experienced discomfort in general with notions of ‘influence’, thereby questioning
the kinds of musical criticism that were endemic in earlier writings. These typically
rested on assumptions that influence could simply be identified, seeming not to
doubt the validity of the author’s impressionistic perceptions of, for instance,
‘Mozartian’ qualities in Schubert. But rather than rejecting it altogether, more
recent scholarly work such as that of John Daverio has taken the study of influence
in music to new levels of precision and refinement.15 And getting to the heart of
11
Mosco Carner, ‘The Orchestral Music’, in ibid., pp. 17–87, pp. 17–19.
12
A composer’s perspective on this is contained in the advice offered by Robert
Schumann to the 21-year-old Carl Reinecke: ‘That you cannot yet provide something quite
your own, that reminiscences of [your] predecessors resonate [in your music], should not
disconcert you. Young as you are, all creation is more or less reproduction; so must the
ore pass through many cleansings before it becomes pure metal.’ (‘Daß Sie noch nicht
ganz Eignes geben können, daß Erinnerungen an Vorbilder durchklingen, möge Sie selbst
nicht irremachen. In so jungen Jahren wie Sie stehen, ist alles Schaffen mehr oder weniger
Reproduktion, so muß das Erz viele Wäschen durchgehen, ehe es gediegenes Metall
wird.’) (Schumann to Reinecke, 22 January 1846, quoted in Maintz, Franz Schubert in der
Rezeption Robert Schumanns, p. 9; translation mine.)
13
Charles Rosen, ‘Schubert and the Example of Mozart’, in Newbould (ed.), Schubert
the Progressive, pp. 1–20, p. 20.
14
Dürr, ‘Von Modellen und Rastern’.
15
Daverio, Crossing Paths.
the matter was Reinhard Strohm’s question, voiced at a Bach symposium, ‘Does
music have a memory?’16
Examples 5.1a and b show a powerful model, from Haydn’s Creation, for the
slow introduction to Schubert’s Symphony no. 4 in C minor, D 417 (the ‘Tragic’).
The strong resemblance between Haydn and Schubert here has been remarked
on by Brian Newbould.17 We can add a further model for both of these: Mozart’s
slow introduction to his ‘Dissonance’ Quartet in C major, K 465 (see Example
5.1c), and here Robert Winter has pinpointed the resemblance between Mozart
and Schubert.18 The example gives a glimpse, first of all, of the kind of complex
interrelationships (or ‘intertextuality’) that can emanate from a particular work.
Secondly, it chimes in with the compelling suggestion made by Charles Rosen in
his contribution to the conference on nineteenth-century music held in Oxford in
1988.19 Apropos of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, Rosen made the point that the
identification of a model is greatly strengthened in cases where the work serving
as source is demonstrably unusual, even unique, amongst its composer’s oeuvre.
Because Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in A major, op. 101, has just such features within
the series of his piano sonatas, Rosen showed that its influence on Mendelssohn’s
Piano Sonata in E major, op. 6 can all the more confidently be posited. We might
add to this the further aspect that where a work seems to be repeatedly drawn on as
a model by another composer its status as a source seems to be confirmed.
Both these qualifications belong to Mozart’s ‘Dissonance’ Quartet, the first
(uniqueness) in relation to his own works, and the second (repeated modelling)
in relation to Schubert’s works. K 465 is the only one of Mozart’s quartets to be
prefaced by a slow introduction, and this introduction is famously a remarkable
experiment in chromaticism and linearity. The references to this unique piece seem
therefore unmistakable in Schubert, and they occur in a number of different works,
as well as intensively within one particular work, the String Quintet, D 956 (see
below). Moreover, the introduction to K 465 is a locus classicus for the chromatic
16
Quoted in Wollenberg, ‘The C major String Quintet D 956: Schubert’s “Dissonance”
Quintet?’: 45, from Professor Strohm’s address to the symposium ‘Bach’s B minor Mass:
Perspectives on its Music and History’, Oxford, December 2000. For the published version
see Reinhard Strohm, ‘Transgression, Transcendence and Metaphor – the “Other Meanings”
of the B Minor Mass’, Understanding Bach (online journal: Bach Network UK, 2006), 1:
49–68, discussing in depth the ‘pragmatic relationship between the B Minor Mass (BWV
232) and other music’ (57).
17
Newbould, Schubert and the Symphony, p. 92 and Exx. 27–8. Like Carner,
Newbould in his study of Schubert’s symphonies pays sustained attention to their
relationship with Classical models, especially Mozart.
18
Winter, ‘Schubert’ (NG2), §2: Works (vii), Orchestral music, p. 687: ‘The groping
chromaticism of the slow introduction owes much to the opening of Mozart’s “Dissonance”
quartet’.
19
Biennial conference on nineteenth-century music, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford,
July 1988. See Charles Rosen, The Romantic Generation (London: HarperCollins, 1996),
pp. 570–74.
Example 5.1 (a)–(c)
(a) Haydn, The Creation, ‘Chaos’, bars 1–7
(b) Schubert, Symphony no. 4, D 417, first movement, bars 1–6
(c) Mozart, ‘Dissonance’ Quartet, K 465, first movement, bars 1–5
fourth motif that pervades Schubert’s chamber music, most intensely in the
Quartettsatz, D 703.20 A further factor in confirming possible cases of ‘modelling’
is the coincidence of key: Mozart’s ‘Dissonance’ Quartet at its opening plays on
C minor and major. Among the Schubert string quartets and quintet in which the
20
Further on this motif see Peter Williams, The Chromatic Fourth during Four
Centuries of Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); on its use in Schubert see Su Yin Mak,
‘Schubert’s Allusions to the Descending Tetrachord’, in Hascher (ed.), Le style instrumental
de Schubert, pp. 163–79.
chromatic fourth is a prominent feature are works respectively in C major (D 46),

C minor (D 703), and, in the case of D 956, a deeply ambivalent C major/minor.21
Examples 5.2a–c for D 46 and D 956, together with Example 3.4 above for D 703
(see bars 1–8), provide instances of the motif as used in each of these three works.
Example 5.2 D 46-i, D 956-iii
(a) Schubert, D 46, first movement, bars 1–10
(b) D 46, first movement, bars 43–6
Yet another factor concerns the structural placement of apparent references

to a source. Just as the model might embed itself in the composer’s memory in
its proper key, so passages of particular import could be ingrained in the memory
together with their precise place within the structure to which they belong.
21
The motif is certainly not confined only to C major or minor. Perhaps the most
striking incidence is in the G major Quartet, D 887, first movement. And in the slow
introduction to the ‘Tragic’ Symphony, D 417, although the work is in C minor, Schubert
here transposes the chromatic fourth to begin on E@ in the lower strings (bar 63).
(c) Schubert, D 956, scherzo, bars 114–22
Examples 5.3a and b present strikingly similar gestures used in symphonies by

Mozart (no. 40, K 550 in G minor) and Schubert (no. 4, D 417 in C minor) at the
same structural point in their finale and first movement respectively: the beginning
of the development section.22 (Mozart’s 40th, like his ‘Dissonance’ Quartet, is a
work to which Schubert constantly referred.) The resemblance is heightened by
the identical scoring and dynamics used in the two passages.
At the simpler end of the spectrum of allusion, modelling, borrowing and
reminiscence, is what I have called elsewhere the ‘sounds like’ impression formed
by thematic resemblance.23 This most immediately noticeable of features seems the
22
See Newbould, Schubert and the Symphony, p. 96 (Exx. 29–30).
23
S. Wollenberg, ‘Celebrating Dvořák: Affinities between Schubert and Dvořák’,
Musical Times, 132 (1991): 434–7, 434. For a study of nineteenth-century intertextuality,
including questions of terminology and definition, see Christopher A. Reynolds, Motives
for Allusion: Context and Content in Nineteenth-Century Music (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2003).
Example 5.3
(a) Mozart, K 550, finale, bars 124–37
(b) Schubert, D 417, first movement, bars 134–43
least amenable to secure identification of its derivation from a particular source: it

may simply bespeak the outcome of a common grounding in the relevant stylistic
tradition, and perhaps also the product of a shared formal context for the themes
concerned. The passages commented on by Newbould, shown in Examples 5.3a
and b above, would not, however, belong in this category, since they represent not
simple thematic statements, but developmental processes. Moreover, the Mozart

passage posited as the source again fits Rosen’s criterion of uniqueness; the fact
that in no other of his symphonic sonata form movements are such gestures found,
marks it as a plausible source quite apart from the documentary evidence for
Schubert’s love of Mozart’s 40th.24
For the simpler ‘sounds like’ thematic resemblance we might adduce the
slow movement of Schubert’s Symphony no. 5 in B@ major, D 485, comparing its
opening theme with that of Mozart’s Sonata in F major for violin and piano, K 377
(374e), third movement (minuet), a resemblance noted by Tovey (see Examples
5.4a and b).25 Despite the caveats voiced above, the concatenation of elements here
certainly creates a strong relationship between the two themes. Tovey’s reference
to ‘Schubertized Mozart’, echoed by Newbould (‘whatever its source, Schubert
has made the theme his own’) raises a point that applies to many of the examples
quoted and discussed in this chapter; that is, that our perception of a possible
source in Mozart for Schubert’s ideas may at the same time serve to emphasize
Schubert’s own ‘voice’ surrounding these references. In particular, the displaced
sequential repetition of the demisemiquaver ornamental figure in Schubert’s bar
3, and his chromaticizing of the move to the supertonic minor (bar 9), picking up
on the added chromatic detail in bar 3, seem to take Mozart’s template into the
nineteenth century.26
The cross-genre borrowing here (if such it is) from intimate chamber work
to large-scale orchestral medium is striking. Elsewhere Schubert seems inclined
to imitate Mozart within the same genre, as with his apparent transfer of the
unusual proceedings seen in Mozart’s B@ Piano Trio, K 502, first movement,
with its displaced lyrical Theme II in the dominant (denied an appearance in the
monothematic exposition, but then entering at the beginning of the development
with no warning, immediately after the double bar). Schubert, as Hans-Joachim
Hinrichsen observed, follows identical procedure, using thematic material closely
related to Mozart’s, in his own early B@ Trio, D 28.27
24
As Newbould points out, it was in his reminiscences printed in 1829, the year after
Schubert’s death (when ‘his memory was fresher’) rather than the later memoir (1858), that
Josef von Spaun identified ‘particular favourites of Schubert in the repertoire they played’
at the Stadtkonvikt: ‘Above all the glorious symphonies in G minor by Mozart and in
D major by Beethoven … ’ (Newbould, Schubert and the Symphony, p. 21, quoting from
Deutsch, Documentary Biography).
25
Donald Francis Tovey, Essays in Musical Analysis, vol. 1, Symphonies 1 (London:
Oxford University Press, 1935), p. 204 and Ex. 3; cf. Newbould, Schubert and the
Symphony, p. 117.
26
The canonic touch introduced at bar 9 (arrowed in the example) belongs to a category
of Schubertian – and Mozartian – instrumental counterpoint discussed further below.
27
See Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der
Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts, p. 42, together with the (unnumbered) examples, p. 43.
Example 5.4
(a) Mozart, K 377 (374e), third movement, bars 1–8, 17–18
(b) Schubert, D 485, second movement, bars 1–4, 8–9
Among the instrumental works of Schubert’s earlier period, the three sonatas
(‘sonatinas’) for violin and piano, D 384, 385 and 408 of 1816 have particularly
elicited studies of their Mozartian connections (which indeed seem clear, although
not unadulterated): in one of the most recent of these studies, Andrea Lindmayr-
Brandl traces the key literature on the subject.28 Martin Chusid, surveying
Schubert’s chamber music production in the years leading up to 1816 in terms
of ‘modelling’, saw 1816 as ‘a year in which the influence of Mozart reached its
peak’.29 His suggested model for the first of the three sonatas, D 384, Mozart’s
K 304 (K 300c) in E minor, deserves closer inspection. This work stands out among
Mozart’s sonatas for violin and piano in possessing a number of unusual features.
Its compact two-movement format, with an opening Allegro followed by a minuet
and trio, covers a wide range of stylistic reference: the minuet (in E minor) exudes
Baroque associations, building its antique-sounding melody over a chaconne-type
bass, while the E major trio borders on the intimate and tender style of the early
Romantic miniature: it could almost belong in Schubert’s set of Momens musicals
(Moments musicaux), D 780.30 Lindmayr-Brandl draws close parallels between
Mozart’s K 304 and Schubert’s D 384; moreover she finds a source in the slow
movement of Mozart’s A major Sonata for Violin and Piano, K 305 (293d), for
the Andante of D 384.31 Further such instances of resemblances could be quoted
(Newbould on the symphonies includes several others, some as short as two
bars, among his examples).32 But proceeding from the undoubted evidence they
provide of the strong Classical foundations underpinning Schubert’s style, I will
concentrate here on the Mozartian references in two case-studies from amongst
Schubert’s more openly ‘Classical’ instrumental pieces, and examine closely the
ways in which these references are treated. In so doing I hope to uncover aspects
that may not have been discussed previously.
The first case-study is the Symphony no. 5 in B@ major, D 485. Carner saw its
predecessor, the ‘Tragic’ (D 417) as marking a new stage in Schubert’s symphonic
writing: ‘In mode of expression … and partly also in treatment, it differs from the
rest of the early symphonies’, and he found in it a greater seriousness.33 In the light
28
Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Quand Schubert écoute Mozart: Les Sonates pour
violon et piano op. 137’, in Hascher (ed.), Le style instrumental de Schubert, pp. 29–42,
pp. 30–31, n. 6.
29
Martin Chusid, ‘Schubert’s Chamber Music: Before and after Beethoven’, in Gibbs
(ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Schubert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997), pp. 174–92, pp. 184–5.
30
Perhaps the trio of K 304, with its appoggiaturas in the antecedent phrase resolving
onto first II7b and then Ib, and the expressive curve of its consequent created by the falling
line from the initial rising sixth, in fact found its echo in Schubert’s Moment musical no. 6 in
A@, which proceeds almost identically in its opening phrase, and embeds a stepwise falling
line within the texture of the consequent (in this case triggered from a rising seventh).
The first movement of K 304 is a study in Neapolitan usage, and both movements exploit
the device of canon, features which would have resonated particularly with Schubert.
On the unusual variation process in K 304-i see Chapter 8, n. 41 below.
31
Lindmayr-Brandl, ‘Quand Schubert écoute Mozart’, p. 40.
32
Newbould declares that ‘[Schubert’s] “appropriation” of models was probably …
unthinking’ (Schubert and the Symphony, p. 130).
33
Carner, ‘The Orchestral Music’, p. 18.
of this, he perceived in the following symphony a change of direction: ‘With the

Fifth Symphony in B@ Schubert returns to the more congenial climes of the first
three symphonies’.34 For Newbould, also, it is a clear-cut case of reversion to a
lighter mode of expression, following what he terms the ‘Sturm und Drang’ of
the Fourth Symphony; thus his chapter on D 485 is entitled ‘A Nostalgic Aside:
the Fifth Symphony’.35 Since B@ major and G minor (and major), together with E@
major, form the main keystones of the tonal plan of D 485, it is not surprising that
Mozart’s 40th resonates throughout the work with particular frequency. However,
Schubert’s treatment of these Mozartian references is not entirely straightforward.
And this perception is linked with the status of D 485 within his symphonic output.
The work is not merely a reversion to his earlier style, nor simply an expression of
uncontaminated eighteenth-century musical language.36
Certainly a withdrawal towards eighteenth-century sonorities is evident in
D 485: as Newbould remarks, after the orchestral expansion in the ‘Tragic’
Symphony, Schubert here reverts to a ‘trim early-Classical ensemble’, dispensing
with the two extra horns, the trumpets and timpani, the clarinets and the second flute
used in D 417.37 And Newbould’s demonstration of the (fairly incontrovertible)
references to Mozart’s 40th in the Schubert work (D 485) is prefaced by the
statement that the latter is overwhelmingly ‘eighteenth-century in scale and
design’. The qualities that both Newbould and Einstein (whom he quotes) see in
Schubert’s Fifth are, above all, ‘polish’ and ‘balance’ (‘what Georges de Saint-
Foix calls the “rigorous symmetry” of the … “Prague” finale’).38 I would go
further, though, in assessing the recreation in D 485 of an earlier style, so far as
to suggest that Schubert here is not simply ‘classical’ in outlook, nor even (as
Newbould implies) basically ‘classical’ with some personal additives; rather it
seems to me here that the ‘ore’ (to adopt Schumann’s terminology) is put through a
particular form of processing. I would describe this as Schubert’s at times handling
the Mozartian elements to which he refers in D 485 with a distinctly playful touch
which in some ways brings him even closer to Mozart.
Schubert begins his first movement with a ‘curtain’ of suitably compact
dimensions. Harmonically, this represents the displacement of a conventional
Classical gesture, since it traces with almost exaggerated clarity a perfect
cadence of the customary concluding kind, elided with the beginning of the first
34
Ibid., p. 19.
35
Newbould, Schubert and the Symphony, chapter VIII, pp. 110–23.
36
Newbould’s view is that ‘in one sense, the Fifth Symphony could have been
composed a quarter of a century earlier’, but ‘in another, it could not have been’; he ascribes
this to Schubert’s nostalgic affection for ‘the parlance of musical works he grew up with’
(Schubert and the Symphony, p. 111).
37
See ibid., p. 110: Newbould designates D 485 as Schubert’s ‘only “chamber”
symphony’ (ibid., p. 111).
38
Ibid., p. 123, quoting Alfred Einstein, Schubert (London: Cassell, 1951), p. 129,
and Georges de Saint-Foix, The Symphonies of Mozart (London: Dobson, 1947), p. 90.
theme proper at bar 5 (cf. Examples 5.5a and b). The pp marking is rather witty;
normally for a more extended introduction such a dynamic level would go with
a mysterious build-up, harmonic subtlety and motivic prophecy, all contributing
to the portentous effect.39 Schubert’s disingenuousness here is brought out by the
amusing (because out of place and misleading) nudge he makes with the staccato
quaver figure given to the violins at bars 3–4, towards the finale of Mozart’s
39th Symphony (which is not going to serve as primary material for his own
main theme). This brief segment of music thus seems almost to mock, high-
spiritedly, the Classical conventions, setting an agenda for the work from the start.
(Of course playfulness can also be found in Mozart’s symphonic writing.40)
Following through with the notion of the ‘displaced’ progression, Schubert at the
beginning of his first theme launches immediately into a succession of chords that
seem to be ‘in the wrong place’, since these are associated with the transition in
Mozart’s sonata forms (although Schubert’s here avoids modulation); moreover, it
shares with this Mozartian progression a common heritage in the chaconne, with
its stepwise descending line in the bass, harmonized by a series of primary triads
(as marked on Example 5.5b; compare Example 5.5c from Mozart’s ‘Dissonance’
Quartet, K 465, slow movement transition).
Returning to the idea of Mozart’s 40th Symphony as a prime source for
Schubert’s ‘Classical’ references in D 485, we find (as Newbould has noted) a
close parallel in Mozart’s usage for his transition in the first movement of K 550
(Example 5.5d).41 And turning now to the question of ‘Classical equilibrium’, in
particular as regards periodicity of thematic construction, we can again summon a
palpable reference to Mozart’s 40th, in this case in the second theme of Schubert’s
movement. Again the parallel seems undeniable (Examples 5.6a and 5.6b).42 But
to the conventional perception of its indebtedness to Mozart’s model I would add
an element in Schubert virtually of parody. Everything is held exactly in balance;
but while Mozart creates a modified sequence after only his first two notes at
39
The progression outlined in Example 5.5b is lent a mock-portentousness by
its quasi-species counterpoint character, expressed in the plain semibreve chords in the
woodwind; compare Mozart’s similarly scored chordal writing in his Piano Concerto in E@,
K 482, first movement, bars 3 ff.
40
Mozart makes witty play on his theme in the finale of the 39th, presenting it at
the start very lightly accompanied but with continuous running figuration beneath, putting
it through many transformations subsequently, and then quoting it at the finish of the
movement with minimal harmonization (one brief burst of tonic chord) and without any
further closing business of the usual sort, leaving a distinctly open-ended feeling.
41
See Newbould, Schubert and the Symphony, pp. 112–13 and Ex. 36. Newbould
defines the Mozart passage as an ‘afterstatement’, whereas I would view it as launching the
transition to the relative major for Theme II, driving towards dominant preparation via the
dominant of the relative major at bars 34 and following (as shown in Example 5.5d).
42
Cf. Newbould, Schubert and the Symphony, p. 114 and Ex. 38; his Ex. 38b quotes
Schubert’s theme in its recapitulation version in order to mark up the parallel with Mozart.
Example 5.5
(a) Schubert, D 485, first movement, bars 1–14
(b) Schubert, D 485, first movement, bars 1–5, 5–12, outline progressions
(c) Mozart, K 465, slow movement, bars 13–16

(d) Mozart, K 550, first movement, bars 28–35
bars 49–50 with regard to bars 45–6 of his theme, Schubert manufactures a stricter
and better-behaved sequence with four two-bar phrases in a b a1 b1 format showing
an almost exaggerated periodicity of phrasing, and ‘correcting’ Mozart’s freer,
more flexible version (which not only introduces a new closing phrase within its
a b a1 c format but also elides a1 and c). Schubert moreover reproduces in a playfully
simplified form the motif that links the phrases of the theme in Mozart (marked ‘y’
in Examples 5.6a and b). Schubert’s periodically phrased theme here is not only
more mechanical in its construction than Mozart’s; it is also quite unlike the norm
among Schubert’s own themes.
It can be noted further that an element of mockery surfaces in Schubert’s
treatment of his own thematic material; the rapid, repetitive foreshortening of
what was originally a fairly stately theme, in the closing section of his exposition
(and the parallel passage in the recapitulation) has – like much of the proceedings
– a comedic or ‘buffo’ flavour.43 We might conclude that following the change of
direction in his Symphony no. 4, it was impossible for Schubert simply to return
to a relatively uncomplicated earlier style. Resorting to comedy was one way
(although not the only one in the work as a whole) to resolve the problem. All
is certainly not mockery at the beginning, despite the ‘displacement’ strategies
noted above; the first movement of D 485 presents its Classical credentials quite
straightforwardly by means of that most obvious of gestures, the rising triadic
theme, thus tying in with ‘normative’ usage in the context of a Viennese Classical
sonata form first theme. The variety of forms this most basic element might take
is further illustrated by Schubert’s G minor Quartet, D 173 (whose relationship to
Mozart’s G minor Symphony was mentioned in Chapter 3): compare Examples
5.7a and b and Examples 5.7c and d below, which show the dependence of
43
In fact, in the ultimate diminution in repetitive running quavers this fragment
happens to echo the contours of a typical phrase in the language of Mozart’s operas, perhaps
thereby confirming their common opera buffa heritage. Shamgar, ‘Schubert’s Mozart’:
87–9, passim, documenting Schubert’s ‘enormous captivation’ with Mozart’s operas, notes
Schubert’s parodistic treatment of elements from Don Giovanni.
Example 5.6
(a) Mozart, K 550, first movement, bars 44–52
Schubert’s minuet theme in D 173 on a crafty amalgam of elements from the

melody and bass of Mozart’s in K 550.
A less often discussed locus for the sighting of possible instances of modelling
on Mozart is Schubert’s Piano Sonata in E@ major, D 568, my second case-study,
which seems to me to resound with echoes of Mozart’s sonatas in B@ major,
K 570, and F major, K 332 (K 300k): see Examples 5.8a and b for Mozart, and
Example 5.7
(a) Mozart, K 550, finale, bars 1–8
Example 5.8c for Schubert; also Examples 5.9a–c, pp. 153–4.44 Both Mozart’s and
Schubert’s predominantly rising triadic themes are distinguished by the swing in
both directions from their opening note (as well as sharing their dance-like triple
time character, and the falling sixth detail bracketed on the examples). And both
Mozart’s movements and Schubert’s D 568-i create a distinct impression of drama
from the beginning of their transitions (marked by asterisks in Examples 5.9a, 5.9b,
44
Possibly Schubert’s sonata is better known indirectly through its appropriation by
Mahler for his Symphony no. 4 (the phrase in Schubert’s Theme II at bar 46 of his first
movement is reworked by Mahler in his opening theme). Perhaps by chance, the figure
marked ‘x’ on Example 5.8a (Mozart) features prominently in Schubert’s Theme II, in the
same key.
5.7 (c) Mozart, K 550, minuet, bars 1–8

5.7 (d) Schubert, D 173, minuet, bars 1–8
Example 5.8
and 5.9c below), with their abrupt plunge into the submediant minor and tonic
minor respectively.45 Furthermore these passages in the Mozart F major sonata
movement and Schubert’s D 568 share their ‘busy’ Alberti-type LH figuration
45
As it happens, the transition in K 570, first movement, then transforms the dominant
of G minor into the leading-note of E@, in a ‘vii-i trick’ of a kind also used frequently by
Schubert.
5.8 (b) Mozart, K 332 (300k), first movement, bars 1–6
5.8 (c) Schubert, D 568, first movement, bars 1–16
underpinning a sweeping triadic theme (refashioning the opening model) with

‘Sturm und Drang’ associations. For both composers this constitutes a relatively
unusual, and unusually forceful, strategy for the launch of the transition. That
Schubert interprets Classical formal models in unexpected new ways is in this case
again shown by his treatment of the Mozartian ‘bifocal close’; after the customary
approach in the exposition of his first movement, where the music simply lands
on dominant harmony, thence converting it implicitly into the key of the dominant
for Theme II, he later evades the expected reuse of the device to resolve into the
Example 5.9
(b) Mozart, K 332 (300k), first movement, bars 20–26
tonic for Theme II in the recapitulation by eliminating the transition altogether at

that point.46
46
For the Mozartian device see Chapter 2, n. 23, referring to Winter, ‘The Bifocal
Close and the Evolution of the Viennese Classical Style’. The earlier version of the sonata,
D 567 in D@, did the same.
5.9 (c) Schubert, D 568, first movement, bars 25–35
In other instances Schubert’s affinity with Mozart is conveyed in the more

general traits that they share; here perhaps Schubert’s acquaintance with Mozart’s
works served as a catalyst for his own potential abilities in the particular areas of
composition. Among the most attractive and characteristic of these is what I would
term ‘natural counterpoint’, as opposed to the more studied or ‘learned’ kind. The
latter tends to be based on more formal subject matter, often related to the strict
contrapuntal tradition, thus announcing itself as contrapuntally driven from the
outset. ‘Natural counterpoint’ arises in the course of treating thematic material
that has initially appeared with no apparent pretensions to contrapuntal artifice:
topically the material may belong to the opposite end of the spectrum from the
‘learned’ style, and yet it transpires that it lends itself to contrapuntal application
of a particularly clever kind, often couched in terms of a sustained canon. (In
general Schubert shares with Mozart a marked love of canon.)
The most telling example in Mozart is perhaps the Trio to the Menuetto of
his Symphony in C major (the ‘Linz’), K 425, where the rustic oboe solo theme
heard with simple melody-and-accompaniment texture in the first section is

unexpectedly transformed into a canonic duet between oboe and bassoon on
its return in the second section (bars 48 and following). Schubert’s scherzo
movements in the Piano Trios in B@ major, D 898 and E@ major, D 929, exhibit a
similar compositional virtuosity in his ability to treat dance material canonically,
and in combinatorial fashion, with apparent effortlessness. One of the most genial
examples of this particular contrapuntal type (in both senses of the word) is found
in the Scherzo of the ‘Great’ C major Symphony, D 944, where the second theme
introduced by the violins in G major at bar 30 acquires a canonic following from
the cellos, while the woodwind combine figures from the first theme playfully in
counterpoint against the strings’ enchanting canon.
Throughout much of the preceding discussion the evidence has been mounting
for Schubert’s ongoing engagement with Mozart’s music. Could it be, though,
that in the words of the familiar saying, it is simply a matter of ‘great minds think
alike’? Perhaps this could be expressed differently: as suggested above, Schubert
may have responded in Mozart’s music to features that chimed in with his own
creative impulses. This was not simply a formative process in the earlier phases
of his compositional career. It transpires that possibly the strongest case for
perceiving echoes of Mozart in Schubert is found in a late work by Schubert that
has habitually been considered unique, sui generis: the String Quintet, D 956.47
Taking this work in order to respond to Reinhard Strohm’s question quoted earlier
(‘does music have a memory?’), I answered with a resounding affirmative to the
extent of suggesting (‘without in any way wishing to diminish its originality’)
that Schubert’s D 956 might merit the notional subtitle ‘Souvenir de Mozart’.48 To
sum up my findings: Mozart’s K 465 and Schubert’s String Quintet share a tonal
subtext, associating their central tonality of C major and its dominant, G major,
with the latter’s Neapolitan tonality of A@ major and its dominant, E@ major, as
well as exploring modal ambiguity. Moreover the two works share the ‘Neapolitan
motif’, the crucial melodic motif presented in the opening bars of Mozart’s slow
introduction, as well as the ‘chromatic fourth’ bass formula commented on earlier
(see Example 5.10 and cf. Example 5.2c above).
Example 5.10 Mozart, K 465, slow introduction, bars 1–10, outline progression
47
See Wollenberg, ‘The C major String Quintet D 956: Schubert’s “Dissonance”
Quintet?’; and Alfred Einstein, Schubert (London: Panther Books, 1971), p. 326.
48
Wollenberg, ‘The C major String Quintet D 956: Schubert’s “Dissonance” Quintet?’:
49.
A more general feature both works share is the element of unexpected

aggressiveness, seen in the Schubert scherzo example (5.2c), and in the insistent
presentation in Mozart’s introduction of what would normally have been a delicate
chromatic line, heightened further in the octave-doubled version at forte dynamic
that breaks out during the slow movement of K 465 (bars 35 and 97); and also in
their foregrounding of ‘false relation’. (Both also share the urge to present ideas
in canon). The source of their connections is not limited to Mozart’s introduction
(although it can be shown to have numerous melodic and harmonic nuances in
common with, in particular, the opening movement of Schubert’s quintet).49 The
opening bars of the Allegro that follows the slow introduction in K 465 contain
the phrase marked ‘x’ on Example 5.11a, which with its stepwise melodic ascent
and descending appoggiatura figure seems to be worked into Schubert’s opening
section (see Example 5.11b). And the sweeping arpeggio that emerges from
Schubert’s sequential build-up here, in ‘so powerful a gesture that it almost seems
to suggest the “real” first theme, following the introductory opening section’, is
an ‘inverse echo of Mozart’s similarly powerful usage in the finale of K 465’50
(cf. Examples 5.11c and 5.11b) as well as strongly resembling the arpeggiated
passages that feature prominently in the development of Mozart’s first movement
(Example 5.11d shows one such passage from K 465, based on the same diminished
seventh harmony that Schubert used prominently in D 956-i: see Example 5.11b).
It was suggested earlier that in certain instances, a turn of phrase or indeed a
longer passage in Schubert’s instrumental works may seem to belong to a cluster of
examples using markedly comparable ideas, occurring in not only the instrumental
but also the vocal works of Mozart (and in one case that was cited, Haydn).
Another such case would be Theme II in the first movement of Schubert’s E major
Quartet, D 353, which shares its ancestry with the first theme of Mozart’s G minor
Example 5.11
(a) Mozart, K 465, first movement, Allegro, bars 23–8
49
Ibid.: 46–7.
50
Ibid.: 48.

5.11 (c) Mozart, K 465, finale, bars 34–8
5.11 (d) Mozart, K 465, first movement, Allegro, bars 143–7
Symphony, K 550, itself having its shape in common with Cherubino’s aria ‘Non
so più’ in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Act I. Such a cluster is formed when to
the web of coincidences drawn above between Mozart’s ‘Dissonance’ Quartet and
Schubert’s String Quintet we add Mozart’s C major String Quintet, K 515. Besides
motivic resemblances, and various shared processes in the presentation of thematic
material, the two quintets are strikingly similar in their ‘tonal palette’:51 in this
respect they share with the ‘Dissonance’ Quartet the pervasive modal ambiguity
in the treatment of their C major tonic, and the strong Neapolitan inflections with
which the ramifications of that key are also coloured.
51
See ibid., with a brief summary of the possible influence of K 515 on Schubert’s
D 956.
It seems that Schubert was ‘in dialogue’ with Mozart, more than any other
composer, throughout his creative life, just as his early reaction to the ‘Zaubertöne’
(the magical sounds) of the Mozart quintet he heard with such joy at the age of
19 had prophesied. If, as suggested above, D 956 deserves the epithet ‘Souvenir
de Mozart’, perhaps an appropriate collective epithet for Schubert’s instrumental
works could be ‘Conversations with Mozart’. In the light of all this it can be asserted
with reasonable confidence that some of the ‘fingerprints’ detectable in Schubert’s
music are indeed those of Mozart. Their presence testifies to Schubert’s closeness
in spirit to Mozart’s music; this music in some way ‘belonged’ permanently to
Schubert, and throughout his life his own instrumental writing revealed its
enabling effects on his creativity.
Chapter 6
Schubert’s Violent Nature
The extreme disruption of almost abnormally serene moods by the introduction

of violent contrasts as found in the later piano and chamber works of Schubert –
notably in the slow movements of the A major Piano Sonata, D 959, the G major
Quartet, D 887, and the String Quintet, D 956 – might seem an anomaly in an
otherwise relatively evenly balanced instrumental style. The opposite is true.
These are certainly the most acute manifestations of the type; but violence was
endemic in Schubert’s music. As Hugh Macdonald put it, this ‘represents a side
of his art remote from the familiar lyrical Schubert’.1 The discussion in this
chapter will explore, among other aspects, the ways in which that lyrical side of
Schubert’s art acts as an enabling element in releasing and illuminating the ‘streak
of violence and distemper in the music’ that Macdonald identified in Schubert’s
instrumental writing.2 Macdonald’s examples range from the earliest works (the
String Quartet in B@, D 36) to those of Schubert’s last year (the B@ Piano Sonata,
D 960); his interest is primarily in the ‘momentary gathering of tension which has
a distinctly volcanic feeling’, but his discussion extends to cases of ‘prolonged
climactic hysteria’.3 As those last two quotations show, the vocabulary used by
Macdonald to describe incidences of the phenomenon draws on both geological
and psychiatric discourse.
Of the stylistic ‘fingerprints’ studied in this book, if a choice had to be made
among them, Schubert’s violent streak is the one that above all seems to be at the
heart of his individual way of writing. This impression could be produced partly
by the sheer power of the ‘seismic’ eruptions as observed by Macdonald, and
partly by the implication of a possible connection with Schubert’s own essence,
his psychological makeup, an area that has been illuminated by the researches of
Elizabeth McKay.4 The evidence she assembles is conducive to the interpretation
of Schubert’s personality as divided, and his mental condition as bipolar.5 While
it would be overly simple to suggest that specific works can necessarily be tied in
with Schubert’s personal circumstances, the musical phenomena to be discussed
in this chapter certainly correspond to McKay’s notion of Schubert’s ‘two natures’,
1
Macdonald, ‘Schubert’s Volcanic Temper’: 949.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.: 950, with examples of ‘longer and more frenetic passages’ from, inter alia, the
piano duet pieces such as Lebensstürme, D 947.
4
McKay, Franz Schubert; her conclusions draw on both contemporary documentation
of Schubert’s mood swings and modern medical understanding of depression and mania.
5
McKay, Franz Schubert, Chapter 6, pp. 133–63.
and they display the destructiveness and extremes of mood characteristic of the
bipolar self. And while direct connections with biographical events are an equally
precarious method of interpreting works of art, it is nevertheless possible that,
as McKay suggests, the aggressive energy manifested in the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy,
D 760, may mark the start of Schubert’s realization that he harboured a potentially
fatal disease.6
The extreme contrasts of mood in D 760 work in conjunction with the unifying
elements derived from the song, ‘Der Wanderer’ (D 489) on which the Fantasy
is based. The tiny ‘cells’ extracted and developed from the song material take on
a wide range of character within a short space. This process of transformation is
strongly evident in the Allegro forming the first of the four ‘movements’ that make
up the Fantasy. The songlike E major Theme II introduced pianissimo at bar 47
(see Example 3.19b above), with its telescoped diatonic version of the opening
phrase, and its peaceful dialogue between upper voice and tenor line, provides the
kind of temporary ‘respite from the storm’ noted by Macdonald in other examples.7
The return to the opening fortissimo version of the theme, featuring melodic and
textural inversion (bar 70), already breaks the mood; the fiercely virtuosic etude-
like passage that follows at bar 83 disrupts it totally, deploying counterpoint to grim
effect in some of Schubert’s bleakest writing to date.8 (In particular it manifests a
high level of dissonance.) The shock effect is all the more intense because both the
serene E major theme and this aggressive A minor material are, like the opening
idea, based on the same two thematic derivatives from the song (cf. Examples
6.1a and b). The violent wrenching of thematic material from lyrical into highly
dramatic as seen here is a particular characteristic of Schubert’s contrasts of mood
within a movement. Macdonald’s conclusion that ‘in Schubert the conventional
polarity between the lyrical and the dramatic should be replaced by a polarity
between the lyrical and the violent’ can be taken a stage further, to encompass
his transformation of the lyrical into the violent.9 In D 760 this gathers an extra
6
See ibid., p. 149 and p. 164 on Schubert’s discovery of what is assumed to be the
onset of syphilis, probably in November 1822. In his recent analysis of the evidence (or lack
of it), Robert Winston suggested that no firm conclusions can be arrived at concerning the
nature of Schubert’s illness and the exact circumstances of his admission to hospital in 1823
(‘Robert Winston’s Musical Analysis’, Part 3, BBC Radio Four, 10 August 2010).
7
Macdonald, ‘Schubert’s Volcanic Temper’: 950. E major is for Schubert a key
associated with dream worlds; see Wollenberg, ‘Schubert and the Dream’: 144.
8
It seems to breathe the air of Chopin’s so-called ‘Winter Wind’ etude, op. 25 no. 11.
The mirror effect (Example 6.1b, bars 90 ff.) is another of Schubert’s ‘favourite devices’:
the passage has drawn particular comment from Brian Newbould, Schubert: The Music and
the Man (London: Gollancz, 1997), pp. 400–01.
9
Macdonald, ‘Schubert’s Volcanic Temper’: 952. Extreme unity of thematic material
combined, as in D 760, with a wide range of topical types represents the new Romantic
process replacing the Classical tendency to combine such topical variety with an equal
variety of thematic content.
Schubert’s Violent Nature 163
Example 6.1 (a)–(b) D 489, D 760
(a) ‘Der Wanderer’, D 489, bars 22–6
dimension from the fact that the instrumental work adds a layer of violence that
was absent from the song forming its source.
Among Macdonald’s other concluding points is the attractively symmetrical
proposition that ‘the volcanic temper constantly interrupts the lyrical voice; the
lyrical voice has constantly to rescue and repress the volcanic temper’.10 This too
can be enlarged upon in order to take account of the ways in which the violent
‘interruptions’ colour the ‘lyrical voice’ when it returns in their aftermath. The
(rather less symmetrical) design that results gains an extra level of meaning.
Not only does it create a more interlocking relationship between sections of
the music (so that, in the basic ABA1 for example, A1 is conceived as A with
elements of B added); it also reflects the depth of human experience, whereby
a ‘seismic’ disturbance in life makes it impossible to restore normality (when
that becomes at all possible) exactly as it was; it is changed forever in the light
10
Ibid.
6.1 (b) D 760, bars 83–101

of that disturbance.11 Among prime examples in Schubert’s instrumental music

are two of the slow movements that feature some of his most violent episodes:
those of the A major Piano Sonata, D 959, and the String Quintet, D 956.12 The
manic central episode in the slow movement of D 959, especially, belongs to
11
Harold Truscott described the ‘wonderful reconception’ of the recapitulation in the
G major Quartet, D 887, first movement in somewhat comparable terms, seeing this music
as having ‘simultaneously deepened in character and mellowed in growth of understanding
… like the growth and development of a human being’, and attributing this to the preceding
development, ‘which may be likened to the effect of experience’ (‘Schubert’s String Quartet
in G major’, Music Review, 20 (1959): 119–45, 135).
12
The explosive passages in Schubert’s symphonic writing (as, for instance, in the
‘Unfinished’ Symphony, D 759, first movement, and the ‘Great’ C major Symphony, D 944,
slow movement) introduce in dramatic fashion a disturbing element: in the case of D 759
a grim shadow falls across the music, while in D 944 almost unbearable tension builds up
before it is released; but these eruptions are perhaps less shocking than the phenomenon as
it is seen in the more intimate genres of solo piano and chamber music.
Brown’s category of music that still has the capacity to shock, ‘even today’.13
Its after-effects are twofold. First, the retransition from section B to section A1
of the ABA1 design plays out an intense dialectic between on the one hand a
series of lyrical phrases marked piano, evoking the ethos of the ‘A’ section, and
on the other the violent chordal outbursts by way of response to these, marked
ffz, recalling the ‘B’ section. (This kind of argument has its dramatic parallel in
the famous scene from Gluck’s Orfeo where Orpheus pleads with the chorus
of Furies.)
Secondly, the dominant pedal point originally embedded in the tenor voice of
the texture accompanying the ‘A’ theme of D 959-ii, acquires on its subsequent
return an extra layer (almost a ghostly Doppelgänger) in the unsettling form of
a repeated-note upper-voice pedal in semiquaver triplets above the elaborated
version of the tenor part. What was originally expressed in a sustained, hypnotic
rhythm has become nervous and fragmented under the influence of the material of
the ‘B’ section, and the ‘A’ theme effectively displaced (cf. Examples 6.2a and b).
An analogous process occurs in the slow movement of the String Quintet, D 956,
when the E major material returns following the F minor central episode. What was
on its original appearance (in section A of the ABA1 plan) a texture that managed
to simulate stillness, in spite of the surface rhythmic activity, now similarly takes
on a more restless, unsettled quality in section A1: and again the intensified activity
in the figures added to the outer parts of the texture could be seen as betraying the
impact of section B on the material of section A at this point (cf. Examples 6.3a
Example 6.2 (a)–(b) D 959, slow movement
(a) Bars 1–8
13
See Chapter 1; n. 22 refers.
(b) Bars 159–66
and b). The sense conveyed in both these cases that the ‘A’ material can never
be quite the same again following the experience of the ‘B’ explosion takes the
expressive range of the movements far beyond that of the Classical convention
whereby essentially improvisatory embellishment was sometimes added by the
composer, for example when a rondo theme returned following the episodes.14
As suggested at the start of this chapter, the quiet moods associated with
the ‘A’ sections of Schubert’s most explosive episodic movements seem almost
surreally serene. These are not straightforwardly peaceful Andante types, nor
conventionally stately Adagios. Their otherworldly character is apparent in
various of their features. The hypnotic effect observed above in connection
with the dance-like ‘A’ section of D 959-ii acquires a rather sinister aura: the
obsessiveness that characterizes many of Schubert’s most striking musical effects
is seen here particularly in the circularity of the melodic material and phrase-
structure, in the predominance of pedal points, and the pendulum-like swing
of the split octave figures in the LH, together with the (deliberately) relatively
limited harmonic and rhythmic palette used by Schubert here. Precisely because
the ‘A’ theme creates a feeling that it could continue looping round endlessly,
the shock and discontinuity of the frenetic ‘B’ section that follows have all the
greater impact.
14
A particularly poignant example is Mozart’s Rondo in A minor for piano, K 511.
Example 6.3 (a)–(b) D 956, slow movement
(a) Bars 1–4
If the ‘A’ section of D 959-ii is hypnotic in its effect, that of D 956-ii is even
more deeply trance-like.15 Set in the ‘dream key’ of E major, it features a highly
15
For some of the interpretations it has inevitably provoked see especially the work
of Xavier Hascher; besides his habilitation thesis, 2002 (published as Symbole et fantasme
dans l’adagio du Quintette à cordes de Schubert) his Oxford lecture of 2000 was published
in revised form as ‘Eine “Traumhafte” barcarola funebre: Fragmente zu einer Deutung des
langsamen Satzes des Streichquintette D 956’, in Schubert und das Biedermeier: Beiträge
zur Musik des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts (Festschrift für Walther Dürr zum 70. Geburtstag),
ed. Michael Kube, Werner Aderhold and Walburga Litschauer (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2002),
pp. 127–38.
(b) Bars 64–7
continued
6.3 (b) concluded
stylized texture with its layering of distinctive elements, each following through
its own pattern, some in sustained fashion (the tune in parallel thirds in v2 and va,
evocative either of Hascher’s suggested barcarole or perhaps the vocal nocturne,
with vc1 supporting the duet sonorously and harmonically),16 others fragmentary
(the almost ostinato bass in vc2, pizzicato, and the recitative-like commentary
provided by the v1 figures): all this creates a sound-world of its own. Again this is
thrown sharply into relief when the ‘B’ section erupts. Neither of these ‘A’ sections
is, however, simply serene. As Jack Westrup observed, apropos of D 956-ii: ‘The
Adagio of the Quintet moves so deliberately that motion itself seems suspended.’17
The stillness with which both D 956-ii and D 959-ii open has an unnatural
quality, as I implied earlier; their character seems exaggeratedly drawn. At this
point in the discussion a parallel can be invoked from the songs, adding another
possible dimension to the multiple interpretations suggested by these remarkable
slow movements.
To Blom’s list of antitheses in Schubert’s song texts that elicited major–
minor juxtapositions, we can add a related topical pairing, that of the dream
16
On the genre of vocal nocturne see H.J. Wignall, ‘Mozart and the “Duetto notturno”
Tradition’, Mozart-Jahrbuch (1993): 145–61. Alternatively the three inner parts could be
seen as constituting a trio version of the genre (for this reading I am indebted to Hugh
Macdonald).
17
Westrup, Schubert Chamber Music, p. 21. Westrup’s further comments on the ‘A’
section here (‘the brief interjections of the first violin do nothing to disturb … the tranquil
course [of the melody]’ and ‘when the opening section returns … [the] considerable
embellishment … is little more than a ripple on the surface’) can, however, be disputed.
(or daydream, or illusion) and the awakening (to cruel reality).18 ‘Dream songs’
form a substantial type among Schubert’s oeuvre, and within that the episodic
design (built into either strophic or more freely conceived forms), encompassing
the dream and the shock of awakening to reality, forms an important sub-type. By
the nature of its narrator’s psychological state as he pursues his symbolic winter
journey, the Winterreise cycle, D 911 is filled with dreaming, remembrance and
imaginings; among these, ‘Frühlingstraum’ (D 911/11) offers the most direct
portrayal of the dream/awakening topos. Its neat poetic design (reflected in
Schubert’s setting) of two matching sets of three verses contains, in miniature, an
eruption of violence proportionate in its context to those observed in the larger-scale
instrumental forms.19 The verses progress from idyllic dreams of ‘bright flowers’
and ‘green meadows’ (verse 1), ‘a beautiful girl’ and ‘love returned’ (verse 4)20
through waking to harsh sounds and solitude: ‘when the cocks crowed my eyes
opened; it was cold and dark, and the ravens croaked from the roof-top’ (verse 2);
and ‘my heart awoke; now I sit here alone’ (verse 5),21 with commensurate
contrasts in the music. The third and sixth verses reflect on the experience, ending
with a poignant series of questions: ‘Do you laugh at the dreamer who saw flowers
in the winter?’ (verse 3), and ‘Leaves on my window, when will you grow green?
When will I hold my love in my arms?’ (verse 6).22
For the dream world of verses 1 and 4 Schubert creates an exaggerated
sweetness, almost evoking the artificial sounds of a musical box (see Example
6.4a); in the piano prelude that sets the scene, the tune in the ‘dream key’ of
A major is combined with a lilting dance rhythm and harmonized mainly with bright
primary triads, together with pianissimo dynamic and high registral placement in
the RH. This dream music shares a number of features with the openings of the
slow movements of the A major Sonata, D 959, and the String Quintet, D 956,
and also the G major Quartet, D 887, not least the delicate and somewhat fragile
quality of their textures. The ‘B’ section in ‘Frühlingstraum’, for verse 2 (and later
verse 5) with the awakening to the cockcrow and the ravens ‘croaking’ from the
rooftop, forms an acute contrast, disrupting the musical flow and balance (see
18
See Chapter 2 above; as quoted there, in particular Blom identified the contrast of
present and past, ‘sorrow and happy recollection’ (Chapter 2, n. 8 refers).
19
The ABCABC design of ‘Frühlingstraum’ (together with variants of the type) is
characteristic of Schubert’s freer episodic forms in the instrumental music: these perhaps
derive from an essentially poetic approach to structure (further on this point see Wollenberg,
‘Schubert and the Dream’: 140–42).
20
‘[Ich träumte von] bunten Blumen … grünen Wiesen’, ‘[von] einer schönen Maid’
and ‘[von] Lieb um Liebe’.
21
‘[Und] als die Hähne krähten,/ Da ward mein Auge wach;/ Da war es kalt und
finster; Es schrieen die Raben vom Dach’; and ‘Da war mein Herze wach;/ Nun sitz ich
hier alleine …’.
22
‘Ihr lacht wohl über den Träumer,/ Der Blumen im Winter sah?’, and ‘Wann grünt
ihr Blätter am Fenster?/ Wann halt ich mein Liebchen im Arm?’
Example 6.4b). The fragmented texture, tonal flux and high dissonance content
of this music have their parallel, writ large, in the central episodes of the A major
Sonata slow movement (Example 6.4c) and String Quintet slow movement and
the two ‘B’ episodes of the G major Quartet slow movement (Example 6.4d).23
Underlying the discussion here has been the idea of an instrumental equivalent
to the poetic antithesis of dream and reality, expressed in extreme contrasts of mood
that go beyond Classical conventions. In ‘Schubert and the Dream’ I suggested
that the effect, for example, of the F minor ‘B’ episode in the String Quintet slow
movement was as if a piece torn from a quite different movement had abruptly
intruded on the dreamlike E major mood of the ‘A’ section.24 While this may hold true
of the listener’s or performer’s experience of this music, and for broader analytical
considerations, the relationship of the disparate sections within the episodic forms
of the instrumental movements under discussion (as also in the dream songs) is not
necessarily one of straightforward ‘otherness’. In verse 2 of ‘Frühlingstraum’ the
awakening, and the croaking of the ravens on the roof (in contrast to the ‘merry bird-
calls’, the ‘lustige[s] Vogelgeschrei’ of verse 1) are set to a motif drawn from the
dream music of the first verse (as marked ‘x’ on Examples 6.4a and b), now – like
the sound of the ravens – distorted in a menacing, alien version of the original. With
all the disruptive features noted above, this ‘B’ section of the music nevertheless
preserves a unity with the ‘A’ section, implicating it in a troubled relationship. Its
almost grotesque transformation of the entrancing motifs from the ‘A’ section serves
to underline the threatening character of the ‘B’ material.25
Turning again to the String Quintet slow movement, we find that similar
procedures operate. What we hear on the surface of the ‘A’ section, the v1
‘commentary’ speaking as it were in recitative, is, pace Westrup,26 already
a disturbing element and infects the vc1 line so that it departs from its smooth
alliance with v2 and va (carrying the tune in their lyrical duet) to pick up the
v1 falling motifs (see Example 6.3a above). These elements in the texture are
developed in the central ‘B’ episode, with v1 and vc1 now in an impassioned duet,
drawing, in more sustained and intense fashion, on the falling recitative motifs
they shared briefly earlier: cf. Example 6.5 (p. 180). The ‘A’ and ‘B’ sections here
are essentially linked, despite the obvious contrast set up between them. In the
most violent of Schubert’s episodic outbreaks, that of the A major Sonata (D 959)
slow movement, a process akin to the transformation noted in ‘Frühlingstraum’
links the ‘B’ material to the opening ‘A’ section. The dominant pedal that featured
in the LH arpeggiation originally (Example 6.2a above) becomes grotesquely
distorted in the frenzied split octave semiquavers of the ‘B’ section (bars 92–3
23
For further exploration of the dream songs see Wollenberg, ‘Schubert and the Dream’.
24
Ibid.: 143.
25
For commentary on the unified nature of Schubert’s setting despite its surface
disunity, see also Youens, Retracing a Winter’s Journey, p. 212; Youens characterizes
‘Frühlingstraum’ as ‘a study in contrasts and disjunctions’ (ibid., p. 211).
26
See above: n. 17 refers.
Example 6.4
(a) ‘Frühlingstraum’, D 911/11, bars 1–8
and following: cf. Example 6.4c below) that stand out from their context. As with
the v1 recitative figures in the String Quintet, this linking feature already had an
obtrusive quality within the calmer framework of the ‘A’ material.27
27
The linking of the ‘B’ material to the ‘A’ on its return has been noted above apropos
of both D 959 and D 956 slow movements. In D 959 the ‘B’ section echoes further into the
following scherzo movement, with the sudden ‘volcanic’ eruption at bars 34–6, in C# minor,
recalling bars 107–9 of the slow movement.
6.4 (b) ‘Frühlingstraum’, D 911/11, bars 12–26

Also underlying the earlier discussion was the suggestion that the ‘A’ sections
of these episodic instrumental forms represent serenity, the ‘calm before the storm’.
However, the presence of disturbing elements has already been noted above; and
it transpires that these ‘A’ sections are far from stable in character. In particular,
their tonality shifts uneasily. In D 959-ii this is expressed in the music’s hovering
between F# minor and A major, with the sense of duality heightened by Schubert’s
characteristic use of the same pitches reharmonized: see bars 19 and following,
later reproduced in bars 51 and following (Example 6.6; cf. Example 6.2a above).
The restart in A major presents the ambivalence between the two keys by coming
to rest at its ‘halfway point’ on V of F# minor rather than of A major (bars 25–6;
57–8), with its closing phrases then cadencing in F# minor. (Brahms builds in
a similar ambivalence between D@ major and B@ minor to his ‘B’ theme in the
Intermezzo in B@ minor, op. 117 no. 2.) And Schubert’s String Quintet slow
movement has a tonally searching quality from the very start: its phrases arch
towards keys beyond E major, reaching F# major by bar 9 (see Example 6.3a above
for the beginning of this process).
Although the mood of the opening section of D 959-ii is, as noted above,
already unsettled, the frenzied eruption in the ‘B’ section contrasts sharply with
6.4 (c) D 959, slow movement, bars 85–110

the opening mood of the movement. In this case, uniquely among the three
slow movements that most intensely represent the category of episodic forms
manifesting Schubert’s ‘violent nature’ (those of D 887 and D 956, as well as
D 959), Schubert felt the need for greater mediation between the ‘A’ and ‘B’
sections in the form of an extended (rather than ‘quick’) transitional passage.
His choice of format for this transition is inspired, dissolving the comparative
regularity of the dance-like ‘A’ material into an improvisatory fantasia style, and
thereby also clearing any sense of a tonal centre completely, in a kind of limbo
6.4 (d) D 887, slow movement, bars 43–59

before the extreme tonal and figural explorations of the ‘B’ section emerge.28
The transition in D 959-ii establishes the character of the section that follows, before
the event, yet in no way dilutes its powerful effect (rather the opposite: it draws
attention to it).
Schubert’s intensity of mood and disruptive, even destructive, musical
outbursts were not confined to his larger-scale instrumental works but can be seen
equally strikingly among the more ‘miniature’ forms. The Impromptu in E@ major,
D 899/2, with its triplet moto perpetuo in the RH, might seem at first to belong to the
lighter, fashionable style of writing for piano, almost etude-like in its requirement
28
In particular, Schubert’s transitional progressions here exploit the role of diminished
seventh harmony, well recognized traditionally as an important component of fantasia, as
demonstrated in C.P.E Bach’s writings; see S. Wollenberg, ‘“Es lebe die Ordnung und
Betriebsamkeit! Was hilft das beste Herz ohne jene!”: A New Look at Fantasia Elements
in the Keyboard Sonatas of C.P.E. Bach’, Eighteenth-Century Music, 4/1 (2007): 119–28.

of rapid fingerwork and constant movement through the different registers of the
keyboard (Example 6.7a). But the piece as it unfolds is extremely subversive of this
apparently unproblematic start, and the violent ending in E@ minor (the tonic major
is never recovered at the close) leaves a disturbing impression. The reverse Tierce
de Picardie here forms the culmination of a highly aggressive treatment of tonality
in the final section of the piece. This aggressive character in turn brings to a peak
the manifestations of violence already seen, heard and felt in the treatment of the
whole ABAB1 form (with B1 taking a coda function, setting up a dialectic between
aspects of the ‘A’ and ‘B’ sections).29 Rather analogous to the opening sections
of D 959 and D 956 slow movements, the primary effect of the ‘A’ section in
D 899/2 (with its ‘light’ mood) serves to heighten the shocking eruption of the ‘B’
section that follows: Macdonald’s description of such eruptions as ‘contradictory
to the tenor of the movement’ applies at this point (see Example 6.7b).30 Again,
29
Brahms proceeds similarly in the coda of his B@ minor Intermezzo, op. 117 no. 2
(where an added layer of ambiguity arises from the sonata form overlaid on the episodic
plan). For an explicitly narrative-based account of Schubert’s piece see Susan McClary, ‘The
Impromptu that Trod on a Loaf: Or How Music Tells Stories’, Narrative, 5/1 (1997): 20–35.
30
Macdonald, ‘Schubert’s Volcanic Temper’: 949, here referring to more momentary
disturbances.
though, the ‘A’ section has not been straightforwardly serene throughout as a
prelude to the ‘B’ section, but rather, has contained distinct signs of turbulence.
Transformation from major to minor can take many differing forms in Schubert
(as explored in Chapter 2); here the ‘sunny’ mood of the E@ major opening theme
is at first scarcely disturbed by the brief intervention of a minore version at bar 25
en route to the flat mediant, G@ major (relative major of the tonic minor) at bars
27–8, thus apparently with modulatory function; but as the sequence continues the
tonic minor takes over to more sombre effect (Example 6.7c), a warning signal of
events later in the piece.
From here onwards the tonal profile of section ‘A’ becomes increasingly
complex. The return to the tonic major with the reappearance of the opening
material at bar 52 creates a deceptive expectation that the format of the whole
section will be essentially a rounded major–minor–major progression matching its
miniature AB(=A1)A thematic design. But as the original moto perpetuo gathers
new drama in an overture-like chromatic pile-up (bars 64–70) towards the end
of the section, the hold on the tonic major is lost and the release of the ascending
sequence maintains the tonic minor on its way down and then up to the point of
transition (Example 6.8). The ending of the ‘B’ section moves from B minor to E@
major for the return of ‘A’ via the tonic minor; Section A is then repeated exactly,
so that again it features a tonic minor ending. Together with the coda, this means
that all four sections of the piece thus end in E@ minor. The prevailing ‘tenor of the
movement’ is thereby thrown considerably into question, especially as the central
‘B’ section conceived in violent mood, rather than acting as a shorter interlude, is
commensurate with the proportions of the ‘A’ sections that surround it. And the
‘light, fashionable’ E@ major material features in only half the total length of those
‘A’ sections.
Schubert’s choice here of an unvaried return of ‘A’ following section B (at
bars 169–250, including transition) rather than applying variations as seen in the
previous examples of episodic movements, allows further deceptive proceedings
to ensue, with the restart of ‘B’ (bar 251) producing expectations of a literal
repeat of this whole section too. It is in fact about half its original length, but with
a significant increase of power. The keys of sections ‘A’ and ‘B’ are now set up
against each other in fortissimo dynamic, and it is the tonic minor that features in
fierce opposition to the B minor of section B: the effect is terrifying (Example 6.9).
New light is thrown on the ‘B’ material in this remarkable coda, particularly when
for the first time in the piece it is cranked up an octave to force its key even
more strongly; the tonic minor ‘wins’ by increasing the speed after this point,
and hurtling down with unremitting energy (and in a reversal of the ascending
scale that functioned as transition). The whole of this ending, right through to the
repeated hemiola chords preceding the final, abrupt V–I, is of a demonic character
that could not have been predicted at the start of the piece. (It shares this attribute
with the central ‘B’ sections of the slow movements considered earlier in this
chapter: those of D 887, D 956 and D 959.) The argument and its resolution, as
described above, are primarily tonal; thematically, the ‘B’ material takes over the
Example 6.7 (a)–(c) D 899/2
(a) Bars 1–20

6.7 (b) Bars 83–104

6.7 (c) Bars 25–35
‘A’ key until the last few bars. Perhaps never before in an episodic movement of
this type had the main sections been pitted against each other so audibly and with
such force, stretching the limits of the still-evolving piano ‘miniature’ form.
Schubert’s deployment of major–minor effects to produce a new slant on
sonata form was noted in the conclusion of Chapter 2. His access of ‘volcanic
temper’ could also have a transforming effect on the sonata form dynamic. In
the first movement of the G major Piano Sonata, D 894, the opening theme
might be considered to surpass even the stillness of the String Quintet slow
Example 6.8 D 899/2, bars 60–81

Example 6.9 D 899/2, bars 251–83
continued
movement opening: see Example 7.3 below.31 While Theme II here contrasts to
some extent with Theme I by dint of its dance topic it is only in the junctures
between and following the main thematic statements that the exposition displays
(briefly) a modicum of overt power. Themes I and II are heard predominantly
in the exposition at a pianissimo dynamic (subsiding to ppp). The nineteenth-
century assumptions regarding ‘gendered’ themes in sonata form would not be
met by these proceedings. But Schubert has a personal agenda to pursue. Further
into the development section after the dramatic and violent treatment of Theme
I already noted (see Example 2.14), a similar degree of violence is applied to
Theme II. Thus the entire thematic material of the exposition is subjected to the
transformation from lyrical/dance topic into dramatic/violent character in the
development (reaching fff at its peak), throwing the double return of Theme I in
the tonic for the start of the recapitulation into new focus: its effect is positively
restorative at this point.
This form of development seems to go beyond what might be called the
mechanical application of such devices as counterpoint and modulatory activity:
the transformation of these themes has the capacity to evoke psychological, or
poetic, resonance. While Schubert’s own capacity to appear at times extremely
amiable and at other times disturbingly aggressive might come to mind here,32
there is no reason to suppose that he knowingly pictured himself in his music,
and indeed this simplistic assumption does a disservice to the sophistication of his
compositional vision. My own preferred reading of the occurrences discussed in
this chapter is ultimately that Schubert in such cases is writing as a poet, and that
the music inhabits quasi-psychological states.
Eric Blom apparently missed the anger of the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy and the
bleakness of Winterreise, together with the various explosive happenings in the
piano sonatas and chamber works, when he wrote of Schubert: ‘Energy certainly is
31
On the threefold construction of Theme I in D 894-i, exposition, see Chapter 7
below, and on the variation of Theme II see Chapter 8 below. A particular reading of the
work’s overall character is explored in Hatten, ‘Schubert’s Pastoral: The Piano Sonata in
G Major, D894’.
32
For documentation and analysis of these moods see McKay, Franz Schubert,
Chapter 6.
not his strong point, nor truculence a defect of his art.’33 This and other questionable
assertions arise from his desire to portray Schubert as ‘the true child of his class’.34
Although Blom acknowledged the poignancy conveyed by ‘Totengräber-Weise’
(D 869) ‘in spite of its apparent easefulness’, and the ‘aching woe’ beneath what
he regarded as the ‘calm surface’ of ‘Gefrorne Tränen’ (D 911/3) and ‘Ihr Bild’ (D
957/9), he saw the finale of the ‘Trout’ Quintet and the first movement of the Octet
as representing ‘that unhurried rambling … that shows us Schubert on his most
endearing side … the side which more than anything stamps him as a distinctive
personality in music’.35 On the contrary: these were sociable pieces with a
special purpose and origins, and for all their attractions do not mark Schubert’s
distinctiveness as an artist to the extent that the works discussed in this chapter
do. Hugh Macdonald, writing 50 years after Blom, saw Schubert’s ‘truculence’,
to adopt Blom’s terms, not as a ‘defect’ but as part of his ‘distinctive personality
in music’.36
Mention was made in Chapter 1 of Charles Rosen’s observation that Susan
McClary (in Feminine Endings) ‘averts her eyes from the frequent outbursts
of savage violence in Schubert’s scores’.37 This seems almost a reversion to
Hutchings’s viewpoint that Schubert ‘gives us nothing but beauty’.38 There are
numerous instrumental movements in Schubert’s oeuvre where beauty is allowed
to flourish relatively untroubled: the slow movement of the B@ Piano Trio, D 898, is
an example. Elsewhere, though, beauty is created alongside and in relation to those
darker moods that colour it indelibly, thereby lending it an even greater profundity.
33
Eric Blom, ‘The Middle-Classical Schubert’, Musical Times, 69 (1928): 890–91;
980–83, 890.
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid.: 891.
36
Macdonald, ‘Schubert’s Volcanic Temper’.
37
Chapter 1, n. 56 refers. As observed in Chapter 4, McClary’s declared perception of
‘brutality’ in Schubert’s sonata forms is specifically tied to nineteenth-century conventions
regarding gendered subjects, which she applies to Schubert’s thematic treatment, rather
than referring to the violent outbursts recognized by Rosen.
38
Chapter 1, n. 7 refers.
Chapter 7
Threefold Constructions
This chapter to some extent brings together various observations about some of
the movements already discussed, in order to draw out new ideas about the nature
and use of threefold procedures in Schubert’s instrumental music, setting these
in context. The threefold presentation of Theme I in the first movement of the B@
Piano Sonata, D 960 has generated a considerable amount of analytical attention
in the literature.1 Important to stress is the fact that it forms part of a cluster of
instances in various of Schubert’s instrumental movements where this kind
of format is applied to the themes, and which develop the model prior to its use
in D 960. While, obviously, tripartite structures belong to the common currency
of music through the ages, the specific use of this device in Schubert’s thematic
construction constitutes a personal ‘fingerprint’. In several earlier piano sonatas
Schubert experimented with this format for Theme I of their first movements, in
analogous fashion to the B@ sonata. Crucial to its effect is the opening up of the
theme’s tonal horizons that it provides.2
The opening of the Piano Sonata in A major, D 664, first movement has
immediately a non-Classical effect of ‘beginning in the middle’, or continuing a
conversation. Its informal, songlike start is expanded into the tonally closed eight-
bar (4 X 2) a b a1 c statement noted in Chapter 4, thus adopting a neat Classical
phrase-construction.3 But the further expansion that follows introduces a greater
complexity into the structure. The first eight bars become the ‘A’ section of an
ABA1 format, stretching to 20 bars in length up to the point of transition. Schubert
packs considerable activity into the four-bar ‘B’ section of this tripartite design.
A new texture is developed, featuring a dialogue between the two hands, and the
original material is transposed to F# minor, and fragmented and inverted. Among
the subtleties of this passage is the play on E#/F$ as it returns to the tonic for
1
See for example Fisk, Returning Cycles, pp. 241–2; and Cohn, ‘As Wonderful as
Star Clusters’, passim.
2
The phenomenon has tended to be associated with Schubert’s ‘lyricism’ in his
treatment of sonata form, as in James Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form and Brahms’s First
Maturity’, I, 19th-Century Music, 2/1 (1978): 18–35; cf. Su Yin Mak, ‘Schubert’s Sonata
Forms and the Poetics of the Lyric’, Journal of Musicology, 23/2 (2006): 263–306, 263:
‘A critical commonplace in Schubert analysis is the view that the composer’s instrumental
music is characterized by extended lyricism and that such lyricism is essentially at odds
with Classical sonata conventions.’
3
The individual two-bar units are motivically interlinked. Further on the harmonic
profile of the theme in relation to the wider tonal plan see Chapter 4 above.
the varied recall of the eight-bar ‘A’ section. Additionally it plays with Classical
expectations in that the choice here of F# minor (the relative minor) classically
forms chord II of the dominant and could have launched a sequence towards
that key as part of a transitional move, to prepare the arrival of Theme II in the
dominant.4 When the transition is launched in D 664-i following the complete
ABA1 presentation of Theme I, it takes a very different route.
The transition (bars 20–24) has properties of Schubert’s ‘quick’ type: it reaches
the dominant, E major, within a bar, converting the single note d#11 unobtrusively
from chromatic passing-note to leading-note function as it joins the ascending
A major scale to the E major transition theme beginning at bar 21 (see Example
7.1, bars 20–21). Each event here prepares the next, so that the quaver triplets of
bar 20 lead into the accompaniment rhythm of bars 21–4, and this accompaniment
pattern, together with the lyrical character preserved in the transition theme
(complete with song-style echo in the minor, bars 23–4), leads into Theme II at
bar 25.5 Theme II has the effect of emerging from the transition rather than being
classically articulated.
The four-bar ‘B’ section of Theme I has a resonance beyond the exposition at
various levels. When the material of the opening ‘A’ section begins in F# minor
after the double bar (thus in the key of Theme I, section B) it now develops the
dialogue texture originally belonging to ‘B’ into a more continuous canon between
the hands (Example 7.2). And when the ‘B’ section itself then follows in C# minor
at bars 514–571, its original ending proves flexible, now joining directly to the
linking scale from bar 20: compare the approach in bars 11–12 with bars 54–7,
with their new injection of drama. As in D 894-i, the first (and extreme) display
of power is in the development section: the innocuous scale-figure providing the
link at bar 20 takes on an apocalyptic character at bars 57 and following (and joins
itself to a fragment of the dactylic figure) in a dialogue between the hands that
transforms the lyrical musings of the exposition into an expression of ‘sinister
exuberance’ (to use once again McKay’s description of the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy).6
It is as if the ‘B’ component of the tripartite Theme I has at this point discovered its
power to unleash forces beyond any expectations that might have attached to these
4
A model of the more compact Classical type is found in Mozart’s F major Sonata,
K 332 (300k), first movement, where the dramatic plunge to the relative minor following
the opening 12-bar thematic statement and its 10-bar pendant (this whole first section
providing an example of Classical ‘topical discourse’) proceeds sequentially towards the
dominant: see Ex. 5.9b above.
5
The exposition of D 664-i has an intense degree of connectedness. The major–minor
echo design of bars 21–4 is mirrored on a larger scale and in more developmental fashion
following the presentation of Theme II in E major at bars 25–8, with cadential passage at 29–33
(cf. bars 34–7, inverting the texture of the transition theme in E minor and modulating briefly
to C major): the characteristic dactylic rhythm then persists through the varied and augmented
version of the cadential passage from Theme II and into the exposition’s closing bars.
6
Chapter 1, n. 54 above refers.
Threefold Constructions 193


figures originally. And it is then the ‘B’ component of Theme I that principally
effects the retransitional restoration of the tonic key and opening mood (bars
69 and following). Finally, its possibilities are explored one stage further in its
recapitulatory version (bars 874–91), when (reflecting a preoccupation already
evident in the exposition) its texture is inverted.
The unusually sustained opening of the G major Sonata, D 894, first movement
proceeds, like D 664-i, in leisurely lyrical fashion, here taken to greater lengths.
In D 894-i the tripartite statement of Theme I explores tonal regions further away
than in the earlier sonata; but the arrival in B major during the central ‘B’ section is
not a random event. The approach is made via the mediant, B minor (bars 10–12:
see Example 7.3); here, rather than Schubert’s characteristic play on the same
pitches, reharmonized (as in D 960-i), elements of the ‘A’ theme appear freely
varied. The ‘echo’ in the major (bars 13–15) illuminates the previous three-bar
phrase, so that the identical ‘pause’ on the dominant chord (bar 15; cf. bar 12) has
a quite different effect in this light. Here, as in D 960-i, the A1 section of Theme I
then merges into the transition. The development section of D 894-i moves in new
directions tonally, and in the interests of greater compactness the recapitulation,
appropriately, suppresses the ‘B’ section of Theme I and return of ‘A’, instead
merging straight into the transition.
It might seem, then, that the B minor/B major episode at the centre of Theme I
in the exposition is an isolated glimpse of a different tonal ‘landscape’. However,
its resonances are in fact reserved for later in the work. B minor and major are
threaded through the episodic form of the second movement (Andante); and they
are the choice of keys for the Menuetto and Trio comprising the third movement,
typically for Schubert set in other than the tonic of the work. In the D major Andante
the first ‘B’ episode begins abruptly in the relative B minor (see Figure 7.1, p. 198
for an outline of the form). Like the first ‘B’ episode in D 887-ii, section B of
D 894-ii creates a double presentation of its main material (‘a’) divided by an
interlude (‘b’), which in this case is not a transition – as indicated, there is no
transition joining the A and B sections of the form – but a recurring strain within
the section, alternating with ‘a’.7
Where in D 887-ii the intervening passage re-ran the transition in order
to modulate afresh within the episode, in the first ‘B’ episode of D 894-ii the
prevailing tonality remains centred on B minor. What happens here is that the
progress of the ‘a’ (‘Baroque aria’) material is interrupted by the ‘b’ material:
7
The ‘a’ material of the episode, first launched from bar 30 (see Fig. 7.1), is
characterized by an ‘antique’ flavour redolent of a Baroque aria. Such topoi are recurrent in
Schubert’s instrumental music (see particularly the second ‘movement’, Largo, of the F minor
Fantasy, D 940). Schubert’s desire for powerful contrasts between the ‘A’ and ‘B’ sections
of his episodic slow movement forms is seen in the strengthening of the ‘B’ episode of
D 894-ii compared with the original version, which he rejected in favour of a more aggressive
outburst: see Howard Ferguson (introd.), Franz Schubert: Piano Sonata in G major op. 78
(D. 894), British Library Music Facsimiles, II (London: British Library, 1980), p. vi and f. 6v.

the episode could have continued directly from bar 39, joining that bar on to its
sequel at bar 50 from the final semiquaver of bar 49 (see Example 7.4).
The ‘b’ material sets up an antithesis almost as if another character in the drama
responds to the outburst of ‘a’, in plaintive or even pleading fashion (Example 7.4,
bars 40–49). The key here picks up from the dominant (F# minor) reached at the
cadence point of the preceding passage, and in keeping with the more songlike
character of the ‘b’ material with its rippling accompaniment, this now features
a minor–major transformation (cf. bars 43–4 and 45–71), eventually restoring the
dominant to its function as V of B minor as preparation for the return of the ‘a’
material at bar 50. When the ‘b’ interlude then recurs (bars 58–68) it is transposed
to the local tonic, B minor, thus now featuring a B major transformation at the
equivalent point (bars 64–661). And the third movement, at the point where the Trio
begins, moves in deliberate fashion from B minor (the key of the Menuetto) to B
major for the Trio (Example 7.5, p. 201). Thus the B minor–major ‘echo’ originally
adding extra depth to the threefold presentation of Theme I in the first movement
resonates in the slow movement episode and in the third movement minuet and
trio, each of these similarly repeating and transforming material from B minor
to B major with illuminating effect. This has become a ‘motif’ threaded through
the work.
The device used to link the Menuetto and Trio of D 894-iii is itself an
instance of threefold construction of a particular type. A key to it here is the
prevailing dance topic. Schubert spent many hours composing and playing
Bars Sections Keys

1–30 A:
1–8 a1 D
8–18; 18–30 ||: b: a2 :|| D → A; D
30–78 B:
30–39 a b → f#
39–49 b f# → F #
49–58 a1 →G→b
58–68 b1 b→B
68–79 Retransition 1 f# → F # → D: V7
79–109 A1:
79–87 a11 D
87–97; 97–109 b1 ; a21 D → A; D
109–57 B:1
109–18 a11 d→a

118–28 b11 a→A
128–37 a111 → B@ → d
137–47 b111 d→D
147–58 Retransition 2 a → A → D: V7
158–80 A11:
158–72 a211 D
172–80 Coda [b] → D
Figure 7.1 D 894, second movement (Andante), outline of form
dance music at his friends’ request.8 The ‘warm-up’ effect at the beginning of
the Trio in D 894, with its hesitant start, could suggest the convention of adding
preliminary bars of music before the dance proper, while the dancers prepare to
begin. The B minor–major progression inherited from the previous movements
acquires a new twist here with the searching quality of the triply repeated
phrase, pausing on the third (d11) before sharpening it and emerging into the
major on the third ‘attempt’. This extremely attractive device has claims to be
8
See, for example, Hilmar, Franz Schubert in his Time, pp. 23–31, ‘From Musical
Salon to Schubertiade’; Margaret Notley, ‘Schubert’s Social Music’, in Gibbs (ed.),
Cambridge Companion to Schubert, pp. 138–44; and Elizabeth Aldrich, ‘Social Dancing in
Schubert’s World’, in Erickson (ed.), Schubert’s Vienna, pp. 119–40.
continued
considered a Schubertian ‘fingerprint’ in those of his instrumental movements

that are influenced by dance.9 Characteristically for Schubert, the progression
is mirrored, enchantingly, later in the Trio (bars 24–6), deftly returning the
music to the tonic B major via G# major/minor with again a play on the third, in
triplicate (Example 7.6). The economy of material in this movement is matched
by the economy with which its tonal horizons are created, moving amongst
B minor, B major, G# minor and major by minimal changes, and playing with
9
By its nature and origins the device cannot be unique to Schubert. A (more
straightforward) version appears, for instance, in Haydn’s Trio to the Menuet of his
Symphony no. 104 in D major.
Example 7.5 D 894, third movement, Menuetto, bars 48–52; Trio, bars 1–10
form along the way.10 The lapidary nature of these compressed proceedings
perfectly suits the compact form.11
10
To note particularly are, first, the device of ‘my end is my beginning’ (cf. the
famous chanson by Machaut bearing this precise title, ‘Ma fin est mon commencement’): in
Schubert’s piece, the first section closes by reusing the preliminary motif (now harmonized)
again in triplicate, but this time all in the major; and this serves also as the end of the whole
Trio. Secondly, the return of the opening phrase at bars 20–21 of the Trio has a fausse
reprise effect, with its out-of-tonic arrival (a ‘double return’ in the tonic never materializes).
11
Perhaps the most haunting instance of the threefold start to a dance movement is
in the Menuetto and Trio of the A minor Quartet, D 804, where the incipit from Schubert’s
setting of Schiller, ‘Strophe aus Die Götter Griechenlands’, D 677 (‘Schöne Welt, wo bist
du?’) is reproduced in triplicate at the beginning of the minuet, in the minor: threefold
repetition infuses the whole movement, and the variant of the opening device at bar 37 of
the minuet incorporating a descending third into C# minor is mirrored in the major at the
Example 7.6 D 894, third movement, Trio, bars 10–30
Playfulness is associated with threefold construction to more overtly witty

effect in some of Schubert’s sonata finales, again – as in the Trio of D 894-iii – set
beginning of the trio, inverted (thus linking directly to the song), which then finds its echo
in the opening of the finale. On the song and quartet see Nicholas Rast, ‘“Schöne Welt wo
bist du?”: Motive and Form in Schubert’s A Minor String Quartet’, in Newbould (ed.),
Schubert the Progressive, pp. 81–8.
up from the opening bars, thus drawing the listener (and performer) immediately
into the compositional design. While Schubert has not generally been credited
with possessing a sense of ‘musical humour’, this is sometimes a feature of his
instrumental writing and is not surprising to find, since it constitutes a natural
outgrowth of his experimental and exploratory approach to form and tonality.12 The
‘false start’ ploy whereby, for instance, the finale of the A minor Sonata D 537 begins
three times in succession, can be understood (as suggested in Chapter 1) in the sorts
of terms developed by commentators for Haydn’s comic instrumental writing.13 The
first time the music starts it skirts close to the danger of finishing prematurely, but
breaks off just in time before a final cadence is completed. It then makes a second
attempt, this time missing its goal and slipping away to the Neapolitan key above its
tonic, B@ major, going through the same cadential motions in that key, then recovers
its ground and echoes the (incomplete) cadence in the ‘correct’ key, the tonic A
minor, breaking off exactly as before. The third time it starts, with the identical
opening scalic gesture to the previous two attempts, the cadence that follows turns
unexpectedly into the tonic major, and after a pause this proves to give the necessary
impetus for the movement to continue, in exuberant vein (see Example 7.7).14
Elements of humour and unpredictability are intrinsic to this movement.
At the start of the finale of the B major Sonata, D 575 (a movement similarly
conceived in lively dance character), the threefold device, like that at the opening
of the Trio in D 894, constitutes an artistic equivalent to the convention described
above, whereby the music that launches a dance-set is designed to give time for
the dancers to line up and prepare to step out into the dance (see Example 7.8,
p. 206). In D 575-iv, as in D 537-iii, the threefold gesture at the opening heralds
a movement characterized throughout by elements of wit and surprise. The cross-
phrasing between the hands and the deliberately clumsy accompaniment to the
G major theme introduced at bar 133 (Example 7.9), typically after a bar’s pause,
almost evoke an anti-dance. This theme is preceded by an unusually determined
sequential descent spelling out the steps by which the music moves from the
prevailing B major to G major at this point, a move that Schubert could have
accomplished in a few beats and which is here strung out over the space of nine
bars. This threefold sequence with its chordal determination is in effect a grossly
distorted parody of the neat, economical (and unharmonized) three-part sequence
that so deftly formed the opening gesture. The stuff of that neat opening sequence,
12
Seeking to pinpoint Schubert’s personality, Blom claimed that ‘he had no sense of
humour (though surely a love of fun and even of horseplay)’: see ‘The Middle-Classical
Schubert’: 981.
13
Chapter 1, n. 57 above refers.
14
It is as if, at this point finding itself in the ‘wrong’ mode, the music blithely
shrugs its shoulders in a spirit of ‘may as well stay here and get on with it’. This kind of
behaviour is discussed by Alfred Brendel, ‘Must Classical music be entirely serious?’, 1, in
Music Sounded Out: Essays, Lectures, Interviews, Afterthoughts (London: Robson, 1990),
pp. 12–36.
Example 7.7 D 537, third movement (finale), bars 1–66

Example 7.8 D 575, fourth movement (finale), bars 1–32
though, is subjected to playful treatment, elongating it in various ways (see

Example 7.8, bars 12–17 and 22–9). Although neither D 537-iii nor D 575-iv is
a formal rondo, both are imbued with the spirit of rondo in its humorous mode.15
15
D 537-iii is in a freely episodic form with elements of rondo: it can be shown
broadly as A B C+D (interleaved) A B C+D A. D 575-iv is more a freely conceived sonata
form with episodic elements, broadly A B C: || D A B C, with B and C heard first in the
Example 7.9 D 575, fourth movement, bars 120–51
The ways in which threefold construction might operate at different levels of

Schubert’s music can be studied in depth in the Quartettsatz, D 703. Its three-key
exposition is clear in setting out its first theme in C minor, the second, lyrical
theme in the submediant, A@ major, and (after the prolonged transition to G major)
its third group of thematic material, closing the exposition in the dominant major.
However, other tripartite structures can be found overarching the conventional
division created by the double bar here (after which, in any case, events tend to
take an increasingly unconventional turn). Because the fourth theme, introduced
immediately after the double bar (with a generosity of thematic provision and
connectedness prophetic of the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, D 760) is in A@ major, Themes
II and III form with this fourth theme an A@–G–A@ complex, reflecting ‘writ large’
dominant, then in the tonic. (The themes may be motivically interrelated in such designs,
as with ‘C’ and ‘D’ in D 575-iv.)
the three-note motif with its neighbour-note figure that decorates the chromatic
fourth at the start of the piece and underpins all four themes. This motif in inversion,
as well as in its original form, is reiterated and reinterpreted throughout the whole
movement, worked into the string quartet texture and the movement’s structure
with an unusual degree (even for Schubert) of intensity and persistence. While
the ‘returning-note’ or ‘neighbour-note’ motif is another example of common
language used widely through the ages, its recurrence (and often prominence)
in Schubert’s thematic vocabulary gives it motivic ‘fingerprint’ status: compare
the extracts from ‘Gute Nacht’, D 911/1 in Examples 7.10a–b with Examples
4.14 (D 118), 4.15 (D 759) and 4.16a–c above, together with Example 3.4 above
(for Themes I–IV of D 703).16
The kind of build-up seen in miniature in the introduction to the Trio in D 894,
where the threefold repetition of a motif changed finally the third time (in that
case from minor to major) may be played out more discretely over a longer stretch
of music. This process governs the transitional move to A@ major for Theme II in
D 703, but with a different twist. Here one note (D@) together with an associated
harmony (the Neapolitan ^3) goes through a series of three mutations, as noted in
Chapter 3, threaded into the first 26 bars that comprise Theme I and transition.
From flattened supertonic carrying the Neapolitan (bars 9–10) it reverts to D$ for
the counterstatement of Theme I, now harmonized with chord IIb (bars 17–18),
and finally is re-inflected as D@ (bars 23–4) to take the pivotal role of preparing the
cadence into the submediant for Theme II, now functioning as subdominant in the
new key. The sense of close attention to detail and nuance that informs D 703 as
the movement unfolds is contained in this controlled threefold process of change.
Turning now to the presentation of Theme I in D 960-i, highlighted at
the start of this chapter as one of the most prominent examples of threefold
construction in Schubert, we find a longer-range resonance emanating from
the three-part, harmonically symmetrical unfolding of the first theme. Also
much commented on in the literature is the unusual retransitional procedure of
this sonata form movement.17As Hinrichsen observed, the d–B@–d ambivalence
created around the fragments of Theme I in the retransition here (bars 188 and
16
On the elaboration of the motif in Theme III of D 703 into the ‘tarantella’ topic see
Julian Rushton, ‘Schubert, the Tarantella, and the Quartettsatz D. 703’. James Sobaskie
(‘A Balance Struck : Gesture, Form, and Drama in Schubert’s E-flat-Major Trio’, in Hascher
(ed.), Le style instrumental de Schubert, pp. 117–48, p. 135) points out that the progression
in the first movement of the E@ Piano Trio from the end of the exposition through to the start
and finish of the development expresses the motif B@–B$–B@ writ large, in an ‘extraordinarily
expanded’ inversion of the motivic use in the exposition’s main theme, paralleled in the
finale (ibid., p. 142).
17
See especially Nicholas Marston, ‘Schubert’s Homecoming’, Journal of the Royal
Musical Association, 125/2 (2000): 248–70.
Example 7.10 (a)–(b) ‘Gute Nacht’, D 911/1
(a) Bars 7–11
(b) Bars 23–7
following) reflects the B@–G@–B@ layout of Theme I in the exposition originally.18

Taking this point further, we can note that since the original spacious layout is then
reproduced in the recapitulatory statement of Theme I that follows (bars 216–63), the
whole of the exposition–retransition–recapitulation presentation of Theme I creates
a large, symmetrical threefold plan, encasing the individual tripartite designs (see
Figure 7.2). The treatment of the thematic fragments in the retransition is nuanced
further, with the D minor portions featuring an ambivalence between F major and
D minor, giving way finally to V7 of B at bar 203 (see Example 7.11), while the B
fragments constantly refer to G in the F–G–F outline embedded within their texture.
18
Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der
Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts. Hinrichsen is concerned here with broader aspects
rather than the fine detail, in support of his contention that ‘the individual characteristics of
Schubert’s sonata form are above all those of his harmonic designs’ (‘Die Eigenheiten der
Sonatenform bei Schubert sind die seiner Harmonik überall’: p. 31).
Bars 1–44 188–203 216–63

Section/ Exposition/ Retransition/ Recapitulation/
Theme Theme I statement Theme I fragments Theme I statement
Keys B@–G@–B@ d– B@–d B@–G@–B@
Figure 7.2 D 960, first movement, Theme I: threefold designs
In the finale of D 960, it transpires that Schubert plays a last trick, in his piano
sonatas, of the ‘false start’ type, with a tripartite design related to the humorous
uses of the device seen in the finales of D 537 and D 575, as discussed above.
In D 960, also, three attempts are made to start the finale theme, and only on the
last attempt does it succeed in starting in the ‘right’ key.19 Since the finale theme
features in a characteristically freely constructed rondo form, and is itself in an
ABA format, the opportunities for play on the false approach each time the theme
returns are multiplied. At a deeper level, this builds the crucial G–G@–F motif
through the movement until its apotheosis in the coda, where the threefold design
19
The ‘false start’ here also produces a deceptive version of the enigmatic
unharmonized octave gesture used in D 887-ii; there it turns out to be the dominant of the
key of the movement (E minor) whereas in D 960 it is the ‘wrong’ dominant (of C minor).
is stretched out teasingly, withholding the ultimate resolution into the tonic until
the Presto conclusion that follows. The Presto section then goes to the opposite
extreme, compressing elements of diverse thematic material from the movement
together exhilaratingly at the end (see Example 7.12).
While thinking compositionally in twos, fours, eights and their multiples
formed so much of the basis of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century
structures in certain respects,20 ‘thinking in threes’ evidently held a special place
in Schubert’s compositional plan, both at the level of the theme and in the larger
movement form. Some of the examples discussed in this chapter seem to provide
almost an antidote to Schubert’s ‘volcanic temper’ treated in the preceding chapter,
with their infusion of wit and playful deception into the proceedings. The effects
of Schubert’s threefold devices range from these humorous moments to profound
integration into the whole sweep of a work. In this latter regard, they link up
with one of Schubert’s most controversial fingerprints, his ‘heavenly lengths’
(discussed in Chapter 9) where their potential to lend structural coherence to a
movement has a very particular significance.
Example 7.12 D 960 fourth movement (finale), bars 490–540
continued
20
For a particular angle on this see Brian Newbould, ‘Cornered in the Middle
Eight: Dance Miniaturism vis-à-vis Sonata’, in Newbould, ed., Schubert the Progressive,
pp. 107–16.

Chapter 8
Schubert’s Variations
Schubert’s free-standing sets of variations – those not encased in chamber works

or arising within other forms such as sonata forms – are not necessarily the most
representative of his abilities in this area; these will not be the main focus of the
discussion in this chapter.1 Nevertheless they deserve some mention here in the
light of the critical tradition that has become attached to them. In particular the
Introduction and Variations on ‘Trockne Blumen’ for flute and piano, D 802, have
attracted a certain amount of adverse criticism. Perhaps this virtuoso showpiece
may suggest, as Martin Chusid concluded, that ‘for Schubert the form [of
variations] limited his normally fertile harmonic imagination’.2 But performers
and listeners report positively on their experience of the work in terms of its
remarkable impact.3 Virtuosity in itself is not a reason to question the value of
the ‘Trockne Blumen’ variations; nor is the source of the theme responsible for
the perceived weakness of D 802, since the song on which they are based (from
Die schöne Müllerin, D 795/18), while possessing in part a bleakness entirely
appropriate to its subject-matter, does not (in spite of its title) have an intrinsically
sterile quality.4
Taking a critically more acclaimed example of song variations contained within
a larger movement-cycle, the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, D 760 shows Schubert creating
a profound reflection on the song of that name in the variations at the work’s
centre, while providing the performer with the opportunity and challenge involved
in high-level pianistic technique. The virtuoso passages in the outer sections
surrounding the variations are strongly characterized, and, like the main thematic
statements, they draw on the song source both motivically and harmonically,
gaining added substance thereby.
Nor are the circumstances of the commission that seems to have produced the
‘Trockne Blumen’ Variations in themselves a reason to assign a lesser value to
1
On Schubert’s formal (free-standing) variation sets see especially M.J.E. Brown,
Schubert’s Variations (London: Macmillan, 1954); and for a helpful summary of his
variations generally, see ‘Variationen’, in Hilmar and Jestremski (eds), Schubert Lexikon,
pp. 480–82.
2
See Chusid, ‘Schubert’s Chamber Music: Before and after Beethoven’, p. 180.
3
I am especially grateful to Walter Frisch and Angela Mace for their comments.
4
Prawer translated the title literally, as ‘Dry Flowers’ (Penguin Book of Lieder,
p. 523); another possible translation might be ‘Withered Flowers’: cf. Reed, Schubert Song
Companion, p. 192. Chusid described the ‘Trockne Blumen’ variations as a ‘weak set’ on a
fine song (‘Schubert’s Chamber Music: Before and after Beethoven’, p. 180).
the set.5 The ‘Trout’ Quintet, D 667, was similarly the result of a commission (by
the cellist and musical patron Sylvester Paumgartner, who particularly admired the
song ‘Die Forelle’, D 550),6 and here it led to one of Schubert’s most successful
and attractive variation sets, forming the fourth movement of the work. Like the
‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, the chamber works featuring a variations movement based
on a pre-existent Lied treat this not simply as an added element inserted into the
movement cycle, but as a generative force for the whole work. This is true in
various ways of both the D minor Quartet, D 810 (‘Death and the Maiden’) and
the ‘Trout’ Quintet, D 667.
The ‘Trout’ Quintet, perhaps because of its predominantly sociable character
and genial mood, has received less analytical attention in this particular regard
than the ‘Death and the Maiden’ Quartet.7 The ‘water music’ effect common to the
figuration in the first and second movements of D 667 is generally acknowledged.
But beyond this, the fourth movement with the song variations is prepared by a
series of references scattered through the preceding movements. An exception to
the general tendency to overlook this aspect is the article by Karl Marx detailing
the relationship of the surrounding movements to the variations.8 Marx focuses
especially on a number of motivic derivations from the song. The connections can
be explored further. The key of the variations movement, D major, is also ‘planted’
at various points in the previous movements. The first such instance places it in
the musical equivalent of quotation marks, during the closing passage of the
exposition in the first movement (bars 136–40: Example 8.1a). Set apart from the
surrounding E major material by the change in pace, dynamics and texture as well
as the unexpected twist to D major, this intervention has the effect of a distant
vision of the song theme that is to come.
What the D major ‘quotation’ in bars 136–40 points up is the relationship
with the song theme already embedded in the introduction (‘curtain’) to the first
5
The piece was written for the flautist Ferdinand Bogner (Professor at the
Conservatoire of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna), whose friendship with
Schubert dated back to their membership of the orchestral society that met at Otto Hatwig’s
residence (see Brown, Schubert: A Critical Biography, p. 51); it is generally assumed that
Bogner commissioned it (see ibid., p. 133 and McKay, Franz Schubert, p. 250).
6
On Paumgartner see McKay, Franz Schubert, pp. 95–6. McKay provides a summary
of all Schubert’s chamber music incorporating song (ibid., p. 202).
7
Westrup, finding aspects of Schubert’s scoring in D 667 unsatisfactory, nevertheless
thought that ‘the music is so frank and open-hearted that it silences criticism of details’; neither
this description, nor his suggestion that the work could be regarded ‘as a divertimento’, does
full justice to its subtleties (see Westrup, Schubert Chamber Music, p. 8).
8
Karl Marx, ‘Einige Anmerkungen zu Schuberts Forellenquintett und Oktett’, Neue
Zeitschrift für Musik, 132 (1971): 588–92. Marx cites Hans Hollander’s assertion that in
comparison with D 810, in D 667 there is ‘no connection’ between the song variations and the
other movements, as a prelude to his own demonstration of the opposite position (ibid.: 588).
Schubert’s Variations 215
Example 8.1 (a)–(d) D 667, first/fourth movements
(a) First movement, bars 133–43
continued
8.1 (a) concluded
movement, and in Theme I proper (cf. Examples 8.1b, c and d).9 But whereas
that D major ‘quotation’ towards the end of the exposition is designed to be
noticed, the motivic resemblances in the opening part of the movement seem
to work more subliminally in preparing the eventual arrival of the song theme.
Once noticed, however, these resemblances can be seen (and heard) to resonate
throughout the work. The next ‘infiltration’ of D major occurs (more extensively)
from the moment when Schubert chooses a subdominant recapitulation replacing
what should have been the ‘double return’ at this point.10 As Marx’s Example
II shows, Schubert now plants the resemblance to the song heard originally in
Marx’s Example III (ibid.: 589) draws other lines of contact between these three
9
themes, some more tenuous than others, perhaps. (He does not examine the passage
discussed in connection with Example 8.1a above, nor trace the infiltration of the variations
movement’s key more generally.)
10
On Schubert’s penchant for subdominant recapitulations see Boyd, ‘Schubert’s
Short Cuts’.
8.1 (b) First movement, bars 3–6
8.1 (c) First movement, bars 27–9

8.1 (d) Fourth movement (Thema), bars 1–4
A major in Theme I (at bar 27), in the key of the variations, D major, thus
underlining the connection more strongly in the recapitulation (see Example 8.2).11
Schubert’s ingenuity lies in the constant variety of ways in which the song
variations are prefigured. Keeping for the moment to instances of D major
infiltration, a final reference is engineered towards the close of the first movement,
bars 298–9. Because at the equivalent point in the exposition an A major version of
an E major phrase was inserted into the cadential build-up, in the parallel passage
this now becomes a D major statement inserted into the prevailing A major context
(see Example 8.3). This has the effect of a distinct interruption to the proceedings,
shifting the focus momentarily and highlighting D major before the ‘proper’ key
is resumed: the music could have continued directly from bar 297 to bar 300 (if
rather abruptly perhaps). Other keys are prefigured, not only that of the variations
movement. Thus the transposition of the original D major intervention into G major
at bars 307–11 of the recapitulation anticipates the focal key reached at the mid-
point of the following movement. Here again, in the slow movement, a motivic
connection with the song is brought out, especially as the passage appears first in
11
Cf. Marx, ‘Einige Anmerkungen’: 588 (Example II).
continued
8.2 concluded
D major before the G major version (Example 8.4 shows the beginning of the latter).12
The F–C subtext introduced at the Quintet’s opening not only resonates through the
first movement but also, like the song variations key, influences the key-schemes
of the following movements, including the choice of overall key for the slow
movement, F major. Altogether it transpires that the work consists of an intricate
network of thematic and tonal references, sustaining a long-range connectedness
belied by the immediate easy-going character (and indeed the sheer beauty) of
its surface.
Following its appearance in the fourth movement variations, the song continues
to shape the thematic material in the finale,13 and its key of D major (which has
featured significantly in every previous movement) continues to resonate.14 What
Marx’s examples also bring out is the motivic connection between the voice part
and accompaniment of ‘Die Forelle’ (Example 8.5 shows this as it appears in the
Quintet version), a feature characteristic of Schubert’s instrumental as well as
12
See also Marx, ‘Einige Anmerkungen’: 589, Example IV.
13
See ibid.: 588, Example II.
14
The finale’s ABC:||:A'B'C' form centres on D major in sections B and C before the
double bar.


Example 8.5 D 667, fourth movement, bars 128–31
song themes and accompaniments.15 Thus the connectedness within the song itself
is enclosed in the larger connectedness of the work. As for the song variations in
the fourth movement, these too contribute a fresh angle on the reflections among
the various movements, since their figuration picks up on textures heard in the
preceding movements.
The arpeggiated semiquaver triplets of Variation I particularly recall the
accompaniment to the ‘B’ theme in the slow movement,16 while the octave-
doubled running demisemiquaver figures in the piano in Variation III recall the
texture of the closing material in the first movement (Examples 8.6a and b).17
A further layer of meaning added to the variations resides in the use Schubert
makes of the convention whereby a minore variation is featured among the major-
key variations. In D 667-iv, Variation IV in D minor, with its thickly doubled
dramatic tremolo chords in the piano, links with the song’s larger narrative beyond
the quoted theme, reproducing the kind of contrast created by Schubert for the
15
Cf. the discussion of ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, D 118, and D 759 (the ‘Unfinished’
Symphony), in Chapter 4 above.
16
The first edition had continuous semiquavers in the viola part of Var. I; see NSA,
VI/3 (Kammermusik mit Klavier), p. 267.
17
This texture, recurring throughout D 667, strongly suggests Schubert’s writing for
the ‘Primo’ part in his piano duets.
Example 8.6 (a)–(b) D 667, fourth/first movements
(a) Fourth movement, Var. III, bars 60–64

(b) First movement, bars 285–7 (recapitulation version)

final verse of ‘Die Forelle’ at the point where the genial mood is disturbed as the
angler muddies the water.18
The links between Matthias Claudius’s poem ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’,
together with Schubert’s musical setting of it (D 531), and his String Quartet in
D minor, D 810, are similarly spread through the movements of the chamber work
that surround the variations on the song. It is as if the whole work is a meditation
on the poetic and musical themes of the song source. At the motivic level, it
is helpful to identify the two primary cells contained in the ‘Death’ theme, the
repeated-note pattern and the three-note conjunct motif that follows it, as ‘a’ and
‘b’ (see Example 8.7a); beyond the song variations themselves these motivic cells
inform the thematic material of all the other movements in the quartet to an extent
that constitutes a veritable compositional project (cf. Examples 8.7b–e).19 Alfred
Einstein, noting the variants of the rhythmic pattern in the four movements of
D 810, concluded that ‘there is no question that Schubert intended this unity. His
conscious effort reveals itself in every feature’.20
The conjunct theme with its effect of hardly moving, and the characteristic
dactylic rhythm associated in D 531 with death can in fact be linked with an
analogous usage in an earlier (and equally famous) song portraying death, ‘Erlkönig’
(D 328); see Example 8.8a.21 The cluster of ‘a’ and ‘b’ motifs is among the several
features of the ‘Death’ theme in D 531 that combine to form the oracle topos
discussed by Christoph Wolff (and comparable with the music for the statue of the
Commendatore in Mozart’s Don Giovanni).22 The components of this topos can be
shown to extend further, however. When, in D 531, the maiden first speaks, crying
out to Death (‘Pass me by, pass me by, Go away, wild skeleton!’: Example 8.7a),23
18
The text reads: ‘But at last the thief/grew impatient. He[/] treacherously dulled
the clear stream’ (Doch endlich ward dem Diebe/Die Zeit zu lang. Er macht’/Das
Bächlein tückisch trübe); the allegorical meaning of the whole narrative has not escaped
commentators’ notice (nor has the fact that Schubert wisely omitted the final, clumsy stanza
that spells out the moral of the story). As Lawrence Kramer put it in Franz Schubert:
Sexuality, Subjectivity, Song, Cambridge Studies in Music Theory and Analysis (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), Chapter 3, ‘Mermaid Fancies: Schubert’s Trout and the
“Wish to be Woman”’, pp. 75–92, p. 75: ‘“Die Forelle” is somewhat unusual with its mock-
naïve pretense of being about a bona fide fish’.
19
Within the Lied, motif ‘b’ already appears in inversion, creating an ascending–
descending curve (Example 8.7a, bars 2–3); the instrumental versions (Examples 8.7b–e)
develop both motifs in various ways, combining them at the start of the work (Example
8.7b), presenting them in a variety of rhythmic transformations, and displaying motif ‘b’ in
both its original and inverted form.
20
Einstein, Schubert (1971), p. 286.
21
(‘In his arms the child was dead’.) The ° ± ±p patterns in D 531 have appropriately
been dubbed ‘pavane’ rhythms: see Marjorie Wing Hirsch, Schubert’s Dramatic Lieder
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 40–41.
22
Wolff, ‘Schubert’s “Der Tod und das Mädchen”’, pp. 158–9.
23
‘Vorüber! ach, vorüber/Geh, wilder Knochenmann!’
Example 8.7 (a)–(b) D 531, D 810
(a) D 531, bars 1–14
she is already doomed; her recitative-like utterance contains a fragment from the
‘Death’ theme. This same recitative use of the phrase is also already present when
the dying child cries out in D 328 after Death has approached him (‘Father, father,
do you not hear what the Erlking softly promises me?’: see Example 8.8b, p. 232):24
he echoes painfully Death’s mollifying cadential phrase from bars 71–2.
24
‘Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht, Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht?’
Death’s words here are ‘[Meine Mutter hat] [My mother has] many golden robes’.
The kind of intensity seen in the use of motivic cells in the earlier Quartettsatz,
D 703,25 is harnessed in D 810 to ensuring that the ‘Death’ motifs permeate the music
of the whole piece with overwhelming insistence. This motivic web underpins the
overall ethos of the work which, as Wolff discusses, portrays the different facets
of death traditionally ascribed to its various personifications.26 Wolff’s analysis
revolves around the binary division between the eponymous protagonists of
‘Death and the Maiden’; he labels the music for each ‘B’ and ‘A’ respectively.
But beyond this clear division, Schubert seems intent on forging a connection
between them, as already suggested above in the commentary on their motivic
content (with particular reference to Example 8.7a). The variations movement of
the quartet pursues this connection further. Rather than simply embellishing the
song material (derived from the ‘B’ portions of D 531) melodically and texturally,
Schubert provides a gloss on it. Thus in the first variation, the violin 1 countertheme
that floats above the song theme (shared among the other three instruments) picks
up and returns obsessively to the falling recitative figures from the maiden’s (‘A’)
material, containing within its fragmented line the phrases of her first utterance,
transposed (as bracketed in Example 8.9, p. 233).
Also in D 810-ii Schubert puts a new gloss on the ancient notion of effectively
increasing the velocity throughout a set of variations by means of progressive
diminution. The dactylic ° ± ± heard persistently in D 531 in conjunction with both
the repeated note motif ‘a’ and the stepwise ‘b’ motif is already modified in dotted
rhythm at bar 24 of Death’s utterance (Example 8.10).27 Here we have the form in
25
Chapter 4 above.
26
These include the idea of the tarantella (as dance of death), the grim reaper (with
his scythe), and death as friend. See Wolff, ‘Schubert’s “Der Tod und das Mädchen”’,
passim, esp. pp. 145–6.
27
‘Give me your hand, you lovely and tender creature; I am [your friend].’
8.7 (c) D 810, Scherzo, bars 1–4; Trio, bars 1–4
which the scherzo and trio movement presents motif ‘a’ in the quartet (cf. Example
8.7c): it finds its ultimate diminution at the start of the finale (Example 8.7d),
with motif ‘b’ thereafter presented in augmentation (Example 8.7e). Characteristic
of Schubert’s variation technique is the way that an element in the texture is
subject to intense scrutiny and developed progressively, a process discussed by
Anna Amalia Abert in her study of rhythm and sonority in Schubert’s instrumental
music.28 This process governs the dactylic motif within the ‘Death and the Maiden’
variations; Schubert foregrounds it with growing obsessiveness, until in Variation III
28
Anna Amalia Abert, ‘Rhythmus und Klang in Schuberts Streichquintett’, in H.
Hüschen (ed.), Festschrift Karl Gustav Fellerer zum sechzigsten Geburtstag (Regensburg:
Gustav Bosse Verlag, 1962), pp. 1–11.
8.7 (d) D 810, finale, bars 1–8
it explodes in all parts of the texture, with the kind of total saturation found later
in Brahms.29
The minor–major trajectory of the song D 531, evoking final transcendence,
lends a particular meaning in Schubert’s quartet to the convention of including a
variation in the opposite mode within a set. In the closing lines of the poetic text, the
emphasis is on death as source of comfort, offering the prospect of ‘eternal rest’.30
The D major transformation of the oracle topos in Schubert’s setting of the last
line (‘Sollst sanft in meinen Armen schlafen’ – you shall sleep softly in my arms)
29
See for instance Brahms’s ‘Haydn’ Variations, op. 56a and 56b. In Schubert’s D 810
slow movement, although the theme and variations form is clearly set out, the individual
variations are not actually numbered.
30
See Hirsch, Schubert’s Dramatic Lieder, p. 38. Hirsch even proposes that the
‘ponderous pavane rhythms’ now suggest ‘the gentle rocking motion of a slumber song’
(ibid., p. 41).
8.7 (e) D 810, finale, bars 88–95
and in the piano postlude has a contemplative, hymn-like quality, consecrating

the event. It is the transcendent nature of these proceedings that Schubert conveys
in his major-key variation, placed towards the end of the quartet movement; the
texture at the beginning is almost that of a chorale prelude (see Example 8.11). The
ethereal violin 1 countertheme here, with its gentle moto perpetuo quaver triplets,
forms an antidote to the disjointed violin 1 line in Variation I. And where that first
variation recalled the maiden’s frenzied cries (‘Vorüber! ach, vorüber’), Variation
IV in the major clearly refers to the closing couplet of the poem with its promise of
comfort. Thus Schubert uses his variations to portray Death both as grim skeleton
(‘wilder Knochenmann’) and as friend (‘Bin Freund und komme nicht zu strafen’
– ‘I am your friend and come not to punish’). He creates a further identification
with the whole ethos of the song in his final variation, which seems to encapsulate
the progress of the song from beginning to end, compressing its disparate elements
together at the start (as in Variation I) and tracing its tonal path, together with the
Example 8.8 ‘Erlkönig’, D 328
(a) Bars 146–8
(b) Bars 69–76

Example 8.10 ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’, D 531, bars 22–5
fundamental shift in mood, to finish with the transcendent material of the piano
postlude in the major.
The focus in Charles Fisk’s work on sightings of elements from the song
‘Der Wanderer’ (D 489) in Schubert’s late sonatas and impromptus (which he
interprets as signifying in these instrumental works, variously, a ‘quest for
identity’, ‘loneliness and alienation’, and ‘the song of a Fremdling’)31 highlights
the extent to which Schubert’s setting of Schmidt von Lübeck’s poem ‘Der
Wanderer’ constitutes a collection of the composer’s fingerprints. Apart from
Schubert’s penchant for the key of the song, C# minor, these include the familiar
31
See Fisk, Returning Cycles, pp. 123 and 254 (apropos of the trio in D 899/4 and the
Andante sostenuto of D 960, respectively).
Example 8.11 D 810, second movement [Variation IV], bars 97–100
dactylic rhythm; the neighbour-note ‘returning’ motif (also found configured, as

it is here, in dotted rhythm in ‘Gute Nacht’, D 911/1); and what I have called
the ‘questioning’ motif (which Fisk does not specifically identify) formed by
augmented sixth to dominant.32 The slow movement of D 760, presenting in its
first eight bars the passage from D 489, bars 23–30,33 reveals the source of various
of the motifs already heard in the opening Allegro. (As Fisk puts it, the song is ‘at
32
See Chapter 3 above.
33
The text at this juncture of the song is as follows: ‘The sun seems so cold here,
the flowers faded, life old, and what they say, nothing but empty sound; I am a stranger
everywhere’ (‘Die Sonne dünkt mich hier so kalt,/Die Blüte welk, das Leben alt,/Und was
sie reden, leerer Schall; Ich bin ein Fremdling überall’).
the heart of the fantasy’.34) Recognition of the way its material radiates outwards
into the other movements illuminates the comparable processes seen in D 667
and D 810. (In this regard they might almost merit the titles ‘Fantasy-Quartet’
and ‘Fantasy-Quintet’.) Together with D 667 and D 810, the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy
represents a locus classicus for Schubert’s absorption of song material in the
form of variations: perhaps even more intensely than in the other two works, in
the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy elements of the song material varied in the central slow
movement suffuse the whole work. These song-based cycles construct a powerful
variation type amongst the experimental forms of Schubert’s instrumental music.
The majority of Schubert’s variations, however, are not of this type, but are
generated from within the outlines of the ‘sonata’ movements that predominantly
make up his larger instrumental works. Yet although these are clearly distinct from
the formal variations on a pre-existent song, they relate to the genre of Lied in
a number of ways discussed below. Variation processes may be applied to both
themes of Schubert’s sonata form expositions, as in the G major Quartet, D 887,
first movement (discussed by Dahlhaus);35 the C minor Piano Sonata, D 958, first
movement is another such case, where both first and second themes are subject
to variations within the exposition as well as being motivically interconnected.
In the G major Quartet the variations on the first theme extend beyond the
exposition, creating a line that joins the discrete appearances of the theme, and
threading a virtual set of variations through the whole movement. Corresponding
to the dual sets of variations in his sonata form movements, Schubert’s compound
episodic scheme in D 887, slow movement (ABA1B1A11), expands the procedure
whereby variation is applied to the ‘A’ material on its return, to encompass a set
of interlocking variations on both the ‘A’ and ‘B’ themes.36 All these, among other
examples, are considered in more detail below.
As Dahlhaus documents, the connecting thread between the first and second
themes of D 887-i consists of the chromatic fourth or ‘lament’ bass from Theme
I that migrates to the inner parts in the texture of Theme II.37 As that second
designation for the figure suggests, it is linked with vocal models, reaching
back to the early Italian operas of the seventeenth century; in its application
34
Fisk, Returning Cycles, p. 68. Fisk sees the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy as unique in
Schubert’s works in its ‘explicit motivic cyclicism’ (ibid., p. 61). I see it, however, as a
paradigm for the later works.
35
Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert’.
36
Variations, in miniature, further infiltrate the Trio to the Scherzo of D 887, to
exquisitely beautiful effect: its neat design, alternating phrases with their variations, almost
evokes latter-day reinterpretation of C.P.E. Bach’s influential idea of the ‘varied repeat’
(demonstrated for example in his Sonaten mit veränderten Reprisen of 1760 and the two
collections of Kurze und leichte Clavierstücke mit veränderten Reprisen of 1766 and 1768).
37
Ibid., p. 8.
to the lament topos it has been extensively studied.38 But closer to Schubert it
appears regularly as a bass formula in the works of C.P.E. Bach,39 and is found in
Mozart’s Lied ‘An die Hoffnung’ (‘Ich würd’ auf meinem Pfad’), K 390 (340c),
again used in the bass, in a setting seemingly written under the influence of the
North German ‘empfindsam’ style. As it happens, the dotted-rhythm figures and
long appoggiaturas of the violin 1 line (growing from the introductory bars) that
Schubert places over his chromatic fourth bass in D 887-i recall C.P.E. Bach’s
thematic vocabulary. And the harmonic sequence traced by the theme, with its
antique juxtapositions and figured bass connotations (the Corellian %3 ^3 pattern),
links it to an older tradition. The unfolding of the variations set follows from this
with utter logic, and illuminates the prevailing sonata form structure.
The form that Schubert creates for this movement is one of dazzling
compositional virtuosity. As mentioned in Chapter 3, the set of variations on
Theme II interlocks with a subset of developmental episodes; this whole Theme
II complex, governed by an internal key scheme related to the multiple tonal and
modal implications of the transition and introductory passage, is contained within
the wider set of variations on the first theme that runs through the course of the
movement.40 Those Theme I variations highlight key points in the sonata form,
and interpret its components in new ways.41 Figure 8.1 shows the layout of the
variations in relation to the sonata form; Examples 8.12a–f give the incipits of
each variation, together with the initial statement of the theme. Where Dahlhaus
applies the Classical terminology of ‘antecedent’ and ‘consequent’ to bars 15–23
and 24–32 respectively, Figure 8.1 defines the latter passage as Variation 1.42
This coincides with the sonata form counterstatement of Theme I preceding the
transition in this reading of the form (Dahlhaus sites the beginning of the transition
later, at bar 54).43 Variation 1 establishes a contrapuntal agenda, adding a new
countertheme in violin 1 to the texture, while transferring the ‘lament’ bass to the
38
See especially F.W. Sternfeld, The Birth of Opera (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993),
Chapter 6, ‘The Lament’, pp. 140–96.
39
See for example the Rondo finale of his Sonata in B minor, ‘Sonaten für Kenner
und Liebhaber’, vol. I, Sonata 3 (H 245). Walter Frisch (‘“You Must Remember This”:
Memory and Structure in Schubert’s String Quartet in G Major, D. 887’, Musical Quarterly,
84/4 (2000): 582–603, 584) refers to the lament bass in D 887 in the whole context of ‘a rich
complex of “external” associations’ evoked in the opening bars of the work.
40
For a chart of the Theme II complex in the first movement of D 887, see
Fig. 3.2. The tonal and modal implications of its introduction and transition were discussed
in Chapters 2 and 3 above.
41
A precedent exists in Mozart’s Sonata for violin and piano in E minor, K 304
(300c), first movement, where Theme I is progressively varied on each of its appearances
within the sonata form plan.
42
Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert’, p. 2.
43
Ibid.
Theme/ Theme Var. 1 Var. 2 Var. 3 Var. 4 Var. 5

Variations
Bars 15–241 24–331 180–1891 201–101 292–3011 301–101
Sections Exposition Development Recapitulation
Keys G G E@ E G G
Figure 8.1 D 887, first movement, scheme of variations on Theme I
Example 8.12 (a)–(f) D 887, first movement, Theme I and variations (incipits)
(a) Bars 15–18
(b) Bars 24–7

8.12 (c) Bars 180–83
8.12 (d) Bars 201–4
inner parts (viola, shadowed by violin 1) and inverting the original violin 1 melody
to become the bass.
What the diagram in Figure 8.1 demonstrates is that if Schubert planned his
dispersed set of variations in this kind of framework, he engineered the keys
so as to form, characteristically, a palindrome swinging between the tonic axes
of Theme I in the exposition and recapitulation (just as in D 960-i, shown in
Figure 7.2 above) with at its centre in D 887-i the sixth degree of the scale. And
furthermore, in D 887-i that sixth appears first in its minor and then in its major
form, E@ followed by E$, expressing the fundamental major/minor ambivalence of
the movement, a trait that permeates all three movements that follow. In the first
movement, between the paired theme-and-variation in the exposition and paired
variations 4 and 5 in the recapitulation forming subsets within the larger scheme
8.12 (e) Bars 292–5
8.12 (f) Bars 301–4
(each pair juxtaposed directly rather than placed at a distance from each other),
the discrete pair of variations (2 and 3) in the development section at the centre is
powerfully linked by the major/minor implication of their keynotes in relation to
the G/g tonic, referring in this respect both to each other and to the larger context
of the work.44
As Anna Amalia Abert has argued, Schubert (if we set aside narrow definitions
of ‘development’) pioneered the use of variation to develop his material throughout
44
The reverse Tierce de Picardie elided with the end of Variation 3, where the
transition material enters fortissimo in E minor (in a variation of its previous appearance),
recalls the comparable effect in the first movement of the Quartettsatz, D 703 at the launch
of transition 2 in A@ minor (see Chapter 2).
a movement.45 Additionally it can be observed that his technique of variation derives

its particular character, often, from its roots in songwriting and the developmental
treatment of the accompaniment therein. This observation applies to both the first
movement of D 887 and its slow movement. With the advances that Schubert
made in the piano accompaniments of his Lieder, the importance of rhythm and
texture – the elements singled out by Abert in her study of the String Quintet –
becomes enhanced. In the Lieder, Schubert’s imaginative and inventive handling
of texture in response to poetic image and nuance is coupled, often, with an
obsessive rhythmic patterning throughout large stretches of a song. In D 887-i,
such a combination can be seen particularly in Variation 4 on Theme I in the
recapitulation, with its layered texture and moto perpetuo triplet figuration. The
intricacy of the movement’s design is apparent in the relationship between the
various components. Thus in Variation 4 the dotted-rhythm patterns in violin 2 and
cello refer back to the angular opening phrases of the movement, which have in fact
been smoothed out (together with the major–minor reversal) in the recapitulatory
version: this itself constitutes a variation on the opening bars. (It also transpires
that the chromatic fourth theme is contained within those introductory gestures:
see Example 2.10a, bars 1–14 above.)
A network of interrelationships is traceable among the dispersed set of variations
on Theme I. In Variation 4 the fragmented violin 1 line is an elaboration on the more
continuous countertheme of Variation 1 (top part), while the paired semiquaver
figures in the first half of each fragment derive from the violin 1 countertheme
of Variation 3. Variation 3 itself is a variation on Variation 1, built on the same
inverted bass melody combined with the inner placement of the chromatic fourth
that characterized that variation. And Variation 5 combines the inverted melody
in the bass from Variations 1 and 3 with the moto perpetuo triplet rhythm from
Variation 4, now in the top line (within which the original violin 1 countertheme of
Variation 1 is embedded): the chromatic fourth is shared here between violin 2 and
viola. Similar interrelationships govern the two sets of variations on Theme II in
the exposition and recapitulation of D 887-i. Almost every subsection of the form
in this movement is in fact subject to variation (compare the transition in exposition
and recapitulation, bars 54–9 and bars 333–8); and the whole movement constitutes
variations on the chromatic fourth.
The first movement of D 887 represents an extreme example of the urge to vary
governing Schubert’s late sonata forms generally. ‘Topical’ reference may be in
the foreground, as in D 894-i, where Theme II appears within both the exposition
and recapitulation configured first as a dance, with waltz-style accompaniment,
and then transformed into a delicate bravura variation, with filigree embellishment
of the RH melody against a more muted version of the LH. The minore variation
of Theme II in the C minor Sonata, D 958, first movement, transforms the
song theme into an etude in rattling moto perpetuo semiquavers. (This forms
Variation 3 of the set both in the exposition and in the corresponding portion
45
Abert, ‘Rhythmus und Klang’, passim.
of the recapitulation, where Schubert’s characteristic choice of major mode for

Theme II preserves the possibility of creating the contrasting minore variation.)
In these cases, also, the variations may spark connections: the arpeggiation in the
‘etude’ version of Theme II in D 958-i relates back to the transition, and forward
to the RH figuration against the chromatic theme introduced in the development
section (bars 117 and following). The constant semiquavers of the ‘etude’ topic
had already featured in the accompaniment to the brief variation on Theme I that
began the counterstatement merging with the transition in the exposition. Within
that variation (bars 21–271), connectedness of a more interior kind appears in the
motivic reflections between melody and accompaniment, taking up the ubiquitous
returning-note figure (and its inversion) with a particular intensity that continues
into Theme II (see Example 8.13).
In the first movement of the String Quintet, D 956, the transformation wrought
by successive variations on Theme I is of a special kind. For these variations (at bars
33 and 267 in exposition and recapitulation)46 are among the elements of the work
that reveal its roots in Mozart, specifically in this case the ‘Dissonance’ Quartet,
K 465, finale, and the String Quintet, K 515, first movement, both significantly
in the key of C major.47 Of a different kind are the variations on Theme II of
D 956-i, in its second statement in both exposition (bars 81 and following) and
46
See also bar 295 of the recapitulation, which corresponds to bar 33.
47
Further on these Mozartian connections see Chapter 5 above.
recapitulation (bars 343 and following). Here the influence of song is felt in the
detail added to the accompaniment texture, in which no element, however tiny, is
considered unworthy of development; meanwhile the melody remains the same
(apart from one chromatic alteration in the second statement of the recapitulation
version), providing a constant while everything around it changes.48 This represents
what Abert termed ‘the emancipation of rhythm, and, in connection with that,
also of texture’, a process she saw as ‘of enhanced importance’ to Schubert in his
chamber works.49 Both the rhythmic profile and the textural palette of Schubert’s
instrumental writing are among its particular strengths, as Hugh Macdonald and
Peter Gülke have discussed.50 These aspects are developed intensively in his
handling of variations.
The process is arguably at its height in the slow movement of the G major
Quartet, D 887. The nuanced treatment habitually applied by Schubert to the
returning elements of his episodic designs is here compounded in a form that
gives the impression of being able to draw on an infinite range of possibilities
for developmental variation of this kind (Figure 8.2 gives the outline scheme).
Even in the first statement of the ‘A’ theme, following the brief ‘curtain’ at bars
1–2 (and prolonging the dominant pedal), the detailed texture constructed around
the cello melody already suggests that of a variation. Schubert’s characteristic
intensity is seen here in the viola’s unpicking of the octave B that launched the
introductory gesture: the resultant syncopated octave leaping figure in the viola
(± ° ±),51 hereafter referred to as ‘x’, persists as an ostinato throughout the first dozen
bars of theme ‘A’, while a complementary pattern £ ± ± Ä (‘y’) is maintained by violins
Bars 1–39 39–42/ 43–59, 81–118 118–21/ 139–66/ 211–28

60–63/ 63–81 122–39 166–211
Section A Link/ B1, A1 Link/ B11 Link/ A11 Coda
Link/ B2
Keys e → / g, b → /d → /e, E e, E
→ / f#
Figure 8.2 D 887, second movement, outline scheme
48
An equivalent in song is ‘Der Lindenbaum’ (D 911/5), together with minor
transformation; and a close relationship exists between that song and the slow movement of
the earlier Piano Sonata in B major, D 575 (a movement in the same key as ‘Der Lindenbaum’,
E major, and with a comparable treatment of the contrasting minor-key section).
49
Abert, ‘Rhythmus und Klang’, p. 1: ‘Die Emanzipation des Rhythmus und in
Verbindung damit auch die des Klanges [sind] von hervorragender Bedeutung’.
50
See Macdonald, ‘Schubert’s Pendulum’, in McKay and Rast (eds), ‘Oxford
Bicentenary Symposium’: 143–51; Peter Gülke, ‘In What Respect a Quintet? On the
disposition of instruments in the String Quintet D 956’, in Badura-Skoda and Branscombe
(eds), Schubert Studies: Problems of Style and Chronology, pp. 173–85.
51
See Example 3.12a, p. 75.
1 and 2 in the fragmentary phrases they utter against each one-bar unit of ‘x’ in
the viola. As Abert notes, the leaping octave viola figure is subject to progressive
rhythmic development later in the movement, first as ± ° Ö - µ (at bar 167) and then,
transferred to the cello at bar 175, as £ Öµ Öµ Ö-µ.52 Taking Abert’s point a stage further,
we can see in this latter development evidence of the complex relationship of
minute components in the texture of these variations. The offbeat violin pattern
(‘y’) has also been developed rhythmically at bars 167 and following, its original
configuration now flowering into £ Öµ Ö--µ (marked staccato). When the cello takes
up the octave leaping figure (‘x’) at bar 175 it in fact combines elements from
the varied versions of both ‘x’ and ‘y’. It is almost as if Schubert, working on his
material, were viewing it through a microscope. But at the same time he creates
variation of a sweeping kind, as in the wholesale major transformation of Theme
‘A’ between bars 175 and 203. And the variation and development of texture
reaches a peak of contrapuntal virtuosity in the subsection beginning at bar 182,
which, taking its cue from the canonic technique that has pervaded the A sections
since the start of the movement, intensifies it in a double canon of theme and
accompaniment.
What much of the discussion in this chapter has shown is that Schubert’s
variations are logically arrived at, not born of a ‘stream of consciousness’.
And the logic they create is of an intricacy and referentiality that can be almost
overwhelming. Apart from its sonic beauty, this music has intense constructional
beauty. The range of applications with which Schubert deploys the process of
variation testifies to the fascination the technique had for him. His variations
create unity over large formal expanses; they construct connectedness among
the sectional components and subsections of a movement; and they manifest
topical diversity, meaningful major–minor contrast, and a remarkable sensitivity
to rhythmic and textural nuance. Martin Chusid’s statement that Schubert ‘never
felt free enough to combine groups of variations with other formal approaches,
as Beethoven did magnificently in the slow movements of the Fifth and Seventh
Symphonies’,53 clearly cannot be intended to deny the many such combinations
found, particularly, in Schubert’s late chamber and piano works, or in the famous
introduction to the ‘Great’ C major Symphony.54 The very fact that these variations
are assimilated into other forms inspired Schubert to produce thereby some of his
most exhilarating formal tours de force.
52
Abert, ‘Rhythmus und Klang’, pp. 5–6 (Abert goes on to demonstrate similar
processes at work in the C major String Quintet, D 956).
53
Chusid, ‘Schubert’s Chamber Music: Before and after Beethoven’, p. 180.
54
See Chapter 9 below.
Chapter 9
‘Heavenly Length’
‘Too many notes, my dear Mozart’: Emperor Joseph II’s supposed dictum has
become embedded in popular tradition.1 For Schubert it seems that the equivalent
accusation might be phrased as ‘too many bars’. What is it, though, that determines
how many bars a piece of music should have? The idealist would hold that if Schubert
has something to communicate which takes six or seven hundred bars of music to
unfold, we should be prepared to listen to it all. (The performers who are required
to play these ‘overlong’ movements may face a different problem, that of sheer
staying power.) It may come as a surprise to learn that the difference in time taken
by the cut and uncut versions of Schubert’s Piano Trio in E@ major, D 929, finale in
the recent recording by the Florestan Trio is a mere 1' 45".2 The entire trio is on an
expanded scale, certainly: in this performance it takes a total of 43’ 28” including the
cut version of the finale, and 45’ 13” with Schubert’s original uncut version restored
(except for the exposition repeat). It has been pointed out that a unique combination
of thematic ideas is lost if the cuts are observed;3 this is particularly disturbing in a
movement which makes a special point of combining themes.
The finale of the Piano Sonata in C minor, D 958, with its exuberant tarantella
rhythm, dances along convincingly in the performance on record by András
Schiff, its 717 bars taking 9’ 23” (bringing the total time for the sonata to 31’
05”).4 Committed performances such as these convey the movement’s character
gracefully and lovingly, making the length seem entirely as it should be. However,
if the objections to Schubert’s lengthier movements are based not simply on
grounds of time-consumption but are additionally motivated by perceptions of
structural weaknesses, then any counter to such arguments needs to offer an
analysis of the factors that might justify those lengths.5 Such considerations would
include Schubert’s skill in constructing forms within forms; his ability to recreate
songlike structures in his instrumental music on a larger scale; his extended key
1
See Thomas Bauman, W.A. Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Cambridge
Opera Handbooks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 89.
2
Hyperion CD 67347 (2002).
3
See Basil Smallman, The Piano Trio: Its History, Technique, and Repertoire
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 80.
4
Decca CD 440 308–2 (1994).
5
For a consideration of the case from a slightly different angle, see Scott
Burnham, ‘The “Heavenly Length” of Schubert’s Music’, Ideas, 6/1 (1999) <http://
nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ideasv61/burnham.htm> in which Burnham emphasizes what
he terms the ‘phatic’ qualities of Schubert’s longer instrumental movements.
schemes, together with his play on their possibilities of multiple meanings; his
thematic construction and the variational processes he applied to his themes; and
his motivic ‘networking’. The opening of a movement, as with the finale of D 929,
may set up the prospect of leisurely unfolding which then seems entirely logical
and natural (provided it meets a suitably receptive audience).
It is significant that finales figure so prominently among Schubert’s ‘heavenly
lengths’. The tendency to invest the instrumental finale with the status of a
summative ending to the whole work (familiar from studies of nineteenth-century
symphonic and sonata repertoire, but traceable back to Haydn and Mozart, as
James Webster and others have shown) 6 is evident in Schubert. This chapter
examines all these points and develops the analytical framework they suggest,
with reference to a selection of movements and works showing those lengths that
so captivated Schumann, including the Symphony in C major, no. 9, D 944 that
originally provoked the famous judgement on Schumann’s part. Perhaps the scale
of such a work as this needs also to be considered in the light of Schubert’s own
comment to the effect that he was ‘striving after the highest art’.7
With the first bars of D 929, finale, not only the material and mood of the
movement are presented, but also this music creates a strong sense of the horizons
opening up ahead.8 Before considering the movement in detail, the background of
its original performance should be sketched in: this relates directly to the question
of the cuts. The programme of Schubert’s private concert at the Gesellschaft der
Musikfreunde on 26 March 1828, where the Trio was billed alongside a selection
of songs, began with the first movement of ‘a new string quartet’ (presumed to be
D 887).9 McKay notes that:
The choice of the E flat Piano Trio, the other instrumental work played, rather
than that in B flat or another of his chamber works with or without piano, suggests
that Schubert was satisfied with this trio as the centrepiece of the concert. He had
heard it performed at least once before by almost the same players.10
Critical reaction seems to have been extremely positive. McKay goes on to quote
the Vienna correspondent of the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, who
6
James Webster, Haydn’s Farewell Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Neal Zaslaw, Mozart Symphonies:
Context, Performance Practice, Reception (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), esp. on K 551.
7
Quoted in McKay, Franz Schubert, p. 305 from Deutsch, Documentary Biography,
pp. 739–40: Schubert here wished to persuade the publishers (Schott) of the importance of
his instrumental as well as vocal works.
8
Interestingly, Daverio (Crossing Paths, p. 32) designated D 929 as ‘a primer of
techniques intended to generate heavenly length’.
9
McKay, Franz Schubert, p. 298 (the complete programme is listed in ibid., pp. 298–9).
10
Ibid., p. 299.
‘Heavenly Length’ 247
compared the event with ‘another privately organized concert of Linke’s (in
memory of Beethoven) a few days earlier’:
If all these works [by Beethoven], performed to perfection [at Linke’s

entertainment on 23 March], afforded an indescribable aural treat, the same must
be said with hardly less emphasis in praise of that soirée musicale which the
excellent Schubert held in the very same place on the 26th.11
The audience, as reported by the Vienna correspondent of the Berlin Allgemeine

musikalische Zeitung, was also extremely enthusiastic; and McKay draws further
on the comments of Schubert’s friends, who were ‘delighted by the concert, and
saw it as a great personal success for the composer’.12
From the report in the Berlin paper we learn that ‘the numerous gathering
of friends and patrons’ on this occasion ‘did not stint resounding applause after
each number and saw to it that several of them were repeated’.13 Schubert himself
wrote later to Schott: ‘I have … had copies made of the Trio [D 929] you wanted
(which was received at my concert by a packed audience with such extraordinary
applause that I am being pressed to repeat the concert).’14 McKay suggests that the
memory of the earlier concert on 20 January that year, when the new Fantasia in
C major for violin and piano, D 934 was performed ‘at the end of a long programme
and a fair number of the audience walked out before the end’ may have been
a factor in Schubert’s allowing himself to be persuaded to make the cuts in the
finale.15 Yet while, as McKay also suggests, the cuts may already have been in
place when the Trio was performed at the March concert, the audience’s reported
eagerness to have items repeated might indicate a willingness to listen to more of
Schubert’s music that could have created a favourable reception for the finale had
it been performed in full.
Almost certainly Schubert’s wish to ‘get away from the potential situation that
he would be regarded as one of the general run of composers of the day of popular
trifles’, and to ensure his reputation as a serious instrumental composer,16 would
have been a strong reason behind his concern to preserve the cuts in D 929 when
he pursued his negotiations with the publishers. The cuts seem to have become
a source of anxiety to Schubert when publication was definitely in prospect
(with Probst of Leipzig); Schubert was aware that the publishers’ preference was
not for large-scale instrumental works, and once Probst had accepted the Trio
the composer pressed for ‘the speediest possible production’ and ‘insisted that
11
Ibid., p. 300.
12
Ibid., pp. 300–01.
13
Ibid., p. 300, quoting from Deutsch, Documentary Biography, pp. 757, 505.
14
McKay, Franz Schubert, p. 305.
15
Ibid., p. 300. The NSA text of D 929 (complete) indicates the passages of the finale
that were subsequently excised (see VI/vii, pp. 57–90).
16
McKay, Franz Schubert, p. 304.
“the cuts indicated in the last movement”’ were to be ‘most scrupulously observed’.17
(The delays that in the event beset the work’s publication were regrettable, causing
Schubert further stress.18) While the impression of excessive length haunted the
E@ Trio thereafter, nevertheless of the two late piano trios, D 929 was (as John
Daverio observed) the favourite among Schumann and his generation.19
Among Schubert’s instrumental music as a whole, D 929 is the work in which
the composer most explicitly and (in its uncut form) extensively developed the
relationship of movements within the cycle to encompass the return of material
from a previous movement in the finale. Although the device is a relative rarity
in Schubert’s works, it can be seen as an enhanced, more overt form of the many
subtler interrelationships with which he habitually linked the movements of
an instrumental work. With regard to the opening up of wider horizons in the
extended type of Schubertian finale, two particular observations may be made
here. First, in order to ‘plant’ the material from the earlier movement (in this case
the second movement, Andante con moto) convincingly in the finale, the music
around it has to create sufficient space and context for the quoted material to take
root. Secondly, the idea of bringing back the earlier material towards the end of
the work may be more extensively prepared within the finale by planting a series
of smaller-scale, less direct, references to previous movements, before the grand
entrance of the main returning material occurs.20
In the finale of D 929, up to the point of that ‘grand entrance’ of the slow
movement theme, the music is rich in such references to various elements heard in
the previous movements. Thus the patch of C major tonality with which Schubert
widens the tonal horizons of the finale’s opening theme, to illuminating effect,
at bars 342–42 of its first statement, recalls the stretch of C major, resolving
material heard earlier in E@, towards the end of the slow movement (bars 129
and following). The fortissimo and sforzando chords punching out a chromatic
progression in bars 58–61 of the finale, in an unexpected response to the mild-
mannered, playful upbeat figure from the opening theme (at bar 57), bring forth
a reminiscence of the Trio to the third movement (Scherzando), especially in its
cadential build-up (bars 17–20 and 67–72) as well as the beginning of its second
section (bars 25–9: see Examples 9.1a and 9.1b). Together with the opening up of
horizons created by these references, the scale of the thematic presentation at the
start of the finale expands the canvas of the movement, with its 16-bar antecedent
coming to rest on chord V, followed by a perfectly balanced 16-bar consequent
17
Ibid., p. 306.
18
See ibid., pp. 306–7 for the chronology.
19
Daverio, Crossing Paths, pp. 15 and 19 ff.
20
This is how Robert Schumann crafted the finale of his Piano Quintet in E@, op. 44
(see S. Wollenberg, ‘Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat: The Bach Legacy’, Music Review,
52 (1991): 299–305).
Example 9.1 (a)–(b) D 929, finale/third movement
(a) Finale, bars 57–61
closing on I at bar 32.21 The internal form of the first theme as it unfolds thereafter
is appropriately broadly conceived. By the end of its unfolding, Theme I alone
(regardless of the generous provision of thematic material that is to follow) has set
up the conditions for the finale’s length.
Theme II of D 929-iv relates significantly to Theme II of the first movement,
with its rather ghostly pianissimo tremolo (another characteristic Schubertian
device in its assimilation of tremolo into thematic material):22 additionally, they
share features of their tonal profile, with Theme II in the first movement moving
from minor key to its submediant major (b to G), and in the finale moving to
the dominant of its relative major (c to B@), within an exploratory version of the
periodically phrased thematic statement. At the same time the specific choice of
C minor for Theme II of the finale evokes the key of the slow movement, as does
the change to a more march-like metre, with repeated-chord accompaniment over
a pedal-point (Examples 9.2a and b). Also contributing to Schubert’s fashioning
of movements on an expanded scale is his ability to create the effect of a distinct
piece within a movement, set apart by key, character and possibly also metre, and
21
It is instructive to compare this with a Classical model. In the finale of Mozart’s
String Quintet in G minor, K 516, the first theme (also in ^8) begins with a four-bar antecedent
and four-bar consequent, coming to rest on V and I respectively, at a quarter of the length
of the equivalent in D 929-iv.
22
Theme II of the first movement bordered on tremolo with its repeated-note ± Ö - - µ
figure (developed from Schubert’s favourite dactylic pattern).
9.1 (b) Third movement, Trio, bars 17–20, 25–9
yet often closely integrated in other ways.23 Theme II of D 929-iv clearly has such
an effect.
Theme III of this leisurely exposition capitalizes on the trajectory from
C minor to B@ traced by Theme II (as noted above), taking up the latter key in order
to close the exposition eventually in the dominant.24 The material here (from bar
23
An earlier example is the rondo finale of the Piano Sonata in D major, D 850; see
bars 104–61 (‘un poco più lento’) for the self-contained central episode, which sounds like
an Impromptu.
24
Although the character of the first theme suggests a rondo, the movement is
designed as a sonata form with exposition, development and recapitulation (plus coda),
Example 9.2 (a)–(b) D 929, finale/slow movement
(a) Finale, bars 73–81
121 onwards) relates to the transition in the first movement, with its exhilarating
concerto-style moto perpetuo (there in the form of chromatic runs, here diatonic).
The three themes thus present widely contrasting characters and a range of topical
references (the first theme has a flavour of Rossinian buffo style) that require
an adequate space in which to play out the rest of the finale. But Schubert has
further strategies to bring to the exposition in expanding its scale before it closes.
Characteristically, he looks back to earlier themes at this point, first Theme II, which
is reintroduced in a tonally exploratory passage (bars 163–92) and then Theme I in
a new overture-style cadential build-up (bars 193–217). But also, before all this,
and with the long-range vision that characterizes this movement altogether, he
introduces for the first time in the finale the falling arpeggiated figures in the piano
notwithstanding its episodic effect.

9.2 (b) Slow movement, bars 1–7
(richly doubled in both hands), against the long peroration of Theme III from bar
139 onwards, that will later become the accompaniment to the reappearance of the
slow movement theme (see Examples 9.3 and 9.4, figure ‘y’).25
Schubert’s originally prescribed repeat of the exposition was among the cuts in
the first edition of D 929.26 (This actually represents a cut of 230 bars.) But it was
in the cuts made in the following section that music was lost that would then not
be heard at all, even once. Having prepared the ground generally in the exposition
for the return of the slow movement theme, Schubert in the development deftly
25
With reference to its use in this latter context, Basil Smallman described the
accompaniment figure as ‘meld[ing] in’ at that point (Smallman, The Piano Trio, p. 80). Its
surroundings illuminate its relationship to Theme II of the finale.
26
See NSA, VI/vii, p. 66. On the question of repeats generally see Jonathan Dunsby,
‘The Formal Repeat’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 112 (1987): 196–207;
and Hugh Macdonald, ‘To Repeat or not to Repeat’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical
Association, 111 (1984–5): 121–38.
Example 9.3 D 929, finale, bars 139–45

prepares for its entrance by blending the original accompaniment pattern (as set
up at the start of the slow movement) with the falling arpeggiated figures from bar
139 onwards of the finale, at bar 275 (Example 9.4; cf. Example 9.3). This material
is stitched seamlessly onto the repeated quaver figure from the end of Theme I
(originally heard at bar 68 in E@), which was re-used to close the exposition in
B@. At that point (bars 229–30) Schubert used his leading-note ploy to transform
B@ enharmonically into vii of B minor for the start of the development. Thus
the progression elliptically made at bars 229–31 is reflected in the longer-range
relationship between the quaver figure in its B@ version there, and in its B minor
version at bars 273–5.
The slow movement theme not only acquires a new aura on its re-entry here
(assimilated into the metre of the finale, and in the key of Theme II of the first
movement – the enharmonic flat submediant minor, B minor); it also launches an
extended section in which Schubert’s habitual fascination with the possibilities
of combining, in various ways, material originally heard separately, continues to
shape the proceedings. There is a distinct sense that the reappearance of the slow
movement theme marks the beginning of proceedings rather than a culmination
here, and this proves true as the development continues to unfold. Along the lines
found in the construction of J.S. Bach’s more extended combinatorial fugues
(such as the ‘St Anne’, BWV 552, and Fugue IV of the ‘48’, Book I), and as
Robert Schumann would later do with the return of the first movement theme in
his Piano Quintet op. 44, Schubert sets up his Theme II in counterpoint (bars 321
and following) in readiness for the magical moment when it will be discovered as
countertheme to the slow movement theme at bar 477, combined with the quaver
accompaniment pattern (‘y’) in a magisterial (though pianissimo) passage, with the
air of revealing stored-up secrets.27 This passage was lost when the cuts were made.
The passage of counterpoint encompassing both the preparation and the
revelation of this ultimate combinatorial feat is nicely delineated at the start by
the repeated quaver figure from Theme I (‘x’) that has acted as marker at strategic
points throughout the movement so far. The counterpoint itself is richly conceived,
displaying Schubert’s powers as a contrapuntist in contrasting vein: first in
‘formal’, stylized counterpoint (which in Schubert’s hands tends to be allied with
effortful, forceful expression) and then (at bars 477 and following) in his ‘natural’
mode of counterpoint, evolved with greater ease and more muted character (see
Examples 9.5a and b). Not only is the full effect of this lost by the cut, but also the
resultant re-joining of bar 463 (463a in the NSA edition) to bar 514 cadences twice
onto I in B minor before continuing in that key, with a finality that lets down the
developmental momentum, whereas Schubert’s original continuation at bar 463
moves to V and maintains the tension until the accompaniment is then set up at bar
473 for the combination of several elements from the slow movement and finale
that forms the ‘magical’ revelation. Schubert’s pacing here was unerring. Moreover,
27
On Schumann’s strategy in op. 44 see Wollenberg, ‘Schumann’s Piano Quintet in
E flat: The Bach Legacy’.

(a) Bars 321–50

9.5 (b) Bars 470–93

the full stretch of music, uncut, makes more sense of the punctuating ‘x’ figure that
marks the end of the contrapuntal development and start of the retransition at
bars 513–14. Schubert has a further revelation to make at this point: the logic of
B minor (already established through its enharmonic flat submediant relation to E@)
is enriched by the move back at the start of the retransition via further enharmonic
transformation of F# to become G@ as third of E@ minor, the tonic minor, from
which the tonic major will emerge for the recapitulation. Typically, this does not
have merely a local effect: when the slow movement theme is recalled again in
the coda (bars 791–818) it is in the tonic minor that it first makes its appearance,
finally re-emerging into the major at bar 819. With characteristic wit, Schubert
deploys figure ‘x’, the structural ‘marker’ heard at key points during the finale, to
mark the very end of the movement, and of the whole work.
In D 929-iv, Schubert takes the performers and audience on a journey through
some of the richest territory to be found in his chamber music; performed and
heard at its full length, the movement confers correspondingly rich rewards on
the sympathetic listener.28 The journey traced by the finale of the C minor Piano
Sonata, D 958 (also couched in ^8 metre), is comparatively easier to follow at its
717-bar length; again for the listener embarking on this journey the rewards by the
time the end is reached have been considerable. The sheer breadth of Schubert’s
design in D 958-iv is potentially exhilarating, and while the movement seems on
the surface to present a kaleidoscopic succession of disparate ideas, its overall
form can be more concisely expressed as ABC A1B1A11 (see Figure 9.1). The whole
plan incorporates a generous amount of development, variation and repetition.
A number of factors here have particular significance in relation to length. First,
‘repetition’ needs to be viewed with a nuanced sense of its meaning, since once
material has been heard in its original context its recurrence (even if unvaried in
itself) in a later context is necessarily marked by ‘difference’; it cannot be heard
in the same way.
Bars Sections Keys

1–92 AA c/C
93–112 B D@
113–212 CB c#4 e@: V
213–242 D E@
243–428 EC B4 V of c
429–478 A A1 c
479–98 B D@
499–598 C B1 b@4 c: V
599–626 D C
627–717 A A11 A@/c
Figure 9.1 D 958, finale, outline of form
Thus, for example, the anacrusic start of the ‘A’ theme at the beginning of
the movement is part of a determinedly tonic-based statement that avoids any
problematic treatment of its key (and belongs also to an underlying song
topos, recreated here in purely instrumental terms: see Examples 9.6a and b
28
For a less sympathetic view of Schubert’s lengths, in this case of the B@ Piano Trio,
D 898, finale – another movement that dances enchantingly through to its close, springing
surprises along the way – see Michael Talbot, The Finale in Western Instrumental Music
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 74–9. The form of D 898-iv has elicited a
variety of interpretations. I see it as belonging fundamentally to Schubert’s characteristic
songlike ABCABC episodic format with an impression of rondo, rather than the ‘sonata-
form structure’ posited by Talbot (and others) in response to those same six components
(ibid., p. 74).
Example 9.6 D 958-iv, D 957/10, melodic outlines
(a) D 958, finale, bars 1–4
(b) ‘Das Fischermädchen’, D 957/10, bars 8–11
for a comparison in outline with ‘Das Fischermädchen’, D 957/10).29 But when

the first 16-bar period is reused at bars 429–44 it figures not as the apparently
unproblematic start of an unfolding, but instead as the outcome of an intensely
searching retransitional process, as well as appearing in the light of all that has
taken place in between those two points.
The statement of the rondo theme (‘A’) in full, unfolding from those first
few bars of D 958-iv, creates, as seen in D 929-iv above, the impression and the
promise of wider tonal and structural horizons. The tarantella rhythm is prolonged
in the RH, together with its moto perpetuo accompaniment, patterned in quaver
broken-chord configurations in the LH almost throughout the total of 92 bars that
comprises the ‘A’ section. The continuity this provides is a foil for the expansion
of the theme’s parameters here in constantly surprising ways, lifting it onto another
plane within the outwardly unified setting.30 In D 958-iv the ‘A’ section plays with
the expectation of Schubert’s normative tripartite thematic structure. Following
the equal-length antecedent and consequent phrases (each dividing into 4+4 bars)
cadencing halfway on V at bar 8 and closing in the tonic on chord I at bar 16
(forming section ‘a’ in the series of subdivisions within the larger ‘A’ section),
a complementary phrase-pair, consisting of a four-bar unit repeated at the upper
octave (bar 20, descending again towards its close on V at bar 24), suggests a
‘b’ section: Figure 9.2 outlines the format of the theme. Apparently fulfilling the
29
‘Das Fischermädchen’ with its evocation of a watery scene is more of a barcarole
than a tarantella; both types belong to an overall category within which the galloping
rhythms of, for instance, ‘An Schwager Kronos’ (D 369) more closely relate to D 958-iv.
(The upper octave in square brackets in Example 9.6b is my addition, to highlight the
resemblance between the two extracts.)
30
Such techniques became integral to Schubert’s songwriting, in sections or whole
songs, as seen for example in ‘Liebesbotschaft’ (D 957/1) and others of Schwanengesang.
Bars Subsections of theme: phrases Keys: ends on

1–16: A: a
1–4 a1 c: Ib
5–8 a2 c: V
9–12 a1 c: Ib
13–16 a3 c: I
17–24: A: b c: V
b1 c: V
25–8: A: a11 c: VIb = D@: Vb
29–56: Developmental/ sequential D@: I7

39–48 Chromatic rise D@: Vb
49–56 Prolonged arpegg. d@ (4 bars), D@ (4 bars)

57–66: Internal retransition c: V7
(on ‘Neapolitan motif’)
67–92/3: Return in major
67–70 A: a111 C: Ib
71–4 a21 C: Ib
75–8 a211 C: Ib
79–93 Closing passage merging into C/D@ (unharmonized) foregrounding
following section and prolonging Neapolitan
Figure 9.2 D 958, finale, outline of rondo theme
intention to enclose this eight-bar complement (‘b’) within two neatly arranged
statements of ‘a’ on either side, the opening four-bar phrase then returns (bars
25–8) only to twist away at this point, exploring new developmental possibilities.
It rapidly becomes clear that its progress from here on cannot be the same again
(nor even a compressed version of the original). It has a different, and more
complex, agenda to pursue. In doing so, it spills over the normal boundaries of a
rondo theme, even in terms of Schubert’s characteristic expansion of the Classical
(Kochian) type.31
Of crucial importance in this is the way that Schubert has in fact set up this
unexpected continuation already within the regular, tonic-based format of the
‘a’ section’s 16-bar statement. This repays close attention. A faintly disturbing
element in its overall stability could go almost unnoticed at this pace: at bar 5
31
While, as discussed in Chapter 4 above, Schubert’s instrumental themes often
unfold freely in songlike fashion, he showed also a propensity for large-scale periodic
construction along the Classical thematic lines demonstrated in Heinrich Christoph Koch,
Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition (Rudolstadt and Leipzig, 1782–93); selected parts
trans. Nancy K. Baker as Introductory Essay on Composition: The Mechanical Rules of
Melody, Sections 3 and 4 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983).
where the RH climbs into the upper octave from a@11, the LH at first continues its
beautifully poised, harmonious line against the RH melody (see Example 9.7a for
the outline of the counterpoint here).32 But at bar 7 a grinding dissonance is created
at the peak of the upper melody by a chromatic descent in the bass, heightened
by the maintaining of the pedal note g in the tenor register of the broken-chord
figurations (Example 9.7b). The introduction of the A$ in the LH at the high point
of the RH line (bar 71) draws attention to the A@ that follows in the bass, as does the
augmented sixth chord with which the A@ is harmonized. Additionally, Schubert
introduces a heightened form of the opening ascending sixth (g1–e@11), animating
the resolution of that chord onto the dominant at bar 8 with an octave leap from
the g1, together with sforzando marking (see Example 9.7b). Its relationship to
the original anacrusic figure is emphasized by its juxtaposition with that figure on
the return of ‘a1’, to which the octave on the dominant forms a miniature quasi-
retransition. This compressed and quite dramatic cluster of events proves to have
far-reaching implications for the progress of the whole movement.
On the subsequent return of ‘a1’ from bar 24 onwards, the first sign of
new directions is the octave leap from a@11, connecting (at bar 28) back to the
‘cluster of events’ examined in detail above: its function here is to lead the music
to the Neapolitan key, D@ major. This too proves prophetic (rather than simply
opportunistic). Following a developmental sequence through E@ minor and
F minor, with its stepping up of the pitch accompanied by foreshortening (and
foreclosure at bar 34), the key hovers again around D@, and the octave leaping
figure now traces a series of arcs on D@–C in various registers before embarking on
a chromatic rise through the registers, to settle in D@ minor (marked fortissimo), at
the highest point of the RH tessitura (Example 9.8).33 The long-term significance
of D@ (major and minor) is revealed in the ‘B’ section, which proceeds from
D@ major to its minor enharmonic equivalent, c# minor, for the presentation of
its theme at bars 113 and following.34 And the ‘B’ theme wittily preserves the
tarantella rhythm of the opening section, now figuring as LH accompaniment to
the somewhat comedic dialogue effected by registral contrast and hand-crossing
in the RH part (Example 9.9). Viewed in retrospect, the passage in the ‘A’ section
that led to D@ minor through its major constitutes a false transition, whose promise
is eventually fulfilled by the ‘B’ section’s tonal profile.
Within the first ‘A’ section the development and exploratory build-up from
bar 24 onwards, culminating in the D@ major–minor passage with its fortissimo
32
The texture is distinctly similar to the piano prelude and postlude of ‘Die Krähe’ in
Winterreise (D 911/15).
33
This passage is reminiscent of the chromatic rising scale towards the end of
Haydn’s F minor Variations (Hob. XVII. 6); whether or not Schubert knew the Haydn work,
the resemblance points up their shared understanding of keyboard style, interestingly in
both cases evinced by composers who were not active as professional concert pianists.
34
Fisk (Returning Cycles, p. 200) sees D@ as a ‘protagonist’ revealing itself in the
finale (after its ‘hesitant self-questioning in the Adagio’) with ‘an imposing self-assertion’.
(a) Bars 1–9, outline of counterpoint
outbursts, maintains the tension and excitement at such a level as to divert the
listener’s sense of this music as still belonging (as it does) to the initial statement
of the rondo theme. This is rondo ‘writ large’.35 Each individual subsection of this
movement is rich in implications beyond the moment. The two semitonal motifs
A@–G and D@–C heard in the ‘A’ section are threaded through the movement,
taking a transitional, and retransitional, function at various junctures. Also planted
throughout the finale are a variety of references to previous movements: the role
of A@ as catalyst for change, noted above, was already fundamental to the drama
of the first movement’s opening theme:36 the A@–D@ subtext, coloured with major–
minor and enharmonic nuance, that characterizes the finale has been threaded
through the previous movements of the sonata. Schubert’s propensity for cyclic
unification of various kinds has been well recognized by commentators, including
pioneering articles by Martin Chusid and Miriam Whaples, as well as more latterly
the work of Alfred Brendel, and Charles Fisk.37 Its role in relation to length is vital
in the case of the finales under discussion here.
In D 958-iv Schubert’s characteristic flair for creating long-term resonance
operates to brilliant effect: this is not a compact movement but it is densely
constructed beyond the apparently loosely knit surface of the music. Its discrete
sections interact in a variety of ways; the result is a network of relationships within
and beyond the finale that are appropriately played out at its (‘heavenly’) length. An
example of the motivic relationships between the material of the different sections
(reminiscent of the thematic technique developed in the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy)38 is
the falling fifth that features in the ‘B’ theme. Like Haydn’s ‘Fifths’ in the string
quartet to which that nickname became attached (his op. 76 no. 2), Schubert’s
35
The layout of the first ‘A’ section is sufficiently spacious to allow for the songlike
turn to the tonic major at some length.
36
See Fisk, Returning Cycles, pp. 181–4. On the persistence of A@ within Theme II of
D 958-i see Chapter 4 above, and Fisk, Returning Cycles, pp. 184–5.
37
Martin Chusid, ‘Schubert’s Cyclic Compositions of 1824’, Acta Musicologica, 36/1
(1964): 37–45; Whaples, ‘On Structural Integration in Schubert’s Works’; Alfred Brendel,
‘Schubert’s Last Sonatas’, in Music Sounded Out, pp. 72–141; Fisk, Returning Cycles.
38
See Chapter 3 above.
(b) Bars 1–30 (in full texture)

motif here proves malleable while retaining its identity through various ploys. We
first hear it, in fact, as a possibly rather aggressive octave leap in compound form
at bar 97 (see Example 9.9). As Haydn does with his ‘fifths’ motif, Schubert then
characterizes this leap by its rhythmic profile (bars 113–14), marking the main
beats of each bar, while altering its intervallic content; and, again as in Haydn’s
quartet first movement, then develops it progressively by retaining the new interval
of a fifth while augmenting the rhythmic values: see Example 9.9, bars 115–16.
The various elements exploited up to this point (from the D@ major transitional
bars into the start of Theme B in C# minor) provide in concentrated form a rich palette
of effects that are then drawn on in the theme’s unfolding over the next 96 bars (up
to and including bar 212). These include, besides the main motif discussed above,
a range of different major–minor colourings;39 diverse reconfigurations of texture
39
A major–minor (bars 141–4); C major–minor (bars 145 and following; bars 157–8);
and E@ major–minor (bars 161–2; bars 169 and following).
and register; a continuation of the witty play on all these elements; and the launch
of dramatic scalar runs in moto perpetuo quavers (bars 187 and following). Rather
than an inchoate jumble of effects, their developmental relationship to the theme’s
point of origin lends them coherence, while the climactic point reached at the close
of the large-scale sequence (bars 145–77, based on the ‘Fischermädchen’ topic) is
a knowingly planted E@ minor preparing for the emergence into E@ major for the
linking theme that precedes section C. It seems that every detail of this music forms
a link in a complex chain, forged according to Schubertian logic. The dominant

of E@ (B@), serves to resolve as enharmonic leading-note in a characteristic vii–i
progression into the key of Theme C, B major.40 The overlapping of parameters
and references in this central ‘C’ section is utterly masterly. Thus, for example,
while the key of B major persists, a retransitional element is introduced in a new
combination with the accompanimental figure from Theme C, in the form of a
new version of material from Theme A in the RH, fashioned so as to point up its
relationship to Theme C (Example 9.10). The texture here pivots between that of
Theme A and Theme C. Schubert also characteristically links the various sections
by means of a series of semitonal relationships at the junctures between them; and
some of these set up mirror effects over longer stretches of the music.41
An important point to make in relation to Schubert’s ‘lengths’ is that he shows
himself fully prepared to compress, and reduce, sections of the form in balance
with the overall plan. In the G major Quartet, D 887, as Harold Truscott observed,
this concision is calculated from the start of the broadly conceived first movement:
What is remarkable about this first group is that into it … are crowded
innumerable forms of expression used by him separately many times elsewhere;
there is a major triad turning to minor, there is a fundamental chromatic descent,
there is a fundamental chromatic ascent, there is a … transition that … avoids
the new dominant, diverting its power to the major mediant – and out of these
odds and ends of musical speech Schubert has fashioned a miracle, unlike any
other by this inveterate purveyor of miracles. Its history is voluminous although
the group itself is short to the point of mathematical exactitude … but there is
scarcely a note but has its preponderating effect on the mass, scarcely a harmony
but speaks in more than one language and has an incalculable effect, like the
infinite places of ‘pi’. And the compression is necessary to offset the overflowing
and amply generous measure to which the material would automatically expand
… if allowed to take the law into its own hands.42
In D 958-iv the process of calculated compression logically governs the latter half
of the movement, where the urge to build a coda (merging with the retransitional
approach and final return of ‘A’) of appropriate proportions to function as closing
passage to the whole sonata, as well as to the finale itself, is balanced by an
economical approach to the penultimate return of the ‘A’ theme (bars 429–78),
which is presented in condensed form. (In particular, it dispenses with the tonic
major version heard originally, an effect that, as in songs such as ‘Gute Nacht’,
40
The enharmonic transformation notionally takes place in the silence that Schubert
plants between the sections here.
41
Besides the vii–i progression into section C mentioned above, these semitonal
moves include A@–G (with A@ harmonized as Neapolitan minor) and, mirroring it, G–A@,
leading into sections A1 and A11 respectively (at bars 421–8 and 623–7).
42
Harold Truscott, ‘Schubert’s String Quartet in G major’: 122.
D 911/1, tends to work most expressively when used once only rather than
repeated).43 The coda’s length is motivated by its need to play out and resolve the
tensions set up during the movement and the work as a whole. The significance
of its starting-point of A@ major in relation to the overall profile of the sonata has
not been lost on commentators, among them Charles Fisk.44 And by collecting
43
This also means that the return of the linking theme in C major at bar 599 and
following has all the more powerful effect.
44
Fisk (Returning Cycles, p. 202) sees the start of the coda as expanding the four-bar
progression in A@ from the opening of the development in the first movement (I–V7–I) to 24
together at bars 661–700 elements of the statements of the ‘A’ theme originally
heard discretely (at bars 1–8 and bars 25–57) it revisits the Neapolitan (D@) minor–
major effect heard there, now as a prelude to the final V–I. Thus the work’s A@–D@
subtext is resolved at last emphatically onto a conclusive G–C.
Turning finally to what might be considered the epitome of Schubert’s lengths,
the ‘Great’ C major Symphony, D 944, it is possible to recover a sense of the work’s
impact, upon its rediscovery in the mid-nineteenth century, through the celebrated
review penned by Robert Schumann. (Schumann’s enthusiasm for Schubert seems
commensurate with that of Schubert himself for his beloved Mozart.45) Above all,
Schumann’s review of D 944 conveys the freshness and novelty that he found in
the symphony: apropos of its ‘heavenly length … like that of one of Jean Paul’s
romances in four thick volumes’ he declares ‘how refreshing is this feeling of
overflowing wealth!’46 And in encouraging close study of the work he observes:
At first, every one will feel a little embarrassed by the brilliancy and novelty
of the instrumentation, the length and breadth of form, the charming variety of
vital feeling, the entirely new world that opens to us … but a delightful feeling
remains, as though we had been listening to a lovely tale of enchantment, we feel
that the composer was master of his subject, and after a time its intricacies and
connections all become clear to us.47
Schumann’s own sympathetic reception of Schubert’s project is made patently

clear here.
Scott Burnham, summarizing Schumann’s review, noted how it ‘memorably
relates Schubert to the city of Vienna’.48 But although Schumann’s effusions are
expressed equally of Vienna as of Schubert’s symphony, he is concerned not to
make over-simplified connections, and thus adds a rider:
On leaving Schubert’s symphony, the bright, blooming, romantic life of Vienna

appears to me clearer than ever; such works ought to be born amid precisely
such surroundings. But I shall not attempt to set the symphony in its fitting soil
‘dancing’ bars. Its expansion in the coda is of course justified by its retransitional function,
building up to the final A11. Moreover, it reflects on numerous previously heard elements,
including the Neapolitan minor (bars 651–2) that has been threaded through the work.
45
In this regard the work of Marie Luise Maintz is particularly pertinent (see her
Franz Schubert in der Rezeption Robert Schumanns).
46
Schumann, Music and Musicians, trans. Ritter (hereafter referred to as ‘Ritter’),
vol. 1, pp. 48–56, p. 54; cf. Schumann on Music, trans. Pleasants (hereafter referred to
as ‘Pleasants’), pp. 163–8, p. 166: Pleasants renders the simile as ‘like a fat novel in four
volumes by Jean Paul’. The review was originally published in NZfM, 12 (1840): 81–3; see
Schumann, Gesammelte Schriften (ed. Kreisig), vol. 1, pp. 459–64.
47
Ritter, p. 55. Pleasants (p. 166) has ‘The brilliance … may be confusing to the listener’.
48
Burnham, ‘“Heavenly Length”’, Part 1, p. 1.
… where the youth of eighteen hears a world-shaking occurrence in a musical

work, a grown man only perceives some rustic event, while the composer
probably never thought of either, but simply gave the best music that he felt
within him just then.49
This does not preclude Schumann from observing that nevertheless ‘the outer
world … often deeply impresses the inward feeling of the poet or the musician’,
and from sensing in Schubert’s symphony ‘life in every vein’.50
In his summing-up, Burnham appeals to our ability to recognize Schubert’s
‘Biedermeier Gemütlichkeit’ (with its connotations of cosiness) as if to counter the
impression of overextended musical argument that might cling to D 944 among
other works.51 But the infusion of Viennese popular style into this music goes
together with the creation of what seems a new quality of spaciousness. The Trio
to the Scherzo, couched in terms of a Ländler, spends its first 16 bars (following
the linking passage from the end of the scherzo) luxuriating in its tonic before
moving on, in the next 20–bar unit, with subtle variation of pacing, from the
relative minor to the mediant minor (Example 9.11). Within bars 1–16 an eight-
bar antecedent can be divided from its eight-bar consequent. Comparison with
a Classical model, the Trio to the Menuetto of Mozart’s Symphony no. 39 in E@
major, K 543, is revealing: here too, a popular (in this case divertimento-style)
reference is involved, and Mozart with utter economy crafts a four-bar antecedent
moving classically from I to V, and a sequentially launched consequent matching it
neatly with a four-bar phrase moving back from V to I, thereby completing its first
section up to the double bar within the confines of one-sixth of the total number
of bars making up the first section of Schubert’s D 944 Trio. By comparison, not
only the harmonic rhythm in Schubert has been vastly expanded, but also the tonal
space has opened up vistas beyond the standard tonic–dominant axis.
The second section of Schubert’s Trio moves in new directions after the
double bar, setting up an expressive tonic major–minor echo (bars 303–10 and
following) and then moving from A minor to its relative major, C major, before
moving back with characteristic palindromic effect by way of A minor again, to
emerge into the tonic major at bar 343 for the return of the main theme, conjured
up by the repeated Es that originally introduced it.52 Further expansion is created
thereafter by widening the tonal frame of reference beyond its original trajectory
to incorporate a passage in the Neapolitan key of B@ major (bars 367–74 and
following): the original 48-bar section has now grown to 54 bars. The total length
of the Trio is thus 150 bars, elegantly proportioned and with C major (the Scherzo
49
Ritter, p. 53 (adapted, with reference to Pleasants, p. 165).
50
Ritter, p. 53.
51
Burnham, ‘“Heavenly Length”’, Part 2, p. 5.
52
Typically for Schubert these unharmonized Es are notionally transformed, as they
gather strength (by timbral reinforcement as well as crescendo), from third of C major to
fifth of A major for the Trio.
Example 9.11 D 944, third movement, Trio, bars 246–62
key and overall key of the work) at its centre.53 What was traditionally conceived
as an interlude on a miniature scale has developed here into a large-scale waltz in
53
The D 944 Trio may also be compared with the miniature scale of Schubert’s own
Waltz in A@, D 365/3 (the ‘Trauerwalzer’), with its perfectly-proportioned sections. (On the
relationship of his waltzes to his more extended movement-forms see Newbould, ‘Cornered
in the Middle Eight’, in Newbould, ed., Schubert the Progressive.)
continued
fully rounded form and covering a generous amount of tonal space. Not a single
bar is wasted or superfluous.54
54
Burnham (‘“Heavenly Length”’, Part 2, p. 1) cites a friend who ‘once wistfully
observe[d] that he would like to live in the Trio section of the G Major Quartet’; the same
urge may perhaps be produced by the experience of listening to the ravishing Trio of D 944.
The tonal scheme of the Trio in D 944 with its mirroring succession of A–a–
C–a–A wraps the central C major passage in symmetrical layers reflecting the key-
plan of the slow movement, with its memorable A minor–major pair of themes in
the opening section of its sonata-type form. Besides the interlocking tonal schemes
characteristic of Schubert’s larger-scale piano, chamber and orchestral works – as
well as D 944 these include the String Quintet, D 956, with its Neapolitan and
third-related tonal plan55 – the binding force of Schubert’s habitual and intense
preoccupation with motivic unification is a factor in producing cohesion in his
larger movement-cycles. Implicated in this is his treatment of the beginnings
and endings of movements within a cycle. The kinds of device apparent in the
more compact format of works such as the Piano Sonata in A major, D 664, are
built into the later instrumental works with a variety of effects and meanings. In
D 664 Schubert explored the possibility of notionally linking movements together
(while not physically joining them) by motivic connections forged at the juncture
between them, as well as promoting more widespread motivic unity throughout
the work: the end of the second movement, Andante (see Example 2.3 above) and
start of the finale (Example 4.11a above) demonstrate the first of these processes,
while Examples 4.9 and 4.10 above show the linking of themes I and II within
the Andante. And if a suitably brief gap is left in performance between the first
and second movements of D 810 (the D minor Quartet), the clear reference to
the motivic material of the variations theme stands out (Examples 9.12a and b).
Example 9.12 (a)–(b) D810, first and second movements
(a) First movement, bars 337–41
(b) Second movement, bars 1–4
55
See Wollenberg, ‘The C major String Quintet D 956’, for a fuller discussion of the
work’s tonal profile.
A similar observation can be made of the relationship (by inversion) between the
end of the second movement, Andante un poco mosso, in the B@ Piano Trio, D 898,
and beginning of the Scherzo (Example 9.13).
Example 9.13 (a)–(b) D 898, second and third movements
(a) Second movement, bars 128–32
Across the wide sweep of the C major Symphony, D 944, a more loosely
connected network of motivic resonances operates, contributing nevertheless to
the integrity of the whole. Schumann, in a response to the work that may evoke
a familiar sensation among music critics and analysts, felt that ‘to give an idea of
the novel-like character that pervades the whole symphony, the entire work ought
to be transcribed’.56 But he did of course single out some particular passages:
these included ‘the splendid, romantic introduction’ and the apparently seamless
56
Ritter, p. 55.
(b) Third movement, bars 1–4
progression into the following Allegro (‘the tempo does not seem to change’).57
Among the manifold functions of the horn theme in this atmospheric introduction
is that of generating motivic kernels towards the material of the movements that
follow: this motivic material tends to be re-shaped rather than reproduced exactly,
yet it preserves a sense of belonging with the contours of the opening theme.
Alternatively, a tiny fragment is extracted for use, notably the ascending third: the
recurrence of such fragments (as well as of the opening theme itself later in the
Allegro, with mystical effect) confirms their relationship.58 These processes are seen,
for example, in the slow movement and in the Scherzo (Examples 9.14 a and b),
at times with an almost artless rather than studied effect.
A sense of the rich variety of topical fashioning and transformation that Schubert
applied to his instrumental motifs and themes has been gathering during the course
of the preceding chapters. This constitutes another important factor contributing to
the coherence of those movements and works that unfold at ‘heavenly length’. In
D 944, particularly, topical variety helps to create the impression of a whole world
that Schumann so keenly appreciated in this symphony. The work has a quality
of openness that invites interpretation and association without limiting these to a
specific programme. Its topical frame of reference ranges over theatrical overture
(outer movements), exotic confected ‘orientalism’ (first movement Allegro, Theme
II), slow march (stately in the first movement introduction, mournful in the slow
movement), and rustic dance (Scherzo) contrasted with evocations of more urbane
social dancing (Trio). Perhaps because the breadth of topic is combined here with
so many of the fingerprints discussed in the chapters leading up to this one (major–
minor effects, ‘quick’ transitions, violent outbursts, tonal subtexts, variations), and
57
Ibid.
58
As Einstein (Schubert (1971), p. 329) observed, ‘how important a part is played in
this work by the interval of a third, either in its pure form or linked by the intermediate note!’
Example 9.14 D 944, second movement and Scherzo
(a) D 944, second movement, bars 8–10, 24–7
despite the work’s redating by John Reed (now generally accepted) to an earlier
period than was previously assigned to it,59 and notwithstanding also the existence
of an unfinished tenth symphony, D 944 does seem to sum up the style and spirit
of Schubert’s instrumental music in many respects. Not least, it conveys a sense of
59
John Reed, Schubert: The Final Years (London: Faber, 1972), pp. 71–98.
(b) Scherzo, bars 1–4
the ambitious intentions with which he embarked on his larger-scale instrumental

works, particularly those of his last decade.
Among the tropes that recur in criticism of Schubert’s lengths, the notion that
Schubert finds it difficult to bring a work to a close has clung to the reception of
his extended finales. Schumann presented this aspect, too, admiringly: following
his reference to a thick novel in four volumes by Jean Paul, Schumann went on
to comment that there was another who is ‘never able to come to an end, for
the very best reason’, that is in order to leave his readers still engrossed in the
experience afterwards.60 The breadth of vision and the generosity of conception
that characterize D 944 are established at the start. Here Schubert seems in no
hurry to proceed to the main business of the Allegro: the listener is drawn in not
only by the ‘noble horn passage’ with its ‘touch of a magic mood’61 but also,
importantly, by the unfolding of the set of variations on it that follows the horncall.
These present the role of the orchestra, and Schubert’s handling of its textures and
colours, as a potential element in expanding the framework of the symphony.62 In
addition, and with portentous effect, the introduction traverses the harmonic and
tonal fields that will figure later in the Allegro: these references include E minor
at bars 23–6 (prefiguring the key of Theme II in the Allegro), followed by the
60
Ritter, p. 54.
61
Hermann Grabner, introduction (in English translation) to the Eulenburg miniature
score edition of D 944 (London, Mainz etc., n.d.), p. III (‘Schon über dem Einleitungs-
Andante mit seiner edlen Hornmelodie … liegt der Zauber einer verklärten, reinen
Stimmung’: ibid., p. IV).
62
This element also commanded Schumann’s admiration: ‘We must grant that
he possessed an extraordinary talent, in attaining to such peculiar treatment of separate
instruments, such mastery of orchestral masses – they often seem to converse like human
voices and chorusses’ (Ritter, p. 54).
juxtaposition of V of E minor with V7 of C major (bars 27–8), anticipating the

dramatic cadential build-up that appears in Theme II of the Allegro;63 and a strong
indication presented especially portentously, at bars 48 and following, of the
A@–E@ subtext that will emerge during the Allegro and in subsequent movements
of the symphony. Finally, the variations of the introduction are brilliantly drawn
into the business of preparing for the Allegro by means of the rhythmic activity
(triplet quavers in a moto perpetuo violin countertheme) added to the ‘horn theme’
in variation 3 at bars 61 and following, thereby creating what Schumann perceived
as the seamless join between Andante and Allegro (Example 9.15).
From such a richly layered beginning to a work, its end seems guaranteed to
justify taking its time over its peroration. Perhaps, in sum, what we should be
asking of Schubert’s lengths is not ‘why does this music seem overlong?’ but
rather: ‘If this music does not seem too long, why not?’ The answer to that question
lies in Schubert’s compositional mastery and vision, in his constant relating of the
detail to the whole, and in the ‘`world’ he creates within each piece, as Robert
Schumann so percipiently grasped and eloquently expressed.
63
Discussed in Chapter 4 above.
continued
Example 9.15 continued

continued
Example 9.15 continued

continued

Chapter 10
Concluding Remarks: ‘Whose Schubert?’
Returning, finally, to the question posed by Budde: ‘Wherein lies the essence
of Schubert?’,1 it is now possible to draw together the threads of the preceding
discussion in order to tease out some answers. What follows will also draw further
on the writings of Robert Schumann, which are so full of important insights into
the qualities of Schubert’s ‘compositional persona’. Schumann was Schubert’s
posthumous champion, evincing sympathy for his project in the instrumental
music generally, and expressing intense enthusiasm for particular works: as John
Daverio put it, for instance, Schumann gave ‘high marks to the “Death and the
Maiden” quartet’.2 This raises the question of the alternative that Schubert provided
to the Beethovenian model, so widely acknowledged as a powerful influence on
later nineteenth-century composers. For nowhere in Beethoven’s instrumental
music would they have found a work like the D minor Quartet of Schubert,
D 810, or the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, D 760. And when Schumann observed that
latter-day composers exceeded their predecessors in their treatment of the sonata
cycle, where ‘it was not enough to work out an idea in one movement, they
concealed it in other guises and fragmentations’ in the surrounding movements,3
he was essentially describing the Schubertian paradigm contained most notably in
D 810 and D 760, as well as in the piano sonatas.
Up to this point, in the chapters following the ‘Introduction’, Beethoven
has intentionally been excluded almost entirely from consideration alongside
Schubert. In exploring Schubert’s ‘fingerprints’, the aim throughout has been
to take his music on its own terms, outlawing the customary comparisons with
Beethoven. Where in some cases a perceived connection to Beethoven on the
basis of musical resemblance has become almost a cliché, as with the opening of
the C minor Sonata D 958 and Beethoven’s Thirty-two Variations on an Original
Theme, WoO 80, it is refreshing to find authors looking elsewhere for a possible
key to understanding Schubert’s music, as with Eva Badura-Skoda’s perception
of his song ‘Der Atlas’, D 957/8 as having a distinct affinity with the pervasive
1
Chapter 1, n. 43 refers.
2
John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a ‘New Poetic Age’ (New York and
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 248.
3
Robert Schumann, Review of Two Sonatas by Carl Loewe (1835), translation
slightly adapted from Schumann on Music, trans. Pleasants, p. 45. Schumann’s own sonatas
exhibited the process he described.
rhythmic pattern in the C minor Sonata, first movement.4 The only chapter of
the present work that has set Schubert in the context of his artistic relationship
to the work of another composer is Chapter 5, on ‘Schubert and Mozart’. That
particular relationship seems to have been coloured by Schubert’s deep love of
Mozart’s music and by their kinship as composers, producing an easily fruitful and
apparently untroubled line of influence and connection between the two.
On the subject of Beethoven, Schubert may have expressly acknowledged
not simply the ‘anxiety of influence’ but the potentially paralysing effects of
Beethoven’s monumental stature: ‘Heimlich im Stillen hoffe ich wohl selbst
etwas aus mir machen zu können, aber wer vermag nach Beethoven noch etwas zu
machen?’5 Perhaps it was precisely by thus confronting the spectre of Beethoven’s
influence that Schubert was empowered to find the new path that Schumann
discerned in his music, and indeed to go on, as he had hoped, to create ‘something
of his own’. When Schumann in 1838 coined the terms that fixed a ‘feminine’
Schubert in the European consciousness he referred primarily to Schubert in
relation to Beethoven: ‘Schubert is a maidenly character compared to [Beethoven]
… one commands, and one beseeches and persuades. This, however, is in contrast
to Beethoven alone; compared to others he is man enough, and even the boldest
and most freethinking of musicians.’6
In terms of the areas explored in the present book, the fundamental difference
between Beethoven and Schubert lies in the fact that, above all, Schubert’s most
natural habitat was in the genre of Lied. For Beethoven on the contrary, and
notwithstanding his considerable contribution to this genre, the Lied does not
seem to be the most natural territory.7 The Lied topos informs his instrumental
4
Eva Badura-Skoda, ‘The Piano Works of Schubert’, in R. Larry Todd (ed.),
Nineteenth-Century Piano Music (New York: Schirmer, 1990), pp. 97–146, p. 131.
5
O.E. Deutsch, Schubert: Die Erinnerungen seiner Freunde (Leipzig, 1966), p. 150;
publ. in English as Schubert: Memoirs by his Friends (London: Adam and Charles Black,
1958), cf. p. 128: ‘Secretly, in my heart of hearts, I still hope to be able to make something
out of myself, but who can do anything after Beethoven?’ See Walther Dürr, ‘Wer vermag
nach Beethoven noch etwas zu machen? Gedanken über die Beziehungen Schuberts
zu Beethoven’, Beethoven-Jahrbuch (1973–77): 47–67, repr. in H.K. Metzger and
R. Riehn (eds), Musik-Konzepte Sonderband Franz Schubert (Munich, 1979): 10–25. The
authenticity of the remark (derived from Spaun) has been questioned: see Anselm Gerhard,
‘Franz Schuberts Abschied von Beethoven? Zur “poetischen Idee” des Es-Dur-Klaviertrios
von 1827’, Schubert: Perspektiven, 2/1 (2002): 1–21, 1, n. 2.
6
Review of the ‘Grand Duo’ and last three sonatas in Schumann, Music and
Musicians, trans. Ritter, vol. 1, pp. 296–7; cf. Schumann on Music, trans. Pleasants, p. 142.
See also Scott Messing, Schubert in the European Imagination, Eastman Studies in Music
(2 vols, Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2006), vol. 1, The Romantic and
Victorian Eras.
7
For recent revisionist views of Beethoven’s Lieder see especially Amanda Glauert,
‘Beethoven’s songs and vocal style’, in Glenn Stanley (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to
Beethoven (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 186–99; and Glauert, ‘The
Concluding Remarks: ‘Whose Schubert?’ 289
writing alongside a variety of other stylistic and generic topoi; but in Schubert’s
instrumental works the Lied is a constituent of their very essence. Its ethos, its
forms, techniques and textures, permeate the fabric of his instrumental music. Song
is at the root of his instrumental music, not simply in the sense of incorporating
actual songs, as happens in such familiar examples as the ‘Death and the Maiden’
Quartet (D 810) and the ‘Trout’ Quintet (D 667), nor necessarily in the sense
posited by Charles Fisk, who interprets the quotations of song fragments he finds
woven into Schubert’s solo piano textures in terms of the composer’s expression
of his own mental and emotional state.8 Rather, the conclusions I wish to draw
here rest on the ways in which Schubert crafts his instrumental music by means of
techniques that belong to the world of his songs, so that his instrumental works are
imbued with harmonic, constructional, and expressive elements and processes that
correspond to those of the Lied as fashioned in his hands.
This does not need to mean that at any given moment they sound like songs;
but rather that they partake of techniques associated with setting poetry, applying
these to the larger canvas of his instrumental forms.9 Thus Schubert’s elliptical and
referential treatment of harmony and key, as explored particularly in Chapters 3
and 4, has poetic resonance. Perhaps most strongly of all, the major–minor nuances
discussed in Chapter 2 are so thoroughly embedded in the musical language of
Schubert’s songs that their use in the instrumental works resonates with quasi-
poetic effect. Song enables Schubert to transform Classical structures: the ABA
format characteristic of slow movements in the sonata cycle takes on a new
violence in his works, as explored in Chapter 6, and the conventions associated
with the embellishment of section A on its return in such a scheme become loaded
in these Schubertian forms with a new psychological significance, again creating
poetic resonance.10 To compose poetically is not only to evoke such qualities as
nostalgia and longing, together with ideas of wandering and travel;11 it is also to
connect intimately structure with expression.
Lieder of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven’, in James Parsons
(ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Lied (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004), pp. 63–82.
8
9
The relationship between specific songs and instrumental works is not entirely
simple, as Maurice Brown pointed out (‘Schubert: Instrumental Derivatives in the Songs’).
It would seem that the poetic character of Schubert’s instrumental writing might produce
thematic material, together with the context surrounding it, that finds a direct reflection in
songs composed later, as for example with the opening theme of the A minor Sonata, D 845,
first movement, whose swooping descent through the octave arpeggiation from e11 to e1 is
echoed in ‘Die Wetterfahne’, D 911/2.
10
On the poetic qualities of Schubert’s music Robert Schumann wrote eloquently:
see the discussion of his defining statements concerning this category in Maintz, Franz
Schubert in der Rezeption Robert Schumanns, p. 75f. (‘Das Schubertbild’).
11
Matthew Head has explored musical metaphors of travel in Fanny Hensel’s treatment
of Theme II of her G minor Sonata, first movement: M. Head, ‘Genre, Romanticism and
Besides the virtually inevitable Beethovenian comparisons, Schubert’s

reputation has been haunted by the notion of his composerly character as marked
above all by his supreme melodic gifts. But it is his thematic construction rather
than sheer tunefulness that most strongly marks his melodies. The examination of
this aspect in Chapter 4 revealed a remarkably intense generative process seemingly
prophetic of Brahms’s ‘principle of developing variation’, as Walter Frisch,
following Schoenberg, termed it.12 There is a sense in which Brahms may have
found his own compositional inclinations reflected in Schubert, just as Schubert
found his in Mozart. And again those generative thematic processes in Schubert’s
instrumental themes are imbued with the spirit of the Lied as he fashioned it. The
intensity they produce is a characteristic of Schubert’s instrumental writing as a
whole. One work in particular, the Quartettsatz, D 703, has emerged from the
discussion in the preceding chapters as a locus of extreme intensity in construction
at a variety of levels. It is this quality that makes the work seem so complete in
itself in spite of its unfinished status.
A factor in the ‘completedness’ we might perceive in D 703 that is more overtly
in evidence is the cyclic return of Theme I in the tonic at the close of the movement.
It is Schubert’s most extensive and literal use of this truly cyclic device, whereby
the effect created suggests that the piece could begin again at this point and indeed
go round indefinitely, although Schubert stops it with an abrupt perfect cadence,
pulling the music up just short of the ‘end is my beginning’ device as used by Haydn
in the comic finale of his Quartet in E@ major, op. 33 no. 2 (‘The Joke’).13 The cyclic
ending of D 703 is a heightened form of the recalling of opening material at the
close of a movement or work favoured by Schubert generally:14 in D 703 its effect
is intensified by the denial of the expected recapitulatory return of Theme I prior
to this point. Besides the poetic transition, Schubert created special categories of
retransition: the ‘false’ retransition, as in D 703, setting up deceptively the ‘wrong’
key; and the poetic retransition, searching for its key (as in D 960-i), or searching
for its theme (as in D 929-i), and summoning fleeting visions of these prior to
their arrival at the point of recapitulation. Such proceedings surround the double
recapitulatory return with an imaginative aura. In D 944-i a heightened atmosphere
results from the memories of the more remote keys of the exposition (A@ minor,
E minor) that surface during the retransition, again transforming the effect of
the recapitulatory return that follows. This arrives sempre piano as if in awe of the
mystery that preceded it.
Female Authorship: Fanny Hensel’s “Scottish” Sonata in G Minor (1843)’, Nineteenth-

Century Music Review, 4/2 (2007): 67–88.
12
Frisch, Brahms and the Principle of Developing Variation.
13
On the Haydn work see Wheelock, Haydn’s Ingenious Jesting with Art, pp. 3–18.
14
For example, besides the A major Sonata D 959, first movement opening and finale
ending (which have been much commented on in the literature), the first movement codas
of the Sonatas in A minor, D 537, and G major, D 894, move to their close with dramatic
and poignant reflections on their opening ideas.
Linked with the processes of transition and thematic construction discussed in

the various chapters is Schubert’s transformation of his material in different contexts
within a movement or work, and in a variety of topical guises. In some cases a
particular kind of mediating effect is created in moving between different sections:
thus in the Impromptu in A@, D 899/4, the descent towards the end of the ‘A’ section
maintains the moto perpetuo of the arpeggiated semiquaver figure that has pervaded
so much of the RH throughout this section, but halts the LH against it (while the
RH semiquavers continue to dance ‘on the spot’), freezing the supporting harmony
to lead to the ‘B’ section and simultaneously preparing its accompaniment texture,
which, in song-like fashion, is characterized by block chords (see Example 3.24a).
At the opposite end of the spectrum are those instances where abrupt or surprising
contrasts are formed by topical transformation of ideas, as in the first movement
of the G major Piano Sonata, D 894, in the chasm between the peaceful character
of Theme I as heard at both the opening and close of the exposition and its stark
reappearance in the minor at the start of the development (Examples 2.6a and b).
Schubert’s command of ‘lighter’ moods, at times creating a kind of instrumental
comedy, emerged in Chapter 7 in connection with his tripartite constructions, where
his intensive application of wit and humour was found to appear principally in the
openings of his finales. Besides song as a source of instrumental style, dance is
strongly characterized in Schubert’s instrumental writing, evoking the sociable and
‘gemütlich’ aspects of Viennese culture, while also inviting playful treatment of
material, as the finales of the Piano Sonatas in A minor, D 537, and B major, D 575,
showed, their opening strategies making witty play on expectations. In addition to
the distinctly comic business developed in these examples, the popular ‘Ländler’
character of his more waltz-like scherzo movements, seen at its most pronounced
in the D major Sonata, D 850, may border on caricature. Such writing, with its
warmth and its enthusiastic adoption of the waltz, seems to lead in a direct line to
the Trio of Brahms’s scherzo movement in his Piano Sonata in F# minor, op. 2: the
latter displays the characteristic opening rhythmic gesture (Ö-µ | ±) associated with the
dance generally in Schubert’s piano sonatas, as well as more specifically sharing the
key and melodic shape of Schubert’s waltz-like scherzo in D 850.15 For Schubert the
language of the dance has an enabling effect on the connectedness and expansion
of scale in his instrumental works. Thus the Piano Trio in B@ major, D 898, was
found in the previous chapter to link its slow movement and scherzo by mirroring
at the start of the latter movement the phrase in that characteristic rhythmic pattern
from the close of the former; while the Trio to the Scherzo of the ‘Great’ C major
Symphony, D 944, also discussed in Chapter 9, took the Ländler to new lengths.
Implicit in much of the discussion has been the question of the balance between
‘Classical’ and ‘Romantic’ style traits, particularly as it appertains to Schubert and
Mozart (Chapter 5). The blend of the two, varying in its proportions in different
works, genres, and periods of Schubert’s career, leads me to suggest the epithet
15
On the influence of Schubert’s dance music on Brahms, see Robert Pascall,
‘Brahms and Schubert’, Musical Times, 124 (1983): 286–91.
‘post-Classical’, and in some cases ‘anti-Classical’, for Schubert’s reinterpretation

of Classical formal and tonal models. Important here is the point that apparently
‘Classically’ orientated works such as the G minor Quartet, D 173, with its overt
reference to Mozart, can be the site of formal and tonal experiment beyond Classical
boundaries, although even here it transpires that in Mozart (who could so often be
subversive) a model might in fact be found for such experiments. Conversely,
works by Schubert that breathe a distinctly more ‘Romantic’ air, such as the
E major Quartet, D 353, may contain unmistakable references to Classical models.
Within the wider question of these relationships are more intricate networks of
shared compositional elements: these include motifs (the Neapolitan motif, the
chromatic fourth) and tonal palette (the Neapolitan-inflected subtext of Schubert’s
and Mozart’s treatment of C major in their respective string quintets in that key).
The long-range connectedness in Schubert’s instrumental designs is created
most intensively by both the deployment of motif, and his overarching tonal
schemes: here too, the Quartettsatz, D 703, stands as an exemplar. The formulation
of tonal systems to account for Schubert’s treatment of keys can be persuasive.
However, it is desirable to retain a sense of those individual moments which
Schubert produces by means of his tonal alchemy, where key (and mode) shift,
merge and emerge, in a design calculated to arouse wonderment in the listener.16
In this regard, Schubert’s transitions are the locus classicus for such effects: these
find their echoes in Liszt and Dvořák, among other nineteenth-century followers
of Schubert. And his second themes (as discussed in Chapter 4) may feature such
an accumulation of these effects of shifting tonality and mode as to endanger
almost altogether the sense of a fixed key.
Also implicit in the course of the discussion has been the rejection of the
idea that became associated with Schubert’s instrumental writing in the critical
and analytical reception of his works, and that is the accusation that they show a
reckless looseness of form. Taking as an example the second movement, Andante,
of the G major Sonata, D 894 (shown in outline in Figure 7.1), its form is intricately
constructed so that everything that happens is enclosed within larger-scale versions
of itself. There are dialogues within dialogues (B:b dialogues with itself in different
registers, while A:a answers itself with an arpeggiated elaboration), and forms are
reflected within forms: the succession of sections A, B, A1 and B1 creates a tonal
plan inflected by sonata form relationships (with B based first in the relative minor,
secondly returning transposed to the tonic minor, featuring an extended Tierce
de Picardie in each case), while within the ‘B’ sections, the subsections exhibit
a miniature version of sonata form relationships (between ‘b’ in the dominant
and then in the tonic of the episode). Overlaid onto all this constructive detail is
the equally intricate application of variation at many different levels of the form.
16
This importance of the momentary effect is an aspect stressed by Richard Taruskin
in his exploration of Schubert’s new path: see Taruskin, ‘Schubert: A Life in Art’, in ‘The
Music Trance’, Oxford History of Western Music (6 vols, New York: Oxford University
Press, 2005), vol. 3, The Nineteenth Century, pp. 79–118.
Finally the coda summons up twice a memory of the key of the first episode (the
relative minor) prior to settling in the tonic, playing evocative fragments in the
two keys gently and wistfully off against each other, and thus demonstrating that
whatever key Schubert’s music is supposed to be in at any given point, it can
always imagine readily what it would be like to be elsewhere, or indeed something
of how it was to be there in the past, before returning to present reality.
Such oppositions and resolutions as are found among the various components
that make up the Andante of D 894, arising from within the fabric of the music
rather than any externally imposed programme, can be seen nevertheless as
corresponding to human experience and its expression. So much intensity and
connectedness is packed into the construction of Schubert’s greatest instrumental
movements that, without need for the provision of extra-musical or programmatic
reference to guide the listener, they convey by means of the elements of music the
equivalent to a psychological drama. Truscott saw this, for example, in the scheme
of the finale of the D minor Quartet, D 810:
This scheme, translated into terms of human experience, would make one of the
greatest of all psychological novels. Henry James himself, perhaps the greatest
master of the psychological novel, never bettered it. It is human experience, with
tonality and its facets as the actors and the experience, and the insight it shows,
plus the infallible mastery of the handling, is shattering.17
Truscott here, whether unwittingly or not, echoes the sentiments expressed by

Schumann, not only in equating Schubert’s music to the genre of the novel, but
also in ascribing psychological depths to its utterances. Compare Schumann:
‘There is in general, besides Schubert’s, no music that would be so psychologically
remarkable in the progression and connection of ideas, and in the apparently
logical leaps …’.18
Among the negative judgements that have collected around Schubert’s
instrumental works is the notion of their alleged repetitiousness tackled by
Truscott (see above). For admirers of the richly constructed development section
in the E@ Piano Trio, D 929, first movement, it can be a source of surprise to
find that it has been construed merely as a series of repetitions of the ‘same
idea’. In fact Schubert here, taking up the closing theme of his exposition almost
17
Harold Truscott, ‘Schubert’s D Minor String Quartet’, Music Review, 19 (1958):
27–36 (36). Truscott goes on to sound a salutary warning: ‘Schubert’s apparently lazy exact
repetition (towards the end of the finale) is actually the imaginative culmination of a tonal
drama … begun in the exposition of the first movement’ (ibid.).
18
‘Es gibt überhaupt, auβer den Schubert’schen, keine Musik, die so psychologisch
merkwürdig wäre in den Ideengang und -Verbindung und in den scheinbar logischen
Sprüngen …’: Robert Schumann, Letter to Friedrich Wieck, 6 November 1829, quoted
in Maintz, Franz Schubert in der Rezeption Robert Schumanns, p. 37 and (in full) p. 82,
translation mine.
immediately at the start of the development (in Mozartian fashion: compare the
D major Sonata K 576, first movement at the equivalent point, moreover inflecting
the device with the parallel minor), transforms his theme in each fresh hearing by
planting it in differing, and exotic, tonal landscapes (featuring major and parallel
minor in each, associated with alternating textural types) and interleaving these
statements with dramatic interjections. The proceedings carry with them a distinct
suggestion of reference to a larger genre beyond the chamber sphere, that of the
piano concerto. And here also Schubert possibly takes his cue from Mozart. For
in both the minor-key concertos of Mozart, K 466 and K 491, so deeply admired
by nineteenth-century musicians, the first-movement development sections focus
more intensively than usual on quotations of thematic fragments, foregrounded
against the more customary rhapsodic figurations, and moving through a
dramatic sequence of keys, with exchanges between soloist and orchestra. In the
comparable process seen in Schubert’s Trio development, what might casually be
perceived as ‘repetition’ is really a series of inspired transformations. Schubert’s
use of repetition has inevitably been linked critically with his ‘heavenly lengths’.
In response to the more unsympathetic aspect of this reception, Frank Merrick
wrote of the Impromptus in E@, D 899/2 and A@, D 899/4 in terms that may also be
applied to the E@ Piano Trio, D 929:
[These impromptus] have an attribute in common which sometimes lessens their

appeal to non-Schubertians, and that is the persistent continuation of similar
figures, but more melodic and harmonic diversity is perceived when we think
of the music in long periods … So when these two pieces are looked upon as
far stretched landscapes, our perception of their beauties will rapidly increase.19
Many different views of Schubert have formed or have been re-formed in

recent accounts of the composer and his music, not without controversy, all of
them opening up fresh perspectives and enriching Schubertian discourse. Richard
Cohn’s Schubert is the manipulator of a tightly knit tonal system.20 Elizabeth
McKay’s is the bipolar Schubert, gripped by mood swings.21 Maynard Solomon’s
‘Schubert among the Peacocks’ has commanded support for his view of Schubert’s
homosexual proclivities, while Rita Steblin, among others, has contested Solomon’s
theory.22 Scott Messing, as well as tracing the critical tropes that formed the
‘feminine Schubert’, also presented the ‘slipper-and-dressing-gown style’ image
19
Frank Merrick (ed.), Schubert: Four Impromptus, Op. 90 (London: Associated
Board, n.d.).
20
Cohn, ‘As Wonderful as Star Clusters’.
21
McKay, Franz Schubert.
22
Maynard Solomon, ‘Franz Schubert and the Peacocks of Benvenuto Cellini’,
19th-Century Music, 12/3 (1989), 193–206; Rita Steblin, ‘The Peacock’s Tale: Schubert’s
Sexuality Reconsidered’, ibid., 17/1 (1993), 5–33. See also Robert Winter, ‘Whose
Schubert?’, ibid., 17/1 (1993), 94–101.
of Schubert popularly espoused in Victorian England.23 Charles Fisk’s alienated

Schubert feels, like the Wanderer, that he is a stranger everywhere.24 And Fisk, as
he made explicit in his book, found his own concerns reflected in the narratives
he read out of Schubert’s last sonatas and impromptus.25 For David Cairns (as for
numerous other critics), ‘no composer delivers better the message of our mortality’
than Schubert.26
In tracing Schubert’s fingerprints through his instrumental works, I hope to
have identified some of the elements that make up his ‘essence’ as an instrumental
composer, beyond the surface of the commonly acknowledged (and certainly highly
characteristic) features so often noted by commentators, such as his penchant
for Neapolitan colouring and his pervasive use of dactylic rhythms, and to have
explored the nuances with which he imbues some of the more readily observed
fingerprints of his style, perhaps most notably his major–minor usage, which – like
every significant element of his music – proves capable of conveying a multitude
of nuances, and sustaining a seemingly infinite variety of applications. Schumann
on Schubert’s Impromptus, D 935, observing ‘how he charms, deceives, and
then grips us’, serves to sum up the collective effect of the processes involved in
Schubert’s deployment of his various compositional fingerprints.27
Of all the many different ‘faces’ of Schubert presented in the literature from
his time onwards, it is to Schumann’s writings on Schubert, fixing his image as the
creator of, among other things, those famous heavenly lengths, writings that have
continually inspired my own interpretations, that I return again in closing the
present study. And so I will give almost the last word here to Robert Schumann:
‘Only that work which contains mind and poetry within it takes a long flight
forward into the future.’28 The essence of Schubert as an instrumental composer,
as he emerges at the end of the present volume, is the essence of Schubert as a
composer of song. In this, he became an instrumental poet.
23
Messing, Schubert in the European Imagination, vol. 1. Suzannah Clark has traced
these and other tropes in the reception of Schubert’s music from his own time onwards
with reference to perspectives from music theory and analysis, in Analyzing Schubert
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
24
25
Ibid., pp. 284–5 (‘Afterword’).
26
David Cairns, ‘Unravelling this Mortal Coil’, The Sunday Times (5 January 1997),
10, p. 25.
27
Robert Schumann, Review of Schubert, Impromptus op. 142 (D 935), NZfM, 9 (14
December 1838): 192, in Schumann, Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Kreisig, vol. 1, p. 372 (‘wie
er uns reizt und täuscht und wieder fesselt’), trans. Daverio, Crossing Paths, p. 49.
28
Robert Schumann, Review of Felix Mendelssohn, Piano Sonata in E major, op. 6,
and Franz Schubert, Piano Sonatas in A minor, op. 42 (D 845), D major, op. 53 (D 850),
G major, op. 78 (D 894), and Duo Sonata in B@ major, op. 30 (D 617), in Music and
Musicians, trans. Ritter, vol. 2, p. 252; cf. Schumann, Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Kreisig,
vol. 1, p. 123: ‘Nur was Geist und Poesie hat, schwingt fort für die Zukunft’.
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Chronology of Schubert’s
Instrumental Works Discussed
Date Orchestral Chamber Piano solo Piano duo

1811 D 8 str quintet
1812 D 28 pf trio
D 36 str quartet
(1812–13)
1813 D 46 str quartet
1816 D 417: D 353 str quartet D 365/2
symphony 4 D 384, 385, 408: ‘Trauerwalzer’
D 485: vn/ pf sonatas
symphony 5
1817 D 537, D 567,
D 568, D 575 sonatas
1819 D 667 pf quintet D 664 sonata
movt
1822 D 759: D 760 ‘Wanderer’
symphony 8 Fantasy
1823 D 780 Moments
musicaux (1823–
28)
1824 D 802 fl/ pf: D 812 ‘Grand Duo’
introduction and
variations
D 803 octet
D 804, D 810:
str quartets
1825 D 944: D 840, D 845,
symphony 9 D 850 sonatas
(1825–26)
1826 D 887 str quartet D 894 sonata
1827 D 898 (?1828), D 899, D 935:
D 929: Impromptus
pf trios
D 934 Fantasy vn/pf
1828 D 936A: D 956 str quintet D 946: D 940 Fantasy
symphony Klavierstücke D 947
10 D 958, D 959, ‘Lebensstürme’
D 960 sonatas
Index of Schubert’s Works
orchestral 61–5, 73, 78, 80–82, 84, 91, 100,

Symphonies 103, 116, 136, 138–9, 155–8, 161,
No. 4 in C minor, D 417 (the ‘Tragic’), 165, 166, 168, 170–72, 173, 175,
136–9, 143, 147 180–81, 185, 240–43, 274–5
No. 5 in B@ major, D 485, 11, 141–8
No. 8 in B minor, D 759 (the chamber music with piano
‘Unfinished’), 47, 56, 61–3, 99, Introduction and Variations (on ‘Trockne
107, 124–5, 128–9, 165, 208, 223 Blumen’) for flute and piano in
No. 9 in C major, D 944 (the ‘Great’), E minor/E major, D 802, 213
47, 91, 105, 111–12, 155, 165, 246, Piano Quintet in A major, D 667 (the
270–74, 276–80, 281, 290–91 ‘Trout’), 91, 105–6, 108, 110, 189,
No. 10 in D major, D 936A, 278 214–15, 219, 221–4, 235, 289
Piano Trios
chamber music (strings, wind) D 28 in B@ major, 141
Octet in F major, D 803, 189 D 898 in B@ major, 155, 189, 260, 276,
String Quartets 291
D 36 in B@ major, 161 D 929 in E@ major, 9, 85–7, 116, 155,
D 46 in C major, 138 208, 245–59, 290, 293–4
D 103 in C minor, 52 Works for Violin and Piano
D 173 in G minor, 47–8, 51–3, 56–7, Fantasy in C major, D 934, 247
61, 64, 90, 95, 100–101, 116, Sonatas: D 384 in D major, D 385 in
147–9, 151, 292 A minor, D 408 in G minor, 142–3
D 353 in E major, 156, 292
D 703 in C minor (Quartettsatz), 13, piano solo
36–40, 52, 54, 56–7, 61, 90, 128, Fantasy in C major (the ‘Wanderer’), D 760,
130, 137–8, 207–8, 228, 239, 290, 10, 12, 42, 81–5, 94–6, 162–4, 188,
292 207, 213–14, 234–5, 264, 287
D 804 in A minor, 24, 123, 201 Impromptus, D 899, 12
D 810 in D minor, 3, 28, 40, 111, 214, D 899/2 in E@ major, 24, 85–6, 179,
226–31, 233–5, 275, 287, 293 181–7, 294
D 887 in G major, 1, 3, 5, 10, 18, 21–2, D 899/3 in G@ major, 90
24, 27, 30–31, 33–4, 36–7, 43–4, D 899/4 in A@ major, 32–3, 35, 86,
46, 47, 51, 57–61, 62, 73–5, 76, 89–90, 233, 291, 294
102, 123, 128, 138, 161, 165, 171, Impromptus, D 935, 9, 295
177–8, 185, 195, 210, 235–8, 240, D 935/1 in F minor, 5, 90–94
242–3, 246, 268 Klavierstücke, D 946, 100
String Quintets No. 1 in E@ minor, 99–100
Overture in C minor, D 8, 52 Moments musicaux, D 780, 143
D 956 in C major, 1, 8, 10–11, 13, 19, No. 6 in A@ major, 143
30–31, 33–6, 41–2, 46, 47, 51, 57,
Sonatas ‘Der Atlas’, D 957/8, 287

D 537 in A minor, 12, 64, 68–73, 203– ‘Der Lindenbaum’, D 911/5, 8, 19, 242
6, 210, 290–91 ‘Der Müller und der Bach’, D 795/19, 16
D 567 in D@ major, 153 ‘Der Musensohn’, D 764, 76
D 568 in E@ major, 148–9, 151–4 ‘Der Neugierige’, D 795/6, 18
D 575 in B major, 203–7, 210, 242, 291 ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’, D 531, 28,
D 664 in A major, 17, 20, 117–24, 40, 226–8, 230, 233
191–5, 275 ‘Der Wanderer’, D 489, 11, 42, 84, 96,
D 840 in C major (the ‘Reliquie’), 76–9 101–2, 162–3, 233–4
D 845 in A minor, 95, 289, 295 ‘Die Forelle’, D 550, 110, 214, 220, 226
D 850 in D major, 250, 291, 295 ‘Die Götter Griechenlands’, D 677, 201;
D 894 in G major, 8, 12, 22, 24–5, 44–6, see also ‘Schöne Welt, wo bist du?’
185, 188, 192, 195–203, 208, 240, ‘Die Krähe’, D 911/15, 263
290–93, 295 Die schöne Müllerin, D 795, 213
D 958 in C minor, 52, 102–3, 122, 125, ‘Die Wetterfahne’, D 911/2, 289
128, 235, 240–41, 245, 260–70, 287 ‘Erlkönig’, D 328, 226, 232
D 959 in A major, 11, 97, 117, 123, ‘Frühlingstraum’, D 911/11, 19, 171–4
161, 165–8, 170–73, 175–7, 179, ‘Gefrorne Tränen’, D 911/3, 189
181, 185, 290 ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, D 118, 78, 125,
D 960 in B@ major, 5, 28–32, 47, 76–8, 127–8
90, 95, 116–17, 161, 191, 195, ‘Gute Nacht’, D 911/1, 74, 208–9, 234, 268
208–12, 233, 238, 290 ‘Ihr Bild’, D 957/9, 189
Waltz in A@ major, D 365/2 ‘Kennst du das Land’, D 321, 102
(‘Trauerwalzer’), 272 ‘Lachen und Weinen’, D 777, 16–17, 18
‘Lebenslied’, D 508, 16–17, 44
piano duet ‘Liebesbotschaft’, D 957/1, 261
D 617, Duo Sonata in B@ major, 295 ‘Mut’, D 911/22, 17–18, 21
D 812 in C major (‘Grand Duo’), 42, 288 ‘Rückblick’, D 911/8, 19
D 947 in A minor (‘Lebensstürme’), 161 ‘Schöne Welt, wo bist du?’, D 677, 24, 201–2
Fantasy in F minor, D 940, 20–23, 42–3, Schwanengesang, D 957, 261
91, 94, 195 ‘Totengräber-Weise’, D 869, 189
‘Tränenregen’, D 795/10, 24, 26, 28
songs ‘Trockne Blumen’, D 795/18, 213
‘An Schwager Kronos’, D 369, 261 Winterreise, D 911, 4, 5, 17, 74, 76, 171,
‘Auf dem Wasser zu singen’, D 774, 33, 35 188, 263
‘Das Fischermädchen’, D 957/10, 261
General Index
Abert, Anna Amalia, 229, 239, 240, 242, 243 principle of developing variation, 124,
Abraham, Gerald, 134 290
Aderhold, Werner, 52 Sonatas for clarinet and piano, op. 120
Adorno, Theodor W., 57, 76 nos 1 and 2, 123–4
Variations on a Theme by J. Haydn (‘St
Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel, 179, 235–6 Anthony’), op. 56a and 56b, 230
‘empfindsam’ style, 236 Brendel, Alfred, 86, 203, 264
Sonata in B minor (H245), 236 Brown, Maurice J.E., 4–6, 76, 166, 213, 289
‘varied repeat’, 235 Budde, Elmar, 9, 287
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 51, 254 Burnham, Scott, 1, 57, 61, 76, 105, 245,
‘48’ Preludes and Fugues (Well- 270–71
Tempered Clavier), 254
‘St Anne’ Fugue (BWV 552), 254 Cairns, David, 295
Badura-Skoda, Eva, 287 Capell, Richard, 76
Beach, David, 62, 116, 120, 128 Carner, Mosco, 134–5, 143
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 2, 3, 134, 136, Chopin, Fryderyk
141, 243, 247, 287, 288 Etude in A minor, op. 25 no. 11, 162
Piano Sonata in A major, op. 101, 136 Scherzo in B@ minor, op. 31, 33
Symphonies Chusid, Martin, 143, 213, 243, 264
no. 2 in D major, 141 Citron, Marcia, 99
no. 5 in C minor, 243 Clark, Suzannah, 9, 295
no. 7 in A major, 243 Claudius, Matthias, 226
Thirty-Two Variations on an Original Cohn, Richard, 16, 191, 294
Theme, WoO 80, 287 Cole, Malcolm S., 74
Biedermeier
‘Gemütlichkeit’, 271 Dach, Charlotte von, 5
bifocal close, 28, 152 Dahlhaus, Carl, 3, 59, 105, 128, 235–6
Blom, Eric, 2, 8, 10, 15, 16, 18, 19, 24, 43, Daley, René Rusch, 100
170–71, 188–9, 203 Darcy, Warren, see Hepokoski
Bogner, Ferdinand, 214 Daverio, John, 2, 7, 9, 91, 135, 246, 248, 287
Boyd, Malcolm, 64, 216 Deutsch, Otto Erich, 1, 4, 133–4, 246–7, 288
Brahms, Johannes, 6, 9, 40, 44, 46, 68, Drabkin, William, 90
103, 123–4, 175, 181, 230, 290, Dunsby, Jonathan, 252
291 Dürr, Walther, 4, 9, 133, 135, 288
‘Heimweh II’, op. 63 no. 8 (‘O wüsst Dvořák, Antonín, 139
ich doch den Weg zürück’), 103
Intermezzo in B@ minor, op. 117 no. 2, Einstein, Alfred, 144, 155, 226, 277
175, 181 Erickson, Raymond, 6
Piano Sonata in F# minor, op. 2, 291 Esterházy family, 21, 134
Ferguson, Howard, 68, 82–4 Lament topos, 30, 235–6; see also
Fieldman, Hali, 36 Schubert, ‘chromatic fourth’ motif
Fisk, Charles, 7, 9, 191, 233–5, 263, 264, Lied, see song
269, 289, 295 Lindmayr-Brandl, Andrea, 143
Florestan Trio, 245 Linke, Josef, 247
Frisch, Walter, 124, 213, 236, 290 Liszt, Franz, 91, 292
Sonata in B minor, 91
Gerhard, Anselm, 288 Lockwood, Lewis, 36
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Vienna), Loewe, Carl, 287
134, 214, 246
Gibbs, Christopher H., 7 McClary, Susan, 12, 181, 189
Glauert, Amanda, 288 Macdonald, Hugh, 3, 11, 161–3, 170,
Gluck, Christoph Willibald 181–2, 189, 242, 252
Orfeo, 166 Mace, Angela, 213
Gonley, Raphael, 1 Machaut, Guillaume de
Groth, Klaus, 103 ‘Ma fin est mon commencement’, 201
Gülke, Peter, 6, 107, 125, 242 McKay, Elizabeth Norman, 3–4, 6–7, 9,
12, 100, 133–4, 161–2, 188, 192,
Hadow, W.H., 2 214, 246–7, 294
Hamilton, Kenneth, 116 Mahler, Gustav
Hascher, Xavier, 1, 6–8, 50, 78, 168 Symphony no. 4 in G major, 149
Hatten, Robert, 8, 188 Maintz, Marie Luise, 2, 9, 133, 270
Hatwig, Otto, 214 Mak, Su Yin, 36, 191
Haydn, Joseph, 12, 134–7, 200, 203, 246, Marston, Nicholas, 5, 73, 208
263, 264–6, 290 Marx, A.B., 99
String Quartet in E@, op. 33 no. 2 Marx, Karl, 214, 216, 218, 220
(the ‘Joke’), 290 Matthisson, Friedrich von, 16
String Quartet in D minor, op. 76 no. 2 Mendelssohn, Felix
(the ‘Fifths’), 264–6 Duetto in A@ major, op. 38 no. 6, 91
Symphony no. 45 in F# minor, 246 Piano Sonata in E major, op. 6, 136, 295
Symphony no. 104 in D major, 200 Merrick, Frank, 294
The Creation, 136–7 Messing, Scott, 288, 294
Variations in F minor, Hob. XVII.6, 263 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 11, 21, 28, 38,
Head, Matthew, 289 40, 46, 47, 60–61, 95, 100, 125, 133–
Hepokoski, James (and Darcy), 107, 120 7, 141–9, 154–5, 236, 246, 291–2
Hilmar, Ernst, 6, 198, 213 ‘An die Hoffnung’ (‘Ich würd’ auf
Hinrichsen, Hans-Joachim, 4, 6, 64, 141, 209 meinem Pfad’), K 390 (340c), 236
Hirsch, Marjorie Wing, 226, 230 Operas, 147
Holman, Peter, 1 Don Giovanni, 147, 226
Hugelmann, Josef, 134 Le nozze di Figaro, 21, 158
Hutchings, Arthur, 2–5, 189 Die Zauberflöte, 133
Piano Concertos
Kahlcke, Thomas, 86 in D minor, K 466, 294
Kinderman, William, 19 in E@ major, K 482, 145
Koch, Heinrich Christoph, 262 in C minor, K 491, 294
Kramer, Lawrence, 226 Piano Sonatas
Krause, Andreas, 7 in F major, K 332 (300k), 148–9,
151–3, 192
General Index 315
in B@ major, K 570, 148–9, 151 Schachter, Carl, 6

in D major, K 576, 294 Schenker, Heinrich, 90
Piano Trio in B@ major, K 502, 60–61, Schiff, András, 245
141 Schmidt, Georg Philipp (von Lübeck), 11,
Rondo for Piano in A minor, K 511, 167 101, 233
Sonatas for violin and piano Schoenberg, Arnold, 290
in E minor, K 304 (300c), 143, 236 Schott (Mainz), 246–7
in A major, K 305 (293d), 143 Schubert, Ferdinand, 134
in F major, K 377 (374e), 141–2 Schubert, Franz
String Quartet in C major (the and memory, 56, 104–5, 136, 138, 155,
‘Dissonance’), K 465, 136–7, 290, 293
145–6, 155–6, 158, 241 and Mozart quintets, 133–4, 159
String Quintets, 133–4, 159 and syphilis, 162
in C major, K 515, 158, 241 and Vienna, 133–4, 214, 270
in G minor, K 516, 100, 249 ‘Baroque’ features, 38, 143, 195
Symphonies, 133 bipolar disorder, see ‘two natures’
no. 36 in C major (the ‘Linz’), K ‘chromatic fourth’ motif, 30, 38, 128,
425, 154–5 136–8, 155, 208, 235–6, 240, 292
no. 39 in E@ major, K 543, 145, 271 clairvoyance, 4
no. 40 in G minor, K 550, 47, ‘Classical’, ‘post-Classical’ and
139–41, 144–5, 147–9 ‘Romantic’ style traits, 28, 47, 84,
Müller, Wilhelm, 17–18 95, 97, 99, 100, 102, 105, 117, 136,
143, 144–5, 147, 152, 162, 167, 172,
Neue Schubert Ausgabe [NSA], 5, 9, 68, 191, 192, 249, 262, 271, 289, 291–2
223, 247, 252, 254 codas, 24, 40, 41, 70, 81, 120, 181,
Newbould, Brian, 56, 106, 136, 139–41, 182, 210, 259, 268–70, 290, 293
143–5, 162, 211, 272 comic style, 12, 203, 290–91
compositional process, 4
overture style, 68, 111, 182, 251, 277 compositional virtuosity, 32, 52, 78,
128, 155, 236, 243
Pascall, Robert, 291 concert performances, 246, 247
Paumgartner, Sylvester, 214 counterpoint and canon, 22, 24, 52,
Prawer, S.S., 11, 101, 103, 213 105, 141, 145, 154, 155, 156, 162,
Probst, H.A. (Leipzig), 247 192, 236, 243, 254, 259, 263–4
Puffett, Derrick, 2, 100 cyclic forms, 13, 264, 290
dactylic rhythms, 95, 192, 226, 228–9,
Rast, Nicholas, 21, 202 234, 249, 295
Ratner, Leonard, 91, 100 dance style, 33, 44, 46, 68, 149, 155,
Reed, John, 101, 278 167, 171, 177, 188, 197–8, 200,
Riezler, Walter, 36–7 201, 203, 228, 240, 277, 291
Rosen, Charles, 12, 135, 136, 189 death, ideas of, 226, 228, 230
Rossini, Gioachino enharmonic notation, 28, 33, 43, 74, 78,
Il barbiere di Siviglia, 100 85, 86, 90, 254, 259, 263, 264, 268
Rossinian style, 22, 251 episodic forms, 5, 72, 90, 94, 97, 171–
Rückert, Friedrich, 16–17 2; see also rondo
Rushton, Julian, 36, 38, 208 slow movements, 10, 43, 44, 73,
76–7, 167, 172, 175, 177, 185,
Sams, Eric, 6, 20 195, 235
‘feminine’ image, 288 third relations, 62, 76–7, 84, 201, 271,
key schemes, see tonal schemes 275
modulations, 15–16, 24, 28–9, 44, 50, three-key expositions, 37–8, 51–2, 57,
74; see also transitions 62, 83–4, 86, 90, 116, 207
elliptical progressions, 43, 60–61, Tierce de Picardie, 24, 35–7, 40, 42,
76–7, 289 181, 239, 292
motivic networks, 68, 128, 214, 216, tonal schemes, 6, 28, 31, 35, 42–3, 44,
218, 220, 226, 228, 235, 241, 246, 62, 76, 86, 94, 116, 120, 144, 191,
264, 275–7 236, 274, 292
Neapolitan usage, 36, 38, 40, 41–2, 43, tonal subtexts, 56–7, 106, 111, 117, 155,
52, 56, 60, 95, 102, 116, 143, 155, 220, 264, 270, 277, 280
158, 203, 208, 262, 263, 268, 270, tonal systems, 292, 294
271, 274, 292, 295 ‘topical’ reference, 38, 91, 162, 170,
operatic style, 19, 20–22, 100–101, 243, 251, 277, 291
147, 158, 170, 195, 228 transitions, 10, 38, 42, 61, 64, 76–8,
piano duet texture, 223 85–6, 95, 97, 99
poetic qualities, 10, 16, 44, 47, 50, 61, and fantasia style, 97, 177–9
76, 97, 99, 171, 172, 188, 226, 240, ‘Classical’ transitions, 61, 95
289, 295 ‘elliptical’ progressions, 60, 76–7
psychological qualities, 161, 188, 289, episodic transitions, 72–3, 76
293 ‘false’ transitions, 57, 61, 84, 91, 263
‘questioning’ progression, 95, 234 ‘quick’ transitions, 28, 62, 76–7,
retransitions, 77–8, 81, 90, 97, 117, 90, 192
166, 208–9, 259, 262, 290 sonata form transitions, 38, 64,
rondo, 74, 83–4, 206, 210, 250, 260, 84, 94
261–2, 264 ‘two natures’ (bipolar disorder), 4,
Schwammerl (nickname), 99 11–12, 161–2, 294
sense of humour, 12, 203 works, see Index of Schubert’s Works
sonata forms, 12, 36, 38, 40, 46, 47, 51, Schumann, Robert, 2, 28, 135, 246, 248,
57, 59, 61, 64, 76, 83, 84, 94, 95, 293, 295
99, 111, 116, 120, 147, 185, 188, Dichterliebe, op. 48, 28
189, 191, 206, 208–9, 213, 235–6, Piano Quintet in E@ major, op. 44, 248,
240, 250, 292 254
song, 7–10, 11, 13, 15–17, 19, 24, 28, reviews of Schubert, 9, 90, 105, 270–
33, 35, 40, 42, 43, 46, 74, 76–7, 81, 71, 276, 277, 279–80, 287–9, 295
84, 91, 95, 99, 101, 110, 116, 125, Shamgar, Beth, 125, 133, 147
162–3, 170–2, 192, 202, 213, 214, Smallman, Basil, 245, 252
216, 218, 220, 223, 226, 228, 230– Sobaskie, James, 8, 31, 90, 104, 208
31, 233–5, 240, 242, 246, 260–61, Solomon, Maynard, 294
268, 287–9, 291, 295 sonata form theory, 11, 99
subdominant recapitulations, 10, 64, 216 Spaun, Josef von, 141, 288
symmetry, 17, 94, 163, 208–9, 274 Steblin, Rita, 294
mirror patterns, palindromes, 35, Steinhauser, Isolde, 134
56, 64, 77–8, 90, 105–6, 162, Sternfeld, F.W., 236
238, 268 Stolberg, Count Leopold, 33
thematic construction, 11, 99–100, 123, Strohm, Reinhard, 136, 155
125, 145, 191, 246, 290–91
Talbot, Michael, 260
General Index 317
Taruskin, Richard, 292 Wheelock, Gretchen, 12, 290

Tovey, Donald Francis, 141 Winston, Robert, 162
Truscott, Harold, 165, 268, 293 Winter, Robert, 7, 8, 11, 28, 46, 136, 294
Wintle, Christopher, 40
Vienna, see Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde; Wolff, Christoph, 40, 226, 228
Schubert
Youens, Susan, 4, 7, 8, 24, 172
‘Wanderer’ figure, 101, 116, 295
Webster, James, 191, 246 Zaslaw, Neal, 100
Westrup, Jack, 103, 134, 170, 172, 214 Zseliz (Hungary), 134
Whaples, Miriam, 10, 264

Wollenberg S. Schubert's Fingerprints. Studies in The Instrumental Works

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Schubert’s Fingerprints:

Studies in the Instrumental Works

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 9781409421221 (hbk)

Bach musicological font developed by © Yo Tomita

Printed and bound in Great Britain by the

List of Figures  vii

2 ‘His Favourite Device’: Schubert’s Major–Minor Usage

4 Schubert’s Second Themes  99

5 Schubert and Mozart  133

6 Schubert’s Violent Nature  161

7 Threefold Constructions  191

8 Schubert’s Variations  213

9 ‘Heavenly Length’  245

10 Concluding Remarks: ‘Whose Schubert?’  287

Select Bibliography  297

3.1 D 703, harmonic palindrome  56

7.1 D 894, second movement (Andante), outline of form  198

8.1 D 887, first movement, scheme of variations on Theme I  237

9.1 D 958, finale, outline of form  260

2.1 Schubert, ‘Lebenslied’, D 508, bars 13–24 17

3.1 D 173, first movement, bars 1–57 48

(b) Bars 19–23 51

4.1 D 958, first movement 103

5.1 (a) Haydn, The Creation, ‘Chaos’, bars 1–7 137

5.3 (a) Mozart, K 550, finale, bars 124–37 140

6.1 D 489, D 760 163

(b) Bars 83–104 184

7.1 D 664, first movement, bars 16–26 193

8.1 D 667, first/fourth movements 215

8.12 D 887, first movement, Theme I and variations (incipits) 237

9.1 D 929, finale/third movement 249

transferring the work from manuscript to word-processed form: I am grateful for

NZfM: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.

SIUK: The Schubert Institute (UK).

LH: left hand.

Pitch designations: C, c, c1, c11, etc. with middle c as c1.

RH: right hand.

Schubert’s musical persona was first transformed for me in my teens, at a

careful to have Schubert before Beethoven on our programmes’.8 In observing

Brown’s firmly espoused change of approach to the subject impacts on our

Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1994), Chapter 3 (‘Aspekte

some stimulating analytical readings of individual instrumental works, such as

to the main theme of Schubert’s fingerprints, and to individual chapter topics

Chapter 2 takes as its starting-point Eric Blom’s notion of Schubert’s favourite

Charting, in the composer’s centenary year, Schubert’s characteristic use of major/

Example 2.1 Schubert, ‘Lebenslied’, D 508, bars 13–24

Example 2.2 ‘Lachen und Weinen’, D 777, verse 1, bars 9–35

Example 2.2 concluded

Example 2.3 D 664, slow movement, bars 60–75

D 940, while possessing regularity of rhythmic pattern and phrase-structure, has

Example 2.4 (a)–(b) D 911/22, D 887-iv

(a) ‘Mut’, D 911/22, bars 5–1814

2.4 (b) D 887, finale, bars 1–12

coupled with a new stylistic topic, suggesting ‘learned’ counterpoint of a notably

Example 2.5 (a)–(b) D 940

(a) Bars 1–8

(b) Bars 37–45

Example 2.6 (a)–(b) D 894, first movement

(a) Bars 1–5

(b) Bars 65–9

Example 2.7 (a)–(b) D 795/10, D 887-ii and iii

List of Figures vii

4 Schubert’s Second Themes 99

5 Schubert and Mozart 133

6 Schubert’s Violent Nature 161

7 Threefold Constructions 191

8 Schubert’s Variations 213

9 ‘Heavenly Length’ 245

10 Concluding Remarks: ‘Whose Schubert?’ 287

Select Bibliography 297

3.1 D 703, harmonic palindrome 56

7.1 D 894, second movement (Andante), outline of form 198

8.1 D 887, first movement, scheme of variations on Theme I 237

9.1 D 958, finale, outline of form 260

2.1 Schubert, ‘Lebenslied’, D 508, bars 13–24 17

3.1 D 173, first movement, bars 1–57 48

(b) Bars 19–23 51

4.1 D 958, first movement 103

5.1 (a) Haydn, The Creation, ‘Chaos’, bars 1–7 137

5.3 (a) Mozart, K 550, finale, bars 124–37 140

6.1 D 489, D 760 163

(b) Bars 83–104 184

7.1 D 664, first movement, bars 16–26 193

8.1 D 667, first/fourth movements 215

8.12 D 887, first movement, Theme I and variations (incipits) 237

9.1 D 929, finale/third movement 249