Schubert’s Late Piano Sonatas

Schubert Listening Challenge, week three

Jun 23, 2024

In a letter to a friend, Schubert asked: “Who can do anything after Beethoven?” The older composer died in 1827, and Schubert had served as a pallbearer, though it seems that they never met. He wrote three ambitious piano sonatas during the following year, as he himself was dying of syphilis—a sequence that is, to me anyway, as powerful as anything in the keyboard repertoire.

The first of these is in C Minor (No. 19, D. 958), which seems a kind of tribute to Beethoven, since it was the key of the mighty Fifth Symphony as well as the Pathétique Sonata and his final sonata. Furthermore, the sonata’s opening subject echoes the theme of Beethoven’s C-Minor Variations. The choice of key seems also to be an assertion as well; it is not merely imitative of his idol but incorporates his own lyrical aspects—particularly in the singing lines of the Adagio and the Menuetto. There is, however, Beethovenian drama in the sonata, with sudden turns of dynamics and harmonic ambiguity.

The A-Major sonata (No. 20, D. 959) that follows also has its moments of drama, though it is mostly sunnier than its predecessor—especially the ravishingly beautiful Rondo Allegretto of the last movement. The exception is the melancholic Andantino, which seems to peer into the abyss of despair as it reaches its climax—as dark as Beethoven at his most brooding. The delightful Scherzo and the gorgeous final movement provide emotional relief and release.

He would write one more sonata in his final year, my favorite of all, but we will save that one until next week.

Our pianist is Mitsuko Uchida. There are many famous recordings of these sonatas, but I love Uchida’s combination of lyrical touch and dramatic tension. I think you will too.