Adam Cullen Final Thesis MLITT

Schubert's Chamber Music as a Road towards a

'Grand Symphony’

Adam Cullen

Thesis submitted to the National University of Ireland, Maynooth for the degree of

Master of Literature in Music

Head of Department: Professor Fiona Palmer

Department of Music

National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Maynooth

Co. Kildare

Supervisor: Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley

Department of Music

National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Maynooth

Co. Kildare

January 2009

ii

Abstract

In March 1824 Schubert wrote that he intended to pave his way to a ‗grand

symphony‘ with the composition of certain chamber works. Two difficulties in the

interpretation of Schubert‘s words emerge in the Schubertian literature. Firstly, Brian

Newbould dismisses the likelihood that the chamber works Schubert lists are

preparatory works because they are not sketches or drafts but complete, self-sufficient

pieces. Secondly, Robert Winter discredits the contribution of these chamber works

to the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony – the symphony traditionally understood to be the

work Schubert had in mind in 1824 when he spoke of a ‗grand symphony‘ – saying

that stylistically the ‗Great‘ could have been written approximately two years before

the chamber works were composed. Each of these comments can be reconciled with

Schubert‘s words when we acknowledge two possibilities: that Schubert‘s notion of

what constitutes a ‗preparatory work‘ may be different to Newbould‘s; and that the

symphony Schubert had in mind as of 1824 was not the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony

of 1825-1826, but something different and perhaps much more akin to the chamber

works mentioned in his letter. This thesis considers the possibility that, for Schubert,

a set of self-sufficient masterpieces could be considered preparatory if they shared

some common compositional concern which, in its treatment, matured and gained

substance with each successive experiment. If such is the case with the chamber

works discussed by Schubert, then logically the ‗grand symphony‘ Schubert was

using those works to pave his way towards would share that compositional concern.

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It is argued in this thesis that Schubert used chamber works in 1824 to

continue to explore a compositional concern that had occupied him since 1820: the

efficiency of traditional minor-key sonata form rhetoric as dialectic process. It is

demonstrated how Schubert explores and develops this idea through a number of

works that, by virtue of their sharing such a constantly-developing goal, gain a

preparatory quality that does not diminish their status as complete, self-sufficient

works. What is more, this point is found to support the likelihood that the ‗Great‘ C

major Symphony was not the ‗grand symphony‘ Schubert envisioned in 1824 and that

he probably intended at that time to write a minor-key symphony which would

showcase his findings in relation to traditional minor-key sonata form rhetoric as

dialectic process.

Methodology

The first step in a consideration of the implications of Schubert‘s compositional

ambitions, as outlined in his letter to Kupelwieser, was to test whether or not there is

evidence in Schubert‘s music to support the traditional interpretation of those goals.

This was accomplished in two ways: firstly by searching for comparable features

between the chamber works mentioned in the Kupelwieser letter with the ‗Great‘ C

major Symphony; and secondly, by considering the number of corrections made to

the autograph of that symphony – operating under the premise that elements of the

‗Great‘ that seem to have been specifically ‗prepared‘ in earlier works would contain

fewer corrections than elements that were not prepared. Once it has been established

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that the contributions (of various types) to the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony made by

the chamber works in question are fewer in impact or significance than one would

expect of works ‗paving the way‘ to that particular symphony, we consider the

possibility of an ultimately unwritten, alternative ‗grand symphony‘. This liberates

the chamber works of 1824 from the ‗Great‘ and we can examine them on their own

terms to see what compositional concerns they share and work to develop. Although

there may be many, I decided to focus on Schubert‘s treatment of traditional minor-

key sonata form rhetoric as a dialectic process. This examination was informed by

Hali Fieldman‘s writing on that subject and her analysis of the Quartettsatz proposed

an analytical model which was applied to the chamber works under consideration.1

To track Schubert‘s progress – and to appreciate the consistency of his

experimentation – a significant essay in minor-key sonata form, his ‗Unfinished‘ B

minor Symphony of 1822 was similarly examined.

1 Hali Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz and Sonata Form‘s New Way‘, Journal of Musicological

Research, 21 (2002): 99-146 hereafter referred to as Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘.

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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ........................................................................................................ v

Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... vii

Introduction: A Letter to Kupelwieser and its Implications....................................... viii

Chapter 1: The 1824 Chamber Works and the ‗Great‘ C Major Symphony, D944...... 1

Part I: The Validity of a Comparison ........................................................................ 1

Part II: The Autograph of the ‗Great‘; Testing the Working Method ..................... 36

Part III: A Change of Direction ............................................................................... 47

Chapter 2: Sonata Form and Dialectic Process ........................................................... 57

Chapter 3: The Quartettsatz, D703 (1820) and Fieldman: A Model .......................... 81

Chapter 4: The ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony, D759 (1822) ............................................ 126

Chapter 5: The A Minor String Quartet, D804 (1824).............................................. 149

Chapter 6: The D Minor String Quartet, No. 14, D810 (1824) ................................. 212

Conclusion: Sonata Form and Preparatory Works .................................................... 261

Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 268

Discography .............................................................................................................. 278

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List of Illustrations

‗Great‘ C major Symphony, I, bar 21 ......................................................................... 38

‗Great‘ C major Symphony, I, bars 1-6....................................................................... 12

‗Great‘ C major Symphony, I, bars 303-14................................................................. 16

‗Great‘ C major Symphony, I, bars 78-80................................................................... 37

‗Great‘ C major Symphony, I, bars deleted from coda ............................................... 39

‗Great‘ C major Symphony, II, bars 8-11 ................................................................... 22

‗Great‘ C major Symphony, III, bars /247-54 ............................................................. 28

‗Great‘ C major Symphony, III, bars 89-104 .............................................................. 27

‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor, I, bars 114-18 ................................................... 13


‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor, I, bars 190-94 ................................................. 129

‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor, I, bars 226-37 ................................................. 131


‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor, II, bars 58-64 .................................................... 14

Alternative Structural Readings for the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony .......................... 23

Comparison of the Second Movements of the ‗Great‘ and ‗Unfinished‘ Symphonies

................................................................................................................................. 24

Comparison of the Second Movements of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony and the A

minor String Quartet ................................................................................................ 25

Comparison of the Second Movements of the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony and the A

minor String Quartet ................................................................................................ 24

Comparison of Trio movements from D minor String Quartet and the ‗Great‘ ......... 29

Folio 88v of the autograph score of the ‗Great‘ Symphony ........................................ 42

Octet in F major, III, bars 59-71 ................................................................................. 27

Octet in F major, VI, bars 173-76 ............................................................................... 19

String Quartet in A minor, I, 282-293 ....................................................................... 186

String Quartet in A minor, I, bar 67 compared with bar 230 .................................... 179

String Quartet in A minor, I, bars 1-10 ..................................................................... 144

String Quartet in A minor, I, bars 122-29 ................................................................. 165


String Quartet in A minor, I, bars 14-22 ................................................................... 150






String Quartet in A minor, I, bars 3-6 ......................................................................... 22




String Quartet in B major D112, II, bars 132-34 .......................................................... 7

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String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, 26 cancelled bars from between bars 120 and

121 of the Exposition ............................................................................................. 102

String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 1-2 ....................................................... 86

String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 175-83 ................................................. 93

String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 247-57 ............................................... 110

String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 285-88 ............................................... 111

String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 3-4 ....................................................... 87

String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 8-10 ..................................................... 85

String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 83-91 ................................................... 91

String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 1-14 ............................................................. 198, 205

String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 1-3 ....................................................................... 210

String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 15-20 ................................................................... 218

String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 188-91 ................................................................. 230

String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 299-310 ............................................................... 235

String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 326-41 ................................................................. 237



String Quartet in D minor, III, bars /69-76 ................................................................. 28

String Quartet in G major, I, bars 374-78 ................................................................... 20

Work-list demonstrating number of sonata form movements set in minor keys ........ 50

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Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley for her

enthusiasm, expertise, diligence, patience and encouragement; the genuine interest

she has shown and the long hours she has put into this work have been truly inspiring

and made me more thorough and confident in my studies. I am grateful for the

helpful comments I received from colleagues when presenting my work at

conferences and I would like to especially thank my family and friends for their

support and, when appropriate, intimidation.

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Introduction: A Letter to Kupelwieser and its Implications

I have tried my hand at several instrumental works, for I wrote two quartets for

violins, viola and ‗cello, and an octet, and I want to write another quartet, in fact,

I intend to pave my way towards [a] grand symphony in that manner [...] 2

Thus wrote Franz Schubert on 31 March 1824 to his friend, the painter, Leopold

Kupelwieser.3 The ‗grand symphony‘ is commonly understood to mean the ‗Great‘ C

major Symphony (D944)4 ever since it was made clear that the ‗Great‘ C major,

previously thought to be composed in 1828, was in fact the long-presumed missing

‗Gastein‘ symphony of c.1825.5 In the recent Cambridge Companion to Schubert

Michael Griffel responds to the above excerpt from Schubert‘s letter:

He [Schubert] wanted to write a grand symphony […] as good as any of

Beethoven‘s, and Schubert was, as he himself said, paving his way toward the

writing of such a work by leading up to it, by ‗practicing,‘ with string quartets

(the A Minor, D804, and D Minor, D810, masterpieces) and an octet (another of

Schubert‘s finest chamber works, D803, modelled on Beethoven‘s Septet,

Op.20).6

Such wholesale acceptance of Schubert‘s words in the Kupelwieser letter is

questioned by Brian Newbould, largely on the basis that the small works are not

sketches or drafts for a symphony but complete, substantial, independent

masterpieces. In his seminal book on Schubert‘s symphonies Newbould wrote:

2 Cited in Maurice J.E. Brown: Schubert: A Critical Biography (London: MacMillan, 1958), 354.

Hereafter referred to as Brown: Schubert: A Critical Biography. Please note that spelling in quotes in

this thesis have been standardised from American to British English, as has terminology such as

‗measure‘ which, for convenience and uniformity, is changed to ‗bar‘. 3 Hereafter referred to as the ‗Kupelwieser letter‘. This sobriquet is intended only to refer to that

portion of the letter to Kupelwieser that is quoted above and any challenges to the practical usefulness

of the ‗Kupelwieser letter‘ are aimed only at this extract and not at any other information contained in

the letter as a whole. 4 We habitually number this symphony his Ninth. On the numbering of Schubert‘s symphonies see L.

Michael Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music: ―strivings after the highest in art‖‘, in The Cambridge

Companion to Schubert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 205 hereafter referred to as

Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music‘. 5 This ordeal is briefly summarised in Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music,‘ 202.

6 Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music‘, 201-202.

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Normally, composers produce individual, self-sufficient works, not chains of

preparatory ‗exercises‘ paving the way for some notional ultimate masterpiece

which may or may not ever come. Works succeed but do not supersede one

another.7

Robert Winter is also dismissive of the musical indebtedness of the ‗Great‘ C major

Symphony to the relevant chamber works of 1824 and goes as far as to claim, ‗I

remain convinced that from a stylistic point of view the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony

could have been written any time after the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony [of 1822, D759].‘8

The apparent divergence of opinion between the stance of Winter and Newbould and

the stance of Griffel may be eased significantly by the examination of two points in

the interpretation of Schubert‘s letter. Firstly, can we be sure the ‗grand symphony‘

Schubert mentions is indeed the ‗Great‘ C major symphony and not some other work

Schubert envisaged as of 1824 but for whatever reason decided not to pursue? If the

‗grand symphony‘ mentioned in the letter is not the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony then

conditions change: Winter‘s dissociation of the ‗Great‘ from the chamber works

mentioned in the Kupelwieser letter no longer undermines Griffel‘s statement that

those chamber works were written with the intention of paving the way to some

unspecified ‗grand symphony‘. Newbould‘s scepticism about the practical efficacy

of Schubert‘s idea of a series of preparatory works – an idea Griffel seemed to accept

– will be soothed if we can show that Newbould‘s and Griffel‘s conceptions of a

series of preparatory works and the duties and characteristics they should entail may

be different from each other. More importantly, Newbould‘s idea of such a technique

7 Brian Newbould: Schubert and the Symphony: A New Perspective (London: Toccata Press, 1992),

207. Hereafter referred to as Newbould: Schubert and the Symphony. 8 Robert Winter: ‗Paper Studies and the Future of Schubert Research‘, in Schubert Studies, ed. by Eva

Badura-Skoda and Peter Branscombe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982)‘, 211 hereafter

referred to as Winter: ‗Paper Studies‘.

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may be different from Schubert‘s; or at least different from the idea Schubert may

have hoped his letter would communicate.

It is not the aim of this thesis to prove each of the above scholars correct in

their individual theories. The aim is to examine musical implications of Schubert‘s

letter to Kupelwieser, however to do so will prove to be tantamount to tackling those

specific ambiguities in the interpretation of the letter that persistently allow for such

potentially unnecessary divergences of opinion to arise in the first place. This thesis

will consider whether or not we are correct to assume the symphony Schubert

intended to write when he composed his letter to Kupelwieser is indeed the ‗Great‘ C

major Symphony and what Schubert‘s designation of a number of chamber works to

the task of ‗preparing‘ for a grand symphony may have meant to Schubert. This

author believes – and hopes to demonstrate over the course of this thesis in a number

of analyses – that Schubert‘s idea of what constitutes a series of preparatory works is

the notion of a group of self-sufficient works which share a common, forward-

striving purpose or compositional concern that does not necessarily detract from each

work‘s quality, but gains in substance with each successive composition.

The first chapter will start by considering the possibility that the ‗grand

symphony‘ prophesied in Schubert‘s letter might be the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony

and examine what relationship that symphony shares with those chamber works that

we infer from Schubert‘s letter to have been preparatory for it. It will be found that

the results of this examination are inconclusive and, even though certain features of

the ‗Great‘ can be shown to be directly related to the 1824 chamber works, in the

absence of further evidence there is no reason that these works – apart from their

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mention in the Kupelwieser letter – should be singled out from the rest of the

composer‘s oeuvre as particularly bound with the ‗Great‘.9

There is a difficulty for our study with one of the chamber works mentioned

in the letter, the Octet in F major, for it occupies a unique position in the chamber

works of 1824 in terms of its conception.10

As Richard Baker writes:

Schubert composed his Octet in F for strings and woodwind in February 1824, to

a commission from Count Troyer who asked for a work ‗exactly like Beethoven‘s

Septet‘. Apart from adding an extra instrument, Schubert did as he was told,

producing a piece with the same type and number of movements and the same

key structure as Beethoven‘s.11

Due to Count Troyer‘s request of the composer, outlined in the above quote from

Baker, the commissioned octet of 1824 cannot be counted as cathartic of the

symphonic vision that seized Schubert in that year and inspired him to write the

noticeably darker quartets in A minor and D minor. It is true that the A minor and D

minor quartets were commissioned by the Schuppanzigh Quartet but there is no

evidence that Schuppanzigh made any demands as to the nature of the compositions

in the way Count Troyer did and we can assume that the quartets constitute the truest

expression of the ‗grand symphony‘ that Schubert had in mind when he wrote the

1824 letter to Kupelwieser.

Our examination in the first chapter will lead us to considering the possibility

that the 1824 chamber works were never intended to prepare the way for the ‗Great‘

C major Symphony at all but were preparing Schubert for composing an entirely

9 Even this statement assumes the ‗grand symphony‘ mentioned in the letter to Kupelwieser means the

‗Great‘ C major Symphony. If this is eliminated then not even the Kupelwieser letter links the 1824

chamber works with the ‗Great‘. 10

Throughout this thesis the term ‗chamber works of 1824‘ only applies to those chamber works

pertinent to the Kupelwieser letter. 11

Richard Baker: Schubert: A Life in Words and Pictures (London: Little, Brown and Company,

1997), 89.

xii

different symphony which was ultimately never written. In support of this view we

may observe that, according to the letter to Kupelwieser, Schubert intended to write

three quartets to prepare for the writing of a grand symphony12

but the third quartet

was not composed until after the ‗Great‘ had been completed, thus suggesting the

composer‘s plans were not so much completed by the composition of the ‗Great‘ as

they were interrupted by it. Furthermore, the most striking feature common to the

completed quartets mentioned in the Kupelwieser letter (insofar as they might have

been considered preparatory works for the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony) is that they

are both set in minor-keys. Major and minor-mode compositions present the

composer with different challenges and these are nowhere more evident than in

sonata form movements. Due to the unique difficulties inherent in writing minor-key

sonata forms13

it is most likely that Schubert‘s act of setting his preparatory music in

minor-keys (when he was not obliged by his commissioners to do otherwise) is an

indication that the ‗grand symphony‘ Schubert was planning, as of March 1824, was

to be a minor-key symphony.

Another avenue is opened up to us: we may legitimately ask if Schubert‘s idea

of a ‗grand symphony‘, at the time of writing the Kupelwieser letter, had any kind of

impact on the chamber works that were born in the shadow of its original conception

and were offered to the service of bringing Schubert closer to realising that

inspiration. We may do this by comparing Schubert‘s handling of minor-key sonata

12

Brown: Schubert: A Critical Biography, 354. 13

William Caplin: Classical Form: a theory of formal functions for the instrumental music of Haydn,

Mozart, and Beethoven (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, reissued 2001), 195 hereafter referred

to as Caplin: Classical Form. These difficulties will be discussed in detail in Chapter 2.

xiii

forms in the A minor and D minor quartets with his most contemporary (and

significant) essays in the field written prior to 1824 to see if the Kupelwieser letter

marks any change of attitude or technique. It may be that Schubert had the same

vision of a grand symphony as early as 1820 but did not mention it until he had

completed some works with that in mind. In which case we may even find that works

written before 1824 that were not mentioned in the Kupelwieser letter were also part

of that same preparatory arc.

Following my investigations in Chapter 1 of the connections between the

chamber works mentioned in the Kupelwieser letter and the ‗Great‘ C major

Symphony, my second chapter will explore the possibility that the potential concern

shared by the quartets in A minor and D minor which could afford them a joint,

forward-striving preparatory function is a concern with minor-key sonata forms as

dialectic processes. Chapter 3 will build on this idea – and establish a context from

which to appreciate Schubert‘s experiments in the quartets of 1824 – by examining

his most recent quartet (the Quartettsatz of 1820) and its relation to the concerns over

minor-key dialectics shared by the quartets in A minor and D minor. My analysis of

Schubert‘s Quartettsatz and his attitude to such a concern in this chapter owes much

to the work of Hali Fieldman and is used as a model for the analytical methodology

adopted throughout the rest of the thesis.14

Four years pass between the composition

of the Quartettsatz and the next quartets and so that gap is bridged by a discussion of

Schubert‘s attitude to minor-key sonata forms as dialectics in his most significant

14

Hali Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz and Sonata Form‘s New Way‘, Journal of Musicological

Research, 21 (2002): 99-146 hereafter referred to as Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘.

xiv

work from the intervening period, the first movement of his ‗Unfinished‘ B minor

Symphony of 1822, to be discussed in Chapter 4. Finally, having established

Schubert‘s thinking and trend of development in relation to the topic we already

suspect links the quartets of 1824 as sharing a joint, preparatory function we turn to

an examination of minor-key sonata form as dialectic in those works, the A minor

and D minor quartets, in Chapters 5 and 6.

If the quartets of 1824 can be shown to exhibit a common concern that is

experimented with or developed over time, without being to the detriment of those

quartets as self-sufficient pieces of music, we will have uncovered a genuinely

preparatory feature of those works that does not reduce them to the level of the

sketches or drafts so disagreeable to Newbould.15

If that shared concern is not taken

advantage of by, or clearly constructed to be of benefit to the ‗Great‘ C major

Symphony (perhaps by yielding a result that in its usefulness is not limited

exclusively to sonata forms in minor keys) then it is all the more likely that the ‗grand

symphony‘ Schubert predicts in his letter of 1824 is not the ‗Great‘ C major

Symphony. First, however, we shall start from the position of a traditional

interpretation of the Kupelwieser letter, see how it holds up to various criticisms

found in the literature, and subject it to close scrutiny.

15

Newbould: Schubert and the Symphony, 207.

1

Chapter 1: The 1824 Chamber Works and the ‘Great’ C

Major Symphony, D944

Part I: The Validity of a Comparison

In 1982, Robert Winter wrote, ‗I remain convinced that from a stylistic point of view

the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony could have been written any time after the

‗Unfinished‘ Symphony [of 1822, D759].‘1 This statement denies any contribution to

the artistic success of Schubert‘s ‗Great‘ Symphony made by the Octet in F major and

the String Quartets in A minor and D minor, all composed in 1824. That these

chamber works mentioned in Schubert‘s letter to Kupelwieser make use of orchestral

effects and observe an expansion of form should not be denied.2 Nor should it be

denied that such features in the chamber works of February and March 1824 point to

a grand symphonic style.3 In light of Winter‘s statement, however, one is obliged to

question whether or not the composition of the ‗preparatory‘ works mentioned in

Schubert‘s letter was an essential prerequisite for the completion of the ‗Great‘ C

major Symphony, in particular, as opposed to any other symphony.

1 Winter: ‗Paper Studies‘, 211.

2 The orchestral elements in these chamber works have received comment in many publications.

General opinion on these elements has remained essentially unaltered over years fraught with

musicological upheaval in Schubertian scholarship. For example, compare Homer Ulrich: Chamber

Music: The Growth and Practice of an Intimate Art (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948),

292 (hereafter referred to as Ulrich: Chamber Music) with Robert Winter (text), M. J. E. Brown and

Eric Sams (work-list): ‗Schubert, Franz, §2 (vi): Works: Chamber music‘ in New Grove Dictionary of

Music and Musicians, ed. by Stanley Sadie, exec. ed. John Tyrrell, 2nd

edn, vol. 22 (London:

Macmillan, 2001), 685-686 hereafter referred to as Winter, Brown and Sams: New Grove Dictionary of

Music and Musicians. 3 Stephen E. Hefling and David S. Tartakoff: Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, Routledge Studies

in Musical Genres, gen. ed. R. Larry Todd (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), 79. Hereafter

referred to as Hefling: Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music.

2

Features that qualify for legitimate comparison

When establishing links between Schubert‘s major chamber works of 1824 and his

‗Great‘ C major Symphony, it will be of little benefit to us to point out those traits

which are evident in various works throughout his career. In an essay on the

possibilities and limitations of stylistic criticism, Paul Badura-Skoda points out that

‗stylistic idiosyncrasies of different periods are less clearly defined with Schubert

than with other composers.‘4 He adds that ‗one repeatedly finds almost inexplicable

anticipations and reversions.‘5 We are cautioned by Badura-Skoda to temper any

conclusions we might draw from stylistic similarities between almost-coeval works

when the techniques in question are to be found in different periods throughout

Schubert‘s career:6

Between the middle and last stylistic periods it is especially difficult to make any

hard and fast distinctions, there is, rather, a gradual change of style [...] it would

be a mistake to assign to a particular period idiosyncrasies of style which are

found throughout Schubert‘s oeuvre, or at least which extend beyond a single

period.7

It must be stressed, however, that there is a late style in Schubert.8 Applying this

condition to Badura-Skoda‘s general warning, we arrive at a more refined analytical

standpoint; we may draw conclusions based on stylistic similarities between almost-

contemporary works, but only when the techniques in question can be deemed

4 Paul Badura-Skoda: ‗Possibilities and Limitations of Stylistic Criticism in the dating of Schubert‘s

―Great‖ C Major Symphony‘, Schubert Studies, ed. by Eva Badura-Skoda and Peter Branscombe

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 188. Hereafter referred to as Badura-Skoda:

‗Possibilities and Limitations‘. 5 Badura-Skoda: ‗Possibilities and Limitations‘, 188.

6 Ibid., 188ff.

7 Ibid., 188 and 189.

8 Christopher H. Gibbs: The Life of Schubert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 106 and

Lorraine Byrne Bodley: ‗Late style and the paradoxical poetics of the Schubert-Berio Renderings‘, in

The Unknown Schubert, ed. by Barbara M. Reul and Lorraine Byrne Bodley (England: Ashgate

Publishing, 2008), 235-38.

3

representative of this single, late, creative period and not of various periods

throughout Schubert‘s career. Consequently, this chapter will omit discussion of

traits so typically ‗Schubertian‘ that they can be said to permeate more than one

period of his creativity. One is tempted to include in this category his use of three-

key expositions and cyclical composition, but such assumptions require qualification

beyond simply listing their presence in works from different periods; we must first be

sure that there is not a late approach to these techniques not normally considered

exclusive to the late style.

1. Cyclical Composition

According to Martin Chusid, cyclical composition, in its focused use in 1824, should

be considered peculiar to the chamber works in question as a specific device prepared

for use in the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony.9 Chusid notes that ‗the Octet and the

Quartets in A minor and D minor, two impressive compositions for piano duet […]

Divertissement à la Hongroise, and the Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano [… all]

display cyclic elements.‘10

An article by Miriam K. Whaples published four years

later, however, highlights concentrated and maturely executed instances of this

technique in Schubert‘s early years and thus extends Schubert‘s use of the device far

beyond the period specific to our study.11

9 See Martin Chusid: ‗Schubert‘s Cyclic Compositions of 1824‘ (in Miscellanea), Acta Musicologica,

36/Fasc. 1 (1964), 37-45. Hereafter Chusid: ‗Schubert‘s Cyclic Compositions‘. 10

Chusid: ‗Schubert‘s Cyclic Compositions‘, 37. 11

See Miriam K. Whaples: ‗On Structural Integration in Schubert‘s Instrumental Works‘ (in

Miscellanea), Acta Musicologica, 40/Fasc. 2/3. (1968), 186-195.

4

2. Three-Key Expositions

Perhaps the most thorough examination of Schubert‘s use of the three-key exposition

may be found in James Webster‘s ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First

Maturity.‘12

Webster cites works relevant to our study to demonstrate various

features of Schubert‘s style. However, nowhere in his study does he address Winter‘s

claim that the composition of the octet and the quartets in A minor and D minor were

necessary preparatory exercises for the comparable features he notes in the ‗Great‘ C

major Symphony. The following information is a quick summary of the facts

observed by Webster relevant to our investigation and considered in the light of the

parameters for investigation we have established.

Although the use of three-key expositions in Schubert is found chiefly after

1820 (e.g. in the ‗Great‘,13

octet,14

D minor quartet,15

Grand Duo16

), early examples

of this technique can be found in the String Quartet in B of 1814, Symphony No. 2,

and the B major Sonata. In the ‗Great‘, the D minor quartet, and the octet, the keys in

12

James Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 19th

-Century Music, 1/2

(1978), 18-35. Hereafter referred to as Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First

Maturity‘. 13

Franz Schubert: Neue Schubert-Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Herausgegeben von der Internationalen

Schubert-Gesellschaft, Serie V: Orchesterwerke Band 4 Sinfonie Nr.8 in C Teil a Walther Dürr,

Michael Kube, Walburga Litschauer (Wien: Bärenreiter-Verlag Kassel, 2003). 14

Franz Schubert: Octet for Two Violins, Viola, Violoncello, Double Bass, Clarinet, Horn and

Bassoon in F major, D803 (London: Eulenberg No.60). 15


Schubert-Gesellschaft, Serie VI: Kammermusik Band 5 Streichquartette III Verlegt von Werner

Aderhold, Editionsleitung Walther Dürr, Arnold Feil (London: Bärenreiter-Verlag Kassel, 1989), 50. 16


Schubert-Gesellschaft, Serie VII: Klaviermusik Band 2 Werke für Klavier zu vier Händen Vorgelegt

von Christa Landon, Editionsleitung Walther Dürr, Arnold Feil, Christa Landon (London: Bärenreiter-

Verlag Kassel, 1978), 3-66.

5

the double second groups are closely related,17

but this is also the case in the

Quartettsatz (1820). As Webster writes, ‗A crucial aspect of Schubert‘s double

second group is that the subsequent modulatory passage to the dominant usually

refers back to the tonic.‘18

While this is common to the ‗Great‘, the octet, the D

minor quartet and the Grand Duo, it is also evident in the Quartettsatz.

Two aspects of Schubert‘s handling of the three-key exposition, however,

may perhaps be considered examples of approaches being tested in chamber works

from 1824 before being put to use in the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony. Firstly,

according to Webster, the pianissimo trombone passage in the ‗Great‘, in which a

move to V of VI is overthrown with a ‗tonicisation‘ of iii (the key in which the

second group opened), has the same function as a point in the octet (bars 113-122)

where a remote key (Neapolitan D ) is touched in an overall diatonic plan.19

Secondly, regarding how Schubert opens his second groups, Webster points out one

distinct similarity between the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony and a chamber work in

question. In the ‗Great‘ and the octet the second group begins with a new theme ‗in a

diatonically related minor-key which gives the appearance of being firmly

established; nevertheless, the first period seems unable to close without modulating to

the dominant.‘20

17

Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 27-28. 18

Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 30. 19

Ibid., 28. 20

Ibid., 29.

6

It appears that both three-key expositions and cyclical composition may

legitimately be included in the category of traits common to works outside the late

period, but from the approach to three-key expositions in the late period we may note

those two instances mentioned above as evidence of a contribution from some of the

chamber works mentioned in Schubert‘s letter to the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony.

Let us now consider two features of Schubert‘s ‗Great‘ C major Symphony

that are salient characteristics of his last five years, i.e. features that contribute to a

definition of his late style, and consider whether or not they were absent from, or

ineffectively used in, the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony (thus warranting the interpolation

of extra, ‗preparatory‘ pieces before writing the ‗Great‘). These features which mark

Schubert‘s last five years are marked an increased use of Neapolitan relationships and

increasingly sparse textures in his scoring.21

Neapolitan Relationships

Brian Newbould claims that Schubert finds ‗expressive potential‘ in two particular

uses of the chord.22

‗First, he likes to use it as a doorway into the Neapolitan key

itself [as an example, Newbould cites both the opening of the ‗Arpeggione‘ Sonata of

1824 and the point in the slow movement of the ‗Great‘ when the explosive climactic

passage gives way to hushed pizzicato strings …] Second, Schubert enlarges the

scope of the Neapolitan-sixth concept by sometimes using the minor version of the

21

Maurice J. E. Brown: ‗Schubert and Neapolitan Relationships‘, The Musical Times, 1212/85 (1944),

43-44. Hereafter referred to as Brown: ‗Schubert and Neapolitan Relationships‘. 22

Brian Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man (London: Victor Gollancz, 1997), 395 hereafter

referred to as Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man.

7

chord,‘ an example of this in the D minor quartet will be discussed below.23

Of the

examples in the first movement of the Grand Duo Newbould writes:

The transition is organised around the minor Neapolitan C (D ) minor. Shortly

after the G-major section is under way, a new outburst on E leads in bar 87 to its

minor Neapolitan, G minor, and to the variant theme originally introduced in E

major.24

Earlier Maurice Brown claimed that, ‗the early songs and instrumental pieces contain

very few examples,‘ and illustrates a moment from an 1814 string quartet in which a

Neapolitan Sixth resolves as normal to a dominant seventh in root position but

doubles the flattened second of the scale, a doubling one would not expect as standard

(Example 1.1).25

The claim that the Neapolitan is a feature of the late style, then, is

not to say that Schubert first incorporated the Neapolitan Sixth into his music in the

late period, but simply that he characteristically used it more frequently.

Example 1.1. Schubert: String Quartet in B major D112, II, bars 132-34

As Brown goes on to write, ‗from 1820 onwards, the chord and its implications

occupy a larger and larger place in Schubert‘s musical thought, until in his later years

23

Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man, 395. 24


Brown: ‗Schubert and Neapolitan Relationships‘, 43.

8

they begin to dominate his whole harmonic approach.‘26

It is interesting to note that

this article was written at a time when it was still believed that the ‗Great‘ C major

Symphony was written in 1828, thus the ‗Great‘ is included in Brown‘s statement

when he says, ‗the entire output of his [Schubert‘s] last year, ranging from the Mass

in E flat to the smallest of the ―Swansong‖ cycle, is shot through with the strong

colouring of Neapolitan harmony.‘27

The fact that the ‗Great‘ was actually written in

1825 does not diminish the importance of the Neapolitan chord in the work,

particularly in the slow movement and the Trio.

Considering the double second group as it appears in the octet and the D

minor quartet, Webster writes:

When the first part of the second group appears in VI or vi, the subsequent move

to the dominant mimics a move from the Neapolitan ( II) to a major tonic […]

Schubert often inserts a purple patch within the later second group section, in a

key which has the effect of complementing the other keys of the exposition.

When the overall plan is diatonic, the purple patch touches on an appropriate

remote key [… such as] the Neapolitan D in the Octet (bars 113-22).28

A cursory glance at the scores of the ‗Unfinished‘ and the ‗Great‘ C major

symphonies seems to demonstrate the increased use of the Neapolitan chord and

Neapolitan modulations, with the Neapolitan chord appearing rarely in the two

completed movements of the ‗Unfinished.‘29

However, closer examination of the

‗Unfinished‘ Symphony shows that the Neapolitan chord is a fundamental feature of

the structure of that symphony‘s first movement. In fact, in Chapter 4 it will be

shown that a single Neapolitan relationship implied early in the work drives the piece.

26

Ibid., 43. 27

Brown: ‗Schubert and Neapolitan Relationships‘, 43. 28

Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 27, 28. 29

For example, bar 194 in the first movement.

9

To borrow James Webster‘s words, used to describe a different piece, ‗as so often,

Schubert uses the first significant tonal event in a movement to generate key

relationships- and hence form- on the largest scale.‘30

For now suffice it to say that

the first movement of the ‗Unfinished‘ demonstrates a subtle, mature control of, and

approach to, the Neapolitan chord by which key-areas are determined and the

movement‘s sonata-form is reinforced. This approach is evident in Schubert‘s

compositional style even before 1822. Harold Truscott pushes further back than the

‗Unfinished‘ to the overture in E minor of 1819, and claims:

The whole overture, as a result of tonality, harmony and the double tempo, is in

suspension, depending on perpetually leaning harmonies (nearly always

Neapolitan) resolving on to chords which change before they can be asserted, so

that only at one or two spaced out points is there any suggestion of a momentary

finality. The proportions of this work are almost exactly those of the first

movement of the late C major Symphony.31

Indeed, Schubert‘s command of the Neapolitan seems sufficiently mature in the

‗Unfinished‘ and the overture in E minor to support Winter‘s theory that, stylistically,

the ‗Great‘ could have been composed any time after the ‗Unfinished.‘ Let us now

consider Schubert‘s use of the Neapolitan chord in one of the chamber works

composed between the ‗Unfinished‘ and the ‗Great‘ C major symphonies.

If we examine the first movement of the D minor String Quartet, we will see

that bars 328 and 334 feature, for the first time in the movement, the Neapolitan

chord in the minor form (Example 1.2).32

However, this particular observation seems

30

Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 20 where he is discussing the

String Quartet in G, D887. 31

Harold Truscott: ‗Franz Schubert (1797-1828)‘, in The Symphony i: Haydn to Dvořák, ed. by Robert

Simpson (England: Penguin Books, 1966), 200 hereafter referred to as Truscott: ‗Franz Schubert‘. 32

With regard to the increased use of the Neapolitan in Schubert‘s late style, we may note several

appearances of the Neapolitan chord in the final movement of the D minor String Quartet. Instances

include bars 575, 577, 594, 596, 598, and 599. However, these are all in the major form.

10

to tell us more about Schubert‘s attitude to experimentation in chamber music in 1824

than it does about any direct influence of this particular string quartet on the ‗Great‘ C

major Symphony. Indeed, the use of these minor chords is the result of a dialectical

process too specific to the work in question to translate to another work in the same

way, as will be elaborated upon in Chapter 6, and therefore appears to agree with

Winter‘s claim that the ‗Great‘ C major was not indebted to the 1824 chamber works.

It follows that we must consider that second salient feature of Schubert‘s late style

mentioned above if we are to challenge Winter‘s claim.

Example 1.2. Schubert: String Quartet in D minor, I, bars 328-37

11

12

Sparse Textures

A salient feature of Schubert‘s late style, as ‗Der Leiermann‘ of the Winterreise

shows, is his mastery of musical economy; a sparseness of texture.33

This sparseness

is particularly evident in, for example, the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony, D944, and the

String Quintet in C major, D956. This sparseness might also be observed in the

Seventh Symphony, but both this symphony‘s method of composition and the fact

that it is unfinished forbid us from concluding that Schubert would have left the

scoring quite so sparse had he completed the work. Interestingly, Newbould uses the

term ‗spaciousness‘ to describe both sparseness of texture and, in the ‗Great‘ C major

Symphony, spaciousness ‗implied by multiplication.34

For Newbould, tiny rhythmic

cells proliferate in myriad repetitions, energising broad phrases which themselves

multiply into huge paragraphs.‘35

The first movement of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony is striking for the

sparse texture of its opening; a daring statement in symphonic writing at this time

(Example 1.3). In the scoring of the first movement of the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony,

however, there are several equally confident instances of sparseness of texture.

Examples in the first movement include the eight bar opening theme on just the lower

strings and the extended return of that theme at bar 114 which is coupled with a

daring exploitation of pitch-space (Example 1.4) and from the second movement of

the ‗Unfinished‘ we may cite the line on the first violins at bar 60 (Example 1.5).36

33

My thanks to Dr Lorraine Byrne Bodley for this example. 34

Newbould: Schubert and the Symphony, 226. 35

Ibid., 226. 36

This line recurs at bars 201, 280 and 290.

13

Example 1.3. Schubert: ‘Great’ C major Symphony, I, bars 1-6

14

Example 1.4. Schubert: ‘Unfinished’ Symphony in B minor, I, bars 114-18

15

Example 1.5. Schubert: ‘Unfinished’ Symphony in B minor, II, bars 58-64

16

Such examinations of Neapolitan relationships and sparse textures in Schubert‘s

scoring shows that their presence in the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony is both mature and

frequent enough to render unnecessary further practice of these techniques in smaller

works before their employment in the ‗Great.‘ However, examination of the above

traits has done little to refute Winter‘s conviction that the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony

could have been written any time after the ‗Unfinished‘ and so it is at this point that

we turn to features that are less general and more peculiar to the ‗Great‘, examining

whether or not these features can best be explained by similar occurrences in the octet

in F major and the quartets in A minor and D minor. The noteworthy features of the

‗Great‘ that will be discussed below are tackled in order, i.e. with respect to the

movements of the symphony in which they occur. Some will support and some will

challenge Robert Winter‘s stance.

Schubert: Symphony no. 9 in C Major, First Movement

One such peculiarity is the presence of a whole-tone scale in the first movement of

the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony. It occurs between bars 304-15 (Example 1.6, some

of the many examples are marked in on the provided score) and again in the first and

second violins in bars 328-39.

17


18

19

20

Use of the whole-tone scale can also be found between bars 172-76 in the finale of

the Octet of 1824 (Example 1.7a).37

The use of this scale in the Octet is aurally more

jarring than its occurrence in the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony – an instance where it

might be possible to show Schubert‘s ‗practicing‘ a particular technique in a chamber

work before using it in his ‗grand symphony.‘

Example 1.7a. Schubert: Octet in F major, VI, bars 173-76

According to Badura-Skoda the whole-tone scale is also to be found in the first

movement of the G major String Quartet (D887) between bars 374 and 378 (Example

1.7b).38

37

Badura-Skoda: ‗Possibilities and Limitations‘, 199ff. 38

Ibid., 200.

21

Example 1.7b. Schubert: String Quartet in G major, I, bars 374-78

Here the whole-tone scale is not used extensively as a scale in a melodic sense and so

it is of little use to point out melodic instances in the example quoted above, rather

the passage is constructed from notes available as part of a whole-tone scale and

although it is upset by some semitonal relations, the overall flavour of the passage

may be said to be derived from the whole-tone scale. It is suggested by Ekkehart

Kroher that sketches for the G major quartet were drafted prior to the composition of

the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony. Kroher writes ‗nothing came of this [the G major

quartet] in 1824, although sketches for the String Quartet in G major, D887 go back

22

to that year.‘39

Robert Winter anticipated this claim when he wrote of the same

quartet that ‗Schubert wrote a complete autograph in eleven days, but […] he surely

drafted [it] beforehand.‘40

It is possible that the instance of the whole-tone scale in the quartet in G

major can be considered a contribution to the ‗Great‘, as indeed might the classical

nature of the quartet itself, if the first movement was sketched prior to 1825.

Contemplating the Tenth Symphony sketches (D936 A), Winter considers that ‗to

commence work on a large-scale composition with its interior movements would

have been as foreign to Schubert as to Beethoven.‘41

Therefore, even if the sketches

do not draft the entire quartet, they would certainly draft at least some of the first

movement, however, it is not certain that these sketches even exist. The Neue

Schubert-Ausgabe and New Grove Works-list acknowledge no such sketches and the

latter suggests that the autograph was written between the 20th

and 30th

June 1826.42

Schubert: Symphony no. 9 in C Major, Second Movement

The Second movement‘s A minor theme begins on the main beat (rare for Schubert in

that key) but he did anticipate this in the A minor quartet. Leo Black observes that it

is rare for Schubert to begin one of his A minor themes on a downbeat and on the

fifth scale degree yet the A minor melodies that open the second movement of the

39

Ekkehart Kroher, trans. Derek Yeld, sleeve notes for Melos Quartett: CD Harmonia Mundi France,

HMA 1951408 HM 31, 1992 and 2001. 40

Winter: ‗Paper Studies‘, 265. 41

Winter: ‗Paper Studies‘, 256. 42

Neue Schubert-Ausgabe Streichquartett in G, D887 op. post. 16, ed. by Werner Aderhold (London:

Bärenreiter-Verlag Karl Vötterle GmbH & Co. KG, 1989). Winter, Brown and Sams: New Grove

Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 685-89.

23

‗Great‘ and first movement of the A minor String Quartet contain both of these

features (Example 1.8a and 1.8b). Yet, as Black goes on to point out, ‗the rhythm

and motion are different, floating [in the quartet] rather than marching.‘43

Example 1.8a. Schubert: String Quartet in A minor, I, bars 3-6

Example 1.8b. Schubert: ‘Great’ C major Symphony, II, bars 8-11

There are convincing structural connections between the chamber works of March

1824 and the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony, one of which occurs in the second

movement, the other will be discussed when we come to the Trio. Contemplating the

slow movement of the ‗Great‘ C major, Beth Shamgar offers the following two

structural readings (Table 1.9):44

43

Leo Black: Franz Schubert: Music and Belief (Great Britain: The Boydell Press, 2003), 133.

Hereafter referred to as Black: Music and Belief. 44

Beth Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy: Some Thoughts on Exposition-Recap. Form‘ The

Journal of Musicology, A Musicological Bouquet: Essays on Style, Sources, and Performance in

Honor of Bathia Churgin, 1/18 (2001), 153 hereafter referred to as Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic

Legacy‘. The key to Shamgar‘s symbols is as follows: P-primary theme, T-transition between first and

second key areas, S-secondary theme, (S)T-transition between secondary and closing theme, K-closing

theme, NK-new closing theme, RT-retransition from the end of the development to the recapitulation,

(K)T-transition from closing theme to coda.

24

Table 1.9. Alternative Structural Readings for the ‘Great’ C major Symphony

The ‗Great‘ C major Symphony, II: Exposition-Recapitulation Form:

Intro Exposition Recapitulation Coda

P T S K RT P X S K K(T) P

a a/A F d/F a/A A f/A a

1 8 89 93 137 145 160 224 267 311 317 330

The ‗Great C major Symphony, II: Sonata-Rondo Form:

Intro Exposition R Devel. Inverted Recap. (Coda)

P T S K RT P X S K K(T) P

a a/A F d/F a/A A f/A a

1 8 89 93 137 145 160 224 267 311 317 330

Here in Shamgar, the ‗X‘ symbol represents a departure from the normal procedures

of a recapitulation into something of a development section, a section Charles Rosen

would define as a ‗secondary development.‘45

It is this feature that makes the form of

the second movement of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony ambiguous and allows

Shamgar to read it as either a movement in exposition-recapitulation form,46

or as a

sonata-rondo.47

Shamgar suggests, however, that neither reading is fully satisfactory

and in support of her argument quotes Brian Newbould‘s comment that ‗any attempt

to relate the resulting form [of the slow movement of the ―Great‖ C major] to

traditional schemes will lead to the conclusion that it is a hybrid [form].‘48

In

development of Newbould‘s ideas, Shamgar offers the following solution:

45

Charles Rosen: Sonata Forms (United States: W. W. Norton, 1988), 108 hereafter referred to as

Rosen: Sonata Forms. 46

Shamgar offers an explanation for what is meant by exposition-recapitulation form in Shamgar:

‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy‘, 151 f.n. 3 and 153 f.n. 6. In these footnotes she also lists and comments

on some other names given to this form, e.g. slow-movement form, sonata form without development,

and abbreviated sonata form. 47

Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy‘, 153. 48

Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy‘, 168 f.n. 25.

25

[...] the slow movement of the ―Great‖ C major seems to proceed according to

two different formal models. The exposition-recap. form of the ―Unfinished‖

supplies a convincing reading for the first half of the movement, that is, until we

enter the recapitulation. Then all formal parallels to the ―Unfinished‖ collapse,

and the kind of sonata-rondo features we [see] in the A minor Quartet take over

(with, of course, some important differences) [see Tables 1.10a, 1.10b, and

1.10c].49

Table 1.10a. Comparison of the Second Movements of the ‘Unfinished’

Symphony and the A minor String Quartet

The ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony, II: Exposition-Recapitulation Form:

Exposition Recapitulation Coda

P (binary) T S+variants RT P

(binary)

T S+variants NK T P

AA1BA

2

E c, D, c mod E a, A, a E E

1 60 64 130 142 201 205 268 280

The String Quartet in A minor, II: Exposition-Recapitulation Form:

Exposition Recap. (Development) Coda

P (binary) T S K RT P

(binary)

X S K RT

ABB ABB1

C G C mod. C C

1 21 25 37 46 53 76 93 103 110 118

Table 1.10b. Comparison of the Second Movements of the ‘Great’ and

‘Unfinished’ Symphonies

‗Great‘ C major Symphony, Second Movement:

Introduction Exposition

P T S K RT

a a/A F d/F

1 8 89 93 137 145

‗Unfinished‘ Symphony, Second Movement:

Exposition

P T S + variants RT

E c, D, c mod.

49

Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy‘, 157. On page 152, Shamgar explains, ‗we are not trying to

propose a developmental model.‘ But if we are to accommodate Schubert‘s letter to Kupelwieser we

must consider the possibility that a developmental model is, to some degree, at work through the slow

movements of D667, D759, D804 and D944.

26

1 60 64 130

Table 1.10c. Comparison of the Second Movements of the ‘Great’ C major

Symphony and the A minor String Quartet

‗Great‘ C major Symphony, Second Movement:

Recapitulation Development Inverted Recapitulation Coda

P X S K (K)T P

a/A A f/A a

160 224 267 311 317 330

String Quartet in A minor, Second Movement:

Recapitulation Development Coda

P X S K RT

C mod. C C

53 76 93 103 110 118

Another feature of the second movement of the ‗Great‘ that has attracted the attention

of both analysts and Schubertians is the large, unexpected climax at bars 226-67. For

an explanation of the unpredictable shift of mood this climax presents we should note

that much has been written about ‗two natures‘ in Schubert, occasionally with

reference being made to cyclothemia (a mild form of manic-depression which

Elizabeth Norman McKay believes penetrates his musical output).50

Indeed, from the

work of Elizabeth McKay we might reasonably infer that psychological reasons are

responsible for some such musical ballistics. McKay argues that an inherent

50

See Elizabeth N. McKay: Franz Schubert: A Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), §6

(hereafter referred to as McKay: Franz Schubert) and Hugh MacDonald: ‗Schubert‘s Volcanic

Temper‘, The Musical Times, Schubert anniversary Issue, 1629/119 (1978), 949-952 (hereafter

referred to as MacDonald: ‗Schubert‘s Volcanic Temper‘). James Webster takes issue with attaching

biographical details to aspects of the music we find difficult to explain. See James Webster: ‗Music,

Pathology, Sexuality, Beethoven, Schubert‘ (in Commentary), 19th-Century Music, Schubert: Music,

Sexuality, Culture, 1/17 (1993), 91.

27

cyclothemia exacerbated by syphilis explains an increased frequency of sudden

outbursts in the instrumental music of Schubert‘s late years.51

Occasional examples

can be found in the early period (for instance, the String Quartet in B of 1812), but

the increased frequency of such climactic explosions in the late period can be

appreciated by observing the slow movements of the String Quartets in A minor and

G major, the String Quintet in C and the Octet.

If it is not acceptable to take the sudden outbursts often present in Schubert‘s

instrumental music as traits indicative of, and explicable by, cyclothemia, we rule out

one of the four possible explanations for such musical eruptions more convincingly

offered by Hugh MacDonald.52

MacDonald‘s remaining explanations invite us to

view the sudden climaxes as either ‗part of the dynamic flux of all Classical and

Romantic music, with violent outbursts acting as formal, explicable elements‘; not to

view them as evidence of dark, uncontrollable elements in Schubert‘s nature bursting

in to and out from his music, but ‗as the expression of them [dark elements] in an

artful and literary way‘; or finally, that the outbursts are simply ‗violent musical

events‘ to be considered ‗in terms of other obsessional features of his music,

particularly modulation and rhythm.‘53

If psychological reasons do not present a

comprehensible musical reading and we are to consider Schubert‘s violent musical

outbursts in the light of any of the alternative explanations MacDonald suggests, we

51

McKay: Franz Schubert, 139 and 148. 52

MacDonald: ‗Schubert‘s Volcanic Temper‘, 951. 53

Ibid., 951-952.

28

might infer the following as evidence of a musical development taking place

throughout the works preceding 1825 and reaching its zenith in the ‗Great‘:

The most violent of all passages in Schubert occurs in the Great C major

Symphony D944, bars 226-267 in the slow movement [...] its orchestral force is

demonic and of all climaxes in Schubert it is the only one which seeks and finds

its own violent resolution. The climactic two bars, when the harmony shifts up a

semitone, give the climax a sense of completion which no other similar passages

have.54

If the explanation for the outbursts is to be purely musical, this observation may be

used as evidence of a development in Schubert‘s compositional style. However,

McKay argues well that the outbursts might really be a symptom of a psychological

disorder. If we are to accept McKay‘s view, interpretive difficulties arise as we could

easily be witnessing the development of Schubert‘s struggle with cyclothemia

through his music as much as the development of a technique. This ambiguity limits

the usefulness of the above observation to our study.

Schubert: Symphony no. 9 in C Major, Third Movement: Scherzo, bars 1-238

Maurice Brown and George Grove have both spotted in the scherzo of the octet the

thematic foreshadowing of a melody from the scherzo of the ‗Great‘ (Example 1.11a

and 1.11b).55

Example 1.11a. Schubert: Octet in F major, III, bars 59-71

54

MacDonald: ‗Schubert‘s Volcanic Temper‘, 950-951. 55

Maurice Brown: Essays on Schubert (London: MacMillan, 1966), 42-43, hereafter referred to as

Brown: Essays on Schubert. George Grove: ‗Schubert‘s Great Symphony in C, No. 10‘, The Musical

Times, 738/45 (1904), 527.

29

Example 1.11b. Schubert: ‘Great’ C major Symphony, III, bars 89-104

The similarities, which include the melodic contour, the crescendo, repeats and the

semitone modulation, are obvious. It is among the most overt foreshadowings of the

‗Great‘ to be found in the 1824 chamber works but it is difficult to say whether

Schubert is preparing himself for the ‗Great‘ in this example or if he is simply

quoting the Octet.

Schubert: Symphony no. 9 in C Major, Third Movement: Trio, bars 239-404

Maurice Brown was, in fact, the first to propose that the Trio of the ‗Great‘ C major

Symphony was modelled on the Trio of the D minor quartet. In 1966 Brown wrote,

‗the whole conception of the quartet section was expanded and amplified in the

symphony.‘56

Brown mentions a transition from D major to D minor and the use of

the rhythmic pattern in the inner parts (Example 1.12a and 1.12b) as indicators of

this:

Example 1.12a. Schubert: String Quartet in D minor, III, bars /69-76

Example 1.12b. Schubert: ‘Great’ C major Symphony, III, bars /247-54

56

Brown: Essays on Schubert, 45.

30

Fifty years after Brown‘s essay was written we may demonstrate this connection

further.57

In development of his ideas my Table 1.13 shows the structure of the D

minor quartet to be AA1BA

2B

2A

3 and the structure of the ‗Great‘ C major to be

AA1BA

2A

1AB.

Table 1.13. Comparison of Trio movements from D minor String Quartet and

the ‘Great’

Quartet: A

A1 B A

2 B

2 A

3

Duration

in bars: 16 16 16 16 16 16

‗Great‘: A

A1 B A

2 A

1 A (RT) B

Duration

in bars: 16 16 (+4

bar link)

12 48 16 8 16 12

‗Great‘ C major Symphony‘s Trio Structure as Ternary Form:

A (Repeat) B (Repeat) A1 (Repeat)

Comparing the length of those sections labelled in each work as A2, we may note that

Schubert expands the length of the A2 section in the Trio of the ‗Great‘ until it

occupies, proportionately, three times more of the movement‘s duration than did the

equivalent section in the Trio of the D minor quartet. Consequently, the A2 section in

the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony is large enough to be deemed the central section in a

ternary form movement. A striking similarity of procedure between the D minor

57

Brown: Essays on Schubert, 45.

31

quartet and the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony can be seen in the relationship between

those sections in the Trios labelled A and A1.58

In each work, the A section contains the melody in the top voice. In each A1

section the melody is taken over by lower voices and the top voice adopts a new,

embellishing figure. The simple embellishment evident in the flute part in the A1

section of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony is less elaborate than the quaver passage

used to embellish the A1 section of the D minor quartet; the latter embellishment lulls

the ear into the false impression that we are in a B section and, perhaps purposefully,

obscures the form. Consequently, we observe Schubert experimenting with a specific

technique in the quartet in D minor prior to its employment in the ‗Great‘ C major

Symphony.

Schubert: Symphony no. 9 in C Major, Fourth Movement

Another feature of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony is the degree to which its finale has

been recognised as successful, an accomplishment many of his works did not attain

so brilliantly: according to William McNaught, ‗Schubert was disposed to lower his

standard a little on coming to the fourth movement of a symphony or chamber

work,‘59

and Edward T. Cone claims, ‗it is to his finales [...] that his reputation for

rambling redundancy is due.‘60

Though much revision has been made of past

58

In the D minor Quartet, ‗A‘ refers to bars /69-84 and ‗A1‘ refers to bars /85-100 of the Trio. In the

‗Great‘ C major Symphony, ‗A‘ refers to bars /247-262 and ‗A1‘ refers to bars /263-278 of the Trio.

59 William McNaught: ‗Franz Schubert (1797-1828)‘, The Symphony, ed. by Ralph Hill (England:

Penguin, 1949), 137 hereafter referred to as McNaught: ‗Franz Schubert‘. 60

Edward T. Cone: ‗Schubert‘s Beethoven‘ The Musical Quarterly, Special Issue Celebrating the

Bicentennial of the Birth of Beethoven, 4/56 (1970), 787 hereafter referred to as Cone: ‗Schubert‘s

Beethoven‘.

32

prejudices in Schubert scholarship,61

criticisms of the composer‘s finales have

persisted longer than most complaints. For example in a relatively recent article

Michael Griffel writes, ‗Schubert was preparing to take lessons, presumably in

counterpoint but perhaps actually in the writing of finales from Simon Sechter‘.62

Badura-Skoda is of a similar opinion and even divides Schubert‘s finales into those

composed before and after the finale of the ‗Great‘, when he writes:

The clearest manifestation of this newly awakened energy during his last years

seems to be Schubert‘s solution to the problem of composing finales which can

be regarded as a match for or even a climax to the preceding movements. The C

major Symphony in particular shows his success in constructing a last movement

[…] crowning the whole work with a conclusion well worthy of what has gone

before […] The last movements of the well-known instrumental works of 1825

can hardly bear comparison with it […] Hence one feels inclined on stylistic

grounds to settle […] for 1826 as the year of the composition of the finale. The

instrumental works of 1828 […] have finales which exhibit the same sense of

spaciousness and range as we find in the symphony.63

In an earlier discussion of the finale of the ‗Great‘, Mosco Carner seems to deny that

even the finales of the Octet, the A minor, and the D minor quartets are as successful

as their symphonic ‗successor‘:

Yet even his mature instrumental compositions do not, in spite of their inner

unity, possess that cogent logic in the sequence of four movements that would

impart to the finale a feeling of inevitability. Perhaps the finale of the Ninth

Symphony comes nearest to that. But here, I think, it is solely the immense

rhythmic impetus that creates the impression of a final climax to the preceding

movements.64

Unconvinced, one may ask whether the finale of the D minor quartet, a fiery

tarantella, did not contribute to the ‗immense rhythmic impetus‘ Carner observes in

61

Many such prejudices are attributed to Donald Francis Tovey; see, for example, his Essays in

Musical Analysis 1: Symphonies 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1935/ fourteenth impression

1972), hereafter referred to as Tovey: Essays in Musical Analysis. Recent revisionists include David

Beach, Charles Fisk, Leo Black, John Gingerich, Poundie Burstein, Suzannah Clark, Richard Cohn,

Hali Fieldman, Christopher Gibbs, Michael Graubart, etc. 62

Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music‘, 205. 63

Badura-Skoda: ‗Possibilities and Limitations‘, 203. 64

Mosco Carner: ‗The Orchestral Music‘ Schubert: A Symposium, ed. by Gerald Abraham (London:

Lindsay Drummond, 1946), 26 hereafter referred to as Carner: ‗The Orchestral Music‘.

33

the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony‘s finale. Such speculation was, at this time, dismissed

by Maurice Brown who writes:

The finale [of the ‗Great‘] has been called a ‗poem of speed.‘ It is a volcanic

outpouring of music: neither the tarantella rides of the quartet finales65

[...] nor

the varied dance measures of the Octet [...] contributed more than a trifle to this

new and colossal movement.66

Perhaps a more recent discovery made by Paul Badura-Skoda might offer an

explanation for the success of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony‘s finale beyond the

references to rhythmic drive and speed cited above.67

Badura-Skoda points out that:

[...] in the first, third and fourth movements [of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony]

Schubert uses a new harmonic formula, of which no trace appears in his work

before the end of 1826[...] it is used regularly only in the finale, so much so that it

may be described as part of the movement‘s very structure.68

The harmonic formula in question is the resolution of a German augmented sixth with

its bass on the subdominant to the 6-3 of the tonic chord and not to the major or

minor 6-4 of the submediant.69

This turn of harmony is not present in the

‗Unfinished‘ Symphony, the octet or the quartets of 1824 yet the finale of the ‗Great‘

benefits from its presence as it ‗makes it possible for [Schubert], as never before, to

effect a return to the tonic from very remote harmonic territory.‘70

It seems, then, that

the features of the finale of the ‗Great‘ which contribute most to its success, namely

65

At the time Brown wrote this it was still maintained that the ‗Great‘ C major was composed in 1828.

Brown is referring to the finales of the D minor and G major quartets. 66

Brown: Schubert: A Critical Biography, 297. See also Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the

Man, 364, where Newbould describes the octet finale as limbering up for the tirelessness of ‗Great‘. 67

Detailed examinations of rhythm and tempo in the finale of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony can be

found in Roy Howat: ‗‗Architecture as drama in late Schubert‘ in Schubert Studies, ed. by Brian

Newbould (USA: Ashgate England, 1998), 166ff. 68

Badura-Skoda: ‗Possibilities and Limitations‘, 192-194. Badura-Skoda is incorrect when he says no

trace of this progression is to be found in Schubert before 1826. Brian Newbould cites earlier

instances. However, the progression is still rare and does not appear in any of the chamber-works

relevant to our study. See Brian Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man, 397-398. 69

Badura-Skoda: ‗Possibilities and Limitations‘, 192. To demonstrate the frequent appearance of this

harmonic formula in the finale, Badura-Skoda offers the following list: bars 190-197, 246-253, 330-

337, 778-785, 834-841, 918-925, and 1046-1053. 70

Badura-Skoda: ‗Possibilities and Limitations‘, 194.

34

its rhythmic impetus and the discovery of a new harmonic idiom, do not owe their

incorporation into that work to the ‗preparatory‘ efforts of the chamber works of

1824.

In conclusion, much of the stylistic vocabulary used by Schubert in the

‗Great‘ C major Symphony was developed in works written before 1824 and some

features of that vocabulary were developed for the first time in the composition of the

‗Great‘ itself. Winter claimed that the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony, stylistically, could

have been written any time after the ‗Unfinished‘ of 1822. However if the chamber

works mentioned in Schubert‘s letter to Kupelwieser in March 1824 are to be omitted

from the stylistic timeline we must understand that it is not likely Schubert would

have written the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony in the same way we have it today. In

particular jeopardy would be, from our discussion, the use of the whole tone scale as

it appears in the first movement; the treatment of the three-key exposition; and the

structures of the second half of the slow movement71

and Trio.

To borrow Harold Truscott‘s words: ‗The great C major symphony is a

summing-up of Schubert‘s instrumental thinking from 1811 onwards […] practically

all the instrumental music he had written was in some sort a sketch for it.‘72

However, this places the 1824 chamber works alongside the other compositions from

Schubert‘s oeuvre in as much as they are not expendable. The ‗Great‘ drew from

them and would not have been the same composition it turned out to be had it not

71

The fact that the second half of the slow movement is partially indebted to the Eroica Symphony

slightly emasculates this point, but does not dismiss it. Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy‘, 163-

166. Shamgar‘s article considers the relationship between the climactic passages of these movements

but suggests that the climax in the ‗Great‘ C major is initiated by a point in the first key-area which

corresponds with the unresolved German Sixth in bar twelve of the A minor Quartet, see pages 154ff. 72

Truscott: ‗Franz Schubert‘, 203.

35

been for the existence of those prior compositions. This alone does not raise the 1824

chamber works above the other pieces that contributed to the ‗Great‘ and if we are to

understand these chamber works as having especially paved the way to the ‗Great‘ we

must find evidence that they deserve the moniker of ‗preparatory‘ works when other

contributing compositions are not similarly branded. There must be more to this label

than the limited evidence available in the Kupelwieser letter to justify such a

categorisation.

36

Part II: The Autograph of the ‘Great’; Testing the Working Method

Schubert‘s letter to Kupelwieser outlines a working method for the symphony:

namely, to assist a future composition with smaller-scale exercises. This application

of the term ‗working method‘ is to be understood in a broader sense than, for

example, the more immediate sense of sketching ideas on a two-stave particell prior

to orchestration (as Schubert had done for the ‗Unfinished‘), or the use of different

coloured inks for different stages of writing (as he did in the ‗Great‘ C major).

However the compositional practices and editing techniques used in Schubert‘s

immediate working methods in the ‗Great‘ may be examined here to gauge the

usefulness of the broader working method of using separate smaller works to prepare

for one larger work.

If this broad working method truly did assist Schubert in the composition of

the ‗Great‘, we might expect that the process of composing the Ninth went relatively

more smoothly than the composition of other symphonies by Schubert that were not

preceded by such preparatory methods. Examination of the autograph of the ‗Great‘,

however, suggests a different story. As Griffel writes:

According to a recent count made by Denis Vaughan, who has conducted the

complete Schubert symphonies, there are some 3,800 mistakes corrected in the

autograph scores of these works. The score of the ‗Great‘ Symphony alone

contains several hundred corrections [my emphasis]‘73

Elsewhere Griffel adds:

[…] intense labour shows clearly on the manuscript; for this one contains more

crossed-out notes and replaced pages than that of any other Schubert symphony.

Whole sections of movements appear on noticeably different grains and colours

73

Michael Griffel: ‗A Reappraisal of Schubert's Methods of Composition‘, The Musical Quarterly,

2/63 (1977), 187. Hereafter referred to as Griffel: ‗A Reappraisal‘.

37

of paper, datable to 1826. One sees that Schubert revised his work for several

months74

Furthermore, the nature of the mistakes that are corrected in the finale suggests quite

strongly that Schubert did not compose all of that movement directly into score but

composed at least some of it into a now missing rough sketch. Griffel notes that the

double bass at bar 230 lags one bar behind the other instruments for a full eleven bars

before being corrected.75

This type of error would be highly unusual if the music was

being composed for the first time into the score, but it would be quite understandable

if Schubert was copying the part from a sketch. A similar error occurs later in the

movement where the cello line skips bar 388 and continues on, two bars ahead of the

rest of the music for a further two bars. Griffel claims, ‗most likely [Schubert] was

looking at a piano sketch of the piece, and his eyes slipped for an instant in the

copying of the part.‘76

This leads us to acknowledge that a count of the corrections in

the autograph represents only a small number of the difficulties Schubert had

overcome.

The Gamut of Corrections in the First Movement of the ‘Great’

Now let us briefly consider some of the corrections that have captured the attention of

scholars in the past. This will help us to appreciate the richly varied nature of

Schubert‘s revisions. For the sake of brevity, and to keep our overall discussion as

focused as possible, we shall confine this list to the first movement. Schubert‘s

practice in this score of using different shades of ink for different stages of the

74

Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music‘, 202. 75

Griffel: ‗A Reappraisal‘, 208. 76

Ibid., 208 and 210.

38

composition allows us to see with unusual clarity Schubert‘s compositional processes

at work.77

In this first movement there are approximately twenty-four corrections

between bars 9 and 22. They are small changes, but they are made to musical

material that becomes very important later in the movement. Such amendments

endorse the conventional belief that this first movement was being composed directly

into the score and not taken down from a different, sketched draft. In addition: (i) the

tempo indication was changed from ‗Allegro vivace‘ to ‗Allegro ma non troppo‘ and

(ii) The first allegro theme was modified as an afterthought and, with a few simple

strokes, was made infinitely more memorable (Example 1.14):


Before

After

(iii) Near the commencement of the second subject group, before bar 162, an

additional bar is inserted to maintain the established pattern of regular bar-groupings.

77

Griffel: ‗A Reappraisal‘, 200. Winter: ‗Paper Studies‘, 267 f.n. 46 warns us to exercise caution

when trying to understand the genesis of the symphony based on different coloured inks until more

research has been conducted. That is not to discredit all conclusions drawn from ink studies in the

meantime, merely that they may at times need to be supplemented with other evidence when

attempting to draw conclusions based on them.

39

(iv) In bar 21 a crotchet note A in the second viola is changed to two quavers moving

from B to A to highlight the suspension in the second cello line (Example 1.15):

Example 1.15. Schubert: ‘Great’ C major Symphony, I, bar 21

Before After

(v) In the development section, bars 262 and 263 are inserted in the margin and

Griffel states that ‗the alterations in this section concern primarily the first violin part

and imply that Schubert at an early stage had trouble with the composition at this

point.‘78

(vi) The coda itself went through various permutations, shown here are some of the

deleted bars from the original coda (Example 1.16) which had a weaker bass-line than

the final version:

78

Griffel: ‗A Reappraisal‘, 202.

40

Example 1.16. Schubert: ‘Great’ C major Symphony, I, bars deleted from coda

In the coda Schubert inserted a lengthy passage after the movement had been

completed and, as Reed notes, this revision enhances the climax and proves that

‗heavenly lengths‘ were clearly a conscious part of Schubert‘s vision.79

We see from such examples Schubert‘s attention to detail, his patience, and

the direct compositional engagement that allowed him to change central ideas even at

very late stages in composition. Furthermore, knowledge of such changes will inform

79

John Reed: ‗How the ―Great‖ C Major Was Written‘, Music & Letters, 1/56 (1975), 23. Hereafter

referred to as Reed: ‗How the ―Great‖ C Major Was Written‘. The phrase ‗heavenly lengths‘ does, of

course, date back to Schumann.

41

a comparison of features of the symphony with earlier compositions that are said to

anticipate this work.

Extent of Corrections in Parts of the ‘Great’ that had been ‘prepared’ by the

1824 Chamber Works

The corrections made to Schubert‘s autograph for the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony

ranged from minor adjustments of texture or grammatical matters to the supplanting

of entire sections of the music with new ideas.80

However, to test the usefulness of

his preparatory works as a ‗compositional testing ground‘ we must focus our attention

on the shared elements between these preparatory pieces and the ‗Great‘ and search

for evidence of increased ease of composition in those parts of the symphony that

benefited from preparatory work.

When we consider the contributions made by Schubert‘s 1824 chamber works

to the composition of his ‗Great‘ C major Symphony, certain examples discussed in

the previous chapter stand above the rest as being the most substantial and

convincing. The first is the observation that the structure of the slow movement of

the ‗Great‘ is derived from a combination of the structures of the slow movements of

the A minor String Quartet and the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor. 81 A cursory

examination of the autograph of the Andante movement of the ‗Great‘ paradoxically

suggests that this movement gave Schubert the most trouble. At times the corrections

are so numerous that Schubert‘s normally neat scoring begins to look like a

80

Compare these with the corrections made to the autograph of the ‗Unfinished‘ which are far more

innocuous. See T.C.L. Pritchard: ‗The Unfinished Symphony‘, Music Review, 3 (1942), 11-12. 81

Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy‘, 157.

42

Beethoven sketch.82

For example, consider the quiet opening bars of the Andante.

One would expect that this simple opening would be relatively free from revisions

but the autograph shows Schubert made many corrections. For example, in bars 1 to

10 the second violins originally doubled the first violins whereas they now fill out the

harmony. So too the violas originally played an E pedal note in bars 1 to 5 and bar 7

where they now simply fill out the harmony in a figuration shared with the violins.

Considering similar revisions Michael Griffel argues, ‗today it is difficult to

imagine the beginning of this movement as anything but the four-part harmonized

march it now is, but Schubert arrived at this ―natural‖ sound only after rejecting or

revising earlier ideas.‘83

Such examples, however, lie only on the surface, and

structural changes are not to be found in this movement.84

Schubert‘s certainty of the

overall form is detected by Griffel who recognises how in this movement each page

looks as though it was sketched first and then worked up before Schubert moved on

to the next page; an approach quite different from what we understand to be the

process he employed in the other movements.85

It is highly likely that Schubert

composed in this manner. It was his practice in the Seventh Symphony, the Tenth

Symphony, and even the G major quartet to sketch out the material in large sections

before filling any detail in. However, it should be noted that the sketched lines

82

Griffel: ‗A Reappraisal‘, 204. 83

Ibid., 203-204. 84

In the first movement an original coda between bars 590 and 646 was removed and entirely

rewritten. The finale originally contained a second subject which some scholars believe suggested a

fugato section left unpursued in the final version. 85


43

contain fewer changes than the other parts from which we may acknowledge the

surety of Schubert‘s concept for the structure of this movement.86

If the second movement of the ‗Great‘ contained significant changes to the

structure we could expect to see pages such as the following example from the finale

(Illustration 1.17). That is to say, even though the second movement gave Schubert

trouble in the unfolding of musical ideas, the form that had been determined in the

‗Unfinished‘ and the A minor String Quartet was readily employed and caused no

problems.

Illustration 1.17. Folio 88v of the autograph score of the ‘Great’ Symphony

86


44

The second example discussed earlier of a substantial anticipation of the ‗Great‘ C

major Symphony is that the structure of the Trio section of the ‗Great‘ is derived

entirely from the Trio of the D minor String Quartet. In the C Major Symphony

manuscript the autograph of the Trio section, in direct contrast to the autograph of the

Andante movement, is exceptionally clean. It is free from all but the most trifling of

corrections and at first glance appears to be the movement that gave Schubert the

least trouble. In this movement, however, the immediate working method is

different; Schubert employed only one colour ink. What is more striking is that it is

the colour which, in the earlier movements, he had reserved for the second stage of

composition. Griffel argues that it was not uncommon for a page to get so messy

with corrections that Schubert would discard it, write the final version out afresh and

insert the new pages into the folio when ready.87

Consequently, it is possible that the

cleanest pages in a Schubert autograph are in fact the pages that had given him the

most trouble. It is argued by both Reed and Griffel that the Trio of the ‗Great‘ is a

fair copy of a now missing sketch. If this is true, then we cannot tell from this

evidence alone if compositional ‗problems‘ overcome had any bearing on the ease or

difficulty with which Schubert arrived at the structure of this work – a structure

which appears to be anticipated so convincingly by the D minor String Quartet.

There is, however, one clue. Reed notes that within the Trio there is a large

pocket of ‗new‘ paper inserted fourteen bars before the double bar-line. Reed argues

that ‗the decision to repeat the first section of the Trio was an afterthought, and that

originally the movement ran on from bar 281 to the beginning of the second

87


45

section.‘88

Although a repeat may not appear to be of great structural significance in

some works, the structural comparisons drawn between the Trio of the ‗Great‘ and

the Trio of the D minor String Quartet rely heavily on temporal proportions between

sections. Without a repeat of the first section the comparison between the Trios

would be far less tenable (c.f. Table 1.13). Consequently, it appears that in the Trio

of the ‗Great‘, despite there being an exact structural model ready in a preparatory

work, Schubert only utilised that model as an afterthought.

It is feasible that the missing draft of the Trio originally contained the repeat;

that Schubert removed it when making out the fair copy we have today but on further

reflection thought better of it and inserted the repeat again. Such a scenario would

neatly bolster the argument that Schubert readily employed structural models used in

preparatory works but there is no evidence to support it and the possibility is only

mentioned so that our study may be comprehensive.

The third example concerns the scherzo of both the ‗Great‘ and the octet (c.f.

Example 1.11a and 1.11b). Apart from the closeness of melodic contour, the most

striking similarity between both these examples is the choice of modulation and

repetition. The use of a repeat marks the melody‘s significance in the octet; indeed, it

renders it more significant by giving it a breadth that impacts the expanse of the

overall form. If the octet‘s melody‘s appearance was truly preparatory for the

‗Great‘, the repeat and the modulation would be the most structurally important

features of the theme contributing to the latter work. However Brown notes:

88

Reed: ‗How the ―Great‖ C Major Was Written‘, 24.

46

It is clear from the manuscript that he [Schubert] did not originally intend to play

the four-bar theme played by the flute. After it was written, however, he marked

the bars (89-92) for repeat (bis) and then continued by giving the violins and oboe

the theme in C major. This may possibly be a harking back to the treatment he

had so successfully used in the Scherzo of the Octet.89

Once again, Schubert only draws on the full bounty of previous compositional

experience as an after thought. Note how Brown infers the composer reached back to

a success from the past rather than conclude that the octet definitively served a

preparatory function. Indeed, this relationship seems largely more akin to self-

quotation than compositional preparation.

The second movement of the ‗Great‘, the Andante, is based on a hybrid of two

earlier works and as such the resulting form is, by definition, a new structure that sets

the original spark from which the rest of the new music can grow. The Trio of the

‗Great‘, however, is based wholesale on a form that was already used in a preparatory

work. Therefore the overall structure of the Andante, when compared to the inherited

structure of the Trio, is to be considered a new idea rather than a pre-existing

framework from a preparatory work. The Scherzo and Trio utilised earlier models

but did so only as after-thoughts, once Schubert had already ‗tested‘ similar ideas in

the act of composing the ‗Great‘. In these ways the manuscript itself was a testing

ground for the symphony‘s composition at least as much as the chamber works can

claim to have been. As Leo Black writes:

Schubert is not one of the composers who seem always to be trying to write the

same work, and nobody would or should make out that everything in the Great C

Major is compiled from earlier music by himself or anyone else. Its ‗self-

references‘ do, all the same, show the underlying continuity within a startling

process of development.90

89

Brown: Essays on Schubert, 43. 90

Black: Music and Belief, 129-130.

47

Part III: A Change of Direction

It seems that Schubert did not always necessarily utilise the models of the preparatory

works in his first attempts at writing the ‗Great‘ Symphony. That is not to say,

however, that the 1824 chamber works did not inform his compositional path.

Perhaps looking forward and contributing material is not the nature of Schubert‘s

preparatory work and maybe his admission in his letter to Kupelwieser should be

taken more broadly. Perhaps it was the goal of the preparatory works to encounter

their own artistic trials and overcome them, not so Schubert could later recreate such

events on a larger scale, but so that they served as a testing ground for

experimentation with structural forms that may or may not be utilised in later

compositions. As Brown wrote as early as 1966:

To Schubert, the ‗symphony‘ was the supreme musical form […] the

hypernatural alertness with which he approached the composition has given us in

this symphony the best of Schubert […] but that attitude of mind also struck

deeply into his subconscious creative powers, and the over-stimulated brain

reached back and found successful practices from the past to use them […] in

order to contribute to a symphony that would be the crown of his work.91

We may add to Brown‘s words the recent opinions of Leo Black from an essay

concerned with the quotation of song material in instrumental music: ‗Subcutaneous

links between song and instrumental music bear examination; they throw light on the

unity of Schubert‘s mind, its ability to summon up, computer-like, a myriad musical

options and instantly choose the most suitable.‘92

That Schubert reached back into

his past when he wanted or needed to is in keeping with our findings and we may say

that the smaller works certainly served a preparatory role in that there was at least

91

Brown: Essays on Schubert, 30. 92

Leo Black: ‗Oaks and Osmosis‘, The Musical Times, 1852/138 (1997), 7. Hereafter referred to as

Black: ‗Oaks and Osmosis‘.

48

something for the ‗over-stimulated‘ brain to reach back to. But if such is the case,

what is the difference between writing a series of self-sufficient ‗preparatory‘ works

which may or may not be referenced, and simply having a regular back-catalogue, the

experiences of which may or may not be drawn from?

The distinction must also be acknowledged between what constitutes a

genuine progression of a model and self-quotation. The latter technique is not alien

to Schubert whose quartets in A minor and D minor derive their nicknames from the

previously composed overture and Lied which they quote respectively. To return to

Leo Black, who writes of this association:

Clearly music in the symphonic mould obeys laws arising from a special sector of

its composer‘s being and the nature of the form, but the song fragments in these

works [the A minor and D minor quartets, etc.] show him [Schubert] doing more

than merely reminisce and quote himself. Certain ideas refuse to go away once

he has made a song out of them. He broods over what they have to offer, extracts

its essence and lays the foundation for something extensive.93

When we are told certain works pave the way to certain other works, we expect

deeper and more revealing connections than we find with self-quotation. Self-

quotation is a very concrete type of connection between two compositions but

Schubert‘s prolific melodic invention would have us believe it is not the type of

connection upon which a new work depends. The number of connections between

the chamber works and the ‗Great‘ that can be proven to be ‗prepared‘ – and not just

ideas that were repeated when alternatives were not forthcoming – are very few. This

does not mean Winter was correct to say the ‗Great‘ could have been written after the

‗Unfinished‘ without the intercession of the 1824 chamber works (although perhaps a

work of equal quality to the ‗Great‘ could have been composed) but it does make it

93

Black: ‗Oaks and Osmosis‘, 10.

49

difficult to prove that the ‗Great‘ had a real dependence on the chamber works; after

all, if an idea appears for the first time in a chamber work it could just as easily have

appeared for the first time in a symphony.

Analysis of the quantity of changes Schubert made to the score of the ‗Great‘

reveals that the composition did not develop as smoothly as one might expect of a

work for which several masterpieces had been dedicated to it under the banner of

‗study pieces‘. When Schubert ultimately set to write a major-key symphony rather

than a minor-key work he drew as much, if not more, from his previous orchestral

essays as he did from the chamber works deemed preparatory for that task.94

Consequently it becomes difficult to credit similar instances in the chamber works

and the ‗Great‘ as definitively and deliberately prepared for use in that symphony as

opposed to being successes from the past reached back to by the composer (in such a

94

Consider the number of foreshadowings of the ‗Great‘ found in the earlier orchestral music by

previous scholars without any need for directions such as those found in the Kupelwieser letter. All but

two of the symphonies that preceded the ‗Great‘ were in major-keys. For general similarities between

the ‗Great‘ and earlier orchestral music see Arthur Hutchings: Schubert (London: J. M. Dent, 1973), 90

(hereafter referred to as Hutchings: Schubert); McNaught: ‗Franz Schubert‘, 145; Brian Newbould:

‗Schubert‘, in The Nineteenth-Century Symphony, Studies in Musical Genres and Repertories, ed. by

D. Kern Holoman, gen. ed. R. Larry Todd (New York: Schirmer Books, 1997), 6, 8 hereafter referred

to as Newbould: ‗Schubert‘; Black: ‗Oaks and Osmosis‘, 9; Reed: ‗How the ―Great‖ C Major was

Written‘, 19; James A. Westrup: Schubert: Chamber Music, (London: BBC Publication/Ariel Music,

1969/repr. 1975, 1977, 1980/ first published in Ariel Music 1986), 37 (hereafter referred to as

Westrup: Schubert: Chamber Music); Truscott: ‗Franz Schubert‘, 198; Carner: ‗The Orchestral Music‘,

40, 51, 54. Specific anticipations of the first movement of the ‗Great‘: Brown: Essays on Schubert, 34-

37; John Reed: Schubert, The Master Musicians (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987, rev. 1996,

repr. 1997), 133 (hereafter referred to as Reed: Schubert); Brian Newbould: ‗Schubert‘s ―Great‖ C

major Symphony: the autograph revisited‘, in Schubert Studies, ed. by Brian Newbould (England:

Ashgate, 1998), 136; Truscott: ‗Franz Schubert‘, 200; Carner: ‗The Orchestral Music‘, 38, 40, 47, 61.

Specific anticipations of the second movement of the ‗Great‘: Brown: Essays on Schubert, 37, 40;

Carner: ‗The Orchestral Music‘, 58, 62. Specific anticipations of the third movement of the ‗Great‘:

Brown: Essays on Schubert, 40, 43; Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music‘, 198; Newbould: Schubert:

The Music and the Man, 374; Newbould: Schubert and the Symphony, 235; Carner: ‗The Orchestral

Music‘, 36, 44, 59. Specific anticipations of the finale of the ‗Great‘: Brown: Essays on Schubert, 47,

49-51, 53-56; Daniel Coren: ‗Ambiguity in Schubert‘s Recapitulations‘ The Musical Quarterly, 4/60

(1974), 577 (hereafter referred to as Coren: ‗Ambiguity‘); Reed: Schubert, 118; Truscott: ‗Franz

Schubert‘, 197; Carner: ‗The Orchestral Music‘, 45, 60.

50

case they are placed on equal footing with any compositions from Schubert‘s back

catalogue which he was free to draw from anyway without establishing a ‗class‘ or

‗subgroup‘ of works for that purpose).

It would be different if Schubert wrote a set of pieces and restricted himself to

drawing only from the experiences gained and models set by the octet and quartets of

1824 when writing his symphony – as one might expect from a composer of his

invention and stature – but he freely borrows from everywhere in his back catalogue.

Furthermore without more evidence or documentation showing that Schubert

prioritised ideas from the 1824 chamber works over others from various works for

use in the ‗Great‘, it becomes hard to assert that similarities between works of 1824

and the ‗Great‘ hold a special significance over similarities between the ‗Great‘ and

works not officially marked out for that purpose. Even examples obtained from the

scores lose much of their significance in this argument and in this respect Schubert‘s

letter tells us very little that is of benefit in helping us understand the music. In the

light of this information it is no longer acceptable to single out the octet and quartets

of 1824 as ‗the works that paved the way towards the ―Great‖‘ when it was a great

many works that did so, some of which contributed a lot more than these. Andrea

Lindmayr-Brandl is paraphrased by Nicholas Rast as stating:

The specific situation with certain genres reveals structural patterns in the

composer‘s development and career. Of the three genres with the greatest

number of fragmentary works, the symphony fragments (46.2%, especially D615,

D708A, D729, and D759) mark stages along Schubert‘s ‗way towards a grand

symphony‘ 95

95

Nicholas Rast: Book review ‗Franz Schubert: Das fragmentarische Werk‘ Music and Letters, 3/137

(2006), 437 hereafter referred to as Rast: ‗Das fragmentarische Werk‘.

51

An Alternative Implication of the Kupelwieser Letter

It is quite remarkable that Schubert set the ‗Great‘ in a major-key when his output in

the preceding years, a time when he claimed to be preparing for his next symphony,

contain so many minor-key works. The demands made by minor-key structures on

first-movement forms (sonata form) were very different and much more complex than

the demands made by major-key forms.96

Unless Schubert originally anticipated in

1824 that his next symphony would be in a minor-key his preparatory ventures are

perplexing. The New Grove works-list shows the following to be the compositions

containing sonata form first movements from as early as 1820 right up to 1825 (the

year Schubert began work on the ‗Great‘, see Table 1.18):97

Table 1.18: Work-list demonstrating number of sonata form movements set in

minor keys

Quartettsatz C minor [December 1820]

Symphony [no. 7] sketch in E major [August 1821]

‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor [October 1822]

Piano Sonata fragment in E minor [c1823]

Piano Sonata in A minor D784 [February 1823]

Octet F major [February – 1 March 1824]

String Quartet No. 13 A minor [February – March 1824]

String Quartet No. 14 D minor [March 1824]98

Piano four hands ‗Grand Duo‘ C major [June 1824]

Piano (Ungarische Melodie in B minor D817 [2 September 1824])

Arpeggione Sonata A minor [November 1824]

96

Chapter 2 will demonstrate the challenges presented by minor-key sonata forms as opposed to

major-key sonata forms. 97

Robert Winter with M. J. E. Brown and Eric Sams: ‗Schubert, Franz, §2: Works‘ Grove Music

Online ed. L. Macy (http://www.grovemusic.com, accessed 14 January 2007). According to Daniel

Coren there are only seventy-five movements, within fifty-four different compositions, from

Schubert‘s entire output that are in sonata form. Coren: ‗Ambiguity‘, 569-70. 98

If a draft of the first movement of the G major string quartet was written at around this time it would

make little difference to the above chart since it is notoriously ambivalent in its modality, its listing as

a major-key work could be cancelled by its equally convincing capacity as a minor-key work.

52

In the above list, eight out of twelve sonata form movements between 1820 and 1824

were in minor-keys.99

While the Quartettsatz and the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony are

incomplete works, the movements pertaining to this study were themselves entirely

finished and so hold a greater standing than the other fragments in the above list. If

we only count from 1824 to 1825, there are only two out of six sonata form first

movements in the major-mode and one of them, the octet, was commissioned to be

modelled on a major-key Beethoven work. Only the Grand Duo holds the major-key

standpoint. It looks as though the grand symphony Schubert envisioned in February

and March 1824 was going to be a minor-key work (if these works were indeed

tonally preparatory).

One wonders if Schubert changed his mind about writing a minor-key ninth

symphony after learning Beethoven‘s Ninth was in D minor and as part of his often

documented desire to simultaneously emulate and establish himself as independent

from Beethoven instead chose to write a major-key symphony which quotes

Beethoven‘s minor-key work. As Griffel writes:

[Schubert‘s] most important artistic goal was to compose a remarkably fine

symphony – a great symphony – to match the symphonic accomplishments of

Beethoven […] Schubert was consciously or subconsciously postponing the

publication of a first symphony and the inevitable comparisons with Beethoven

that would result [my emphasis].100

99

There were not many essays in sonata form by Schubert between 1817 and 1824. Gordon Sly:

‗Schubert‘s Innovations in Sonata Form: Compositional Logic and Structural Interpretation‘, Journal

of Music Theory, 1/45 (2001), 120 (hereafter referred to as Sly: ‗Schubert‘s Innovations in Sonata

Form‘), divides Schubert‘s sonata form studies into different periods; those before 1817, then a period

of waning interest in the form marked by exceptions such as the Quartettsatz, and works from 1824 to

1828. 100

Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music‘, 193, 201.

53

Leo Black extends Schubert‘s words in the Kupelwieser letter to read ‗a grand

symphony in the manner of Beethoven.‘101

So too, Anthony Gritten believes:

Schubert‘s music responds to the post-Beethovenian predicament with its own

challenge, valuing precisely those qualities that are sidelined in Beethoven‘s

music […] choosing to avoid a direct confrontation with the demands of the

monumental, the heroic, the epic, Schubert chose instead to emphasise ‗quite

different‘ qualities.102

Rather than insist that the Kupelwieser letter is talking about the ‗Great‘ C major

Symphony, which did not exist at the time, an alternative interpretation is that

Schubert appears to have been preparing himself in 1824 for a minor-key symphony.

It has sometimes been offered as a traditional explanation for the number of minor-

key works of this period that Schubert was depressed having fallen ill, but such

interpretations are debateable at best and it is far more tenable to explain this

frequency as symptomatic of the composer‘s interest at that time in conquering the

unique challenges posed by minor-key sonata forms.103

Under this caveat we may

safely ask a different question implied by the Kupelwieser letter than the one which

has motivated the first chapter thus far: in what way did Schubert‘s intention of

making the chamber works in 1824 perform a subservient function outside of their

own autonomy change how he approached that music, if at all? Had Schubert not

intended to pave his way toward the symphony by writing preparatory works, we

101

Leo Black: ‗Schubert: The Complete Voice‘, The Musical Times, 1858/138 (1997), 12 hereafter

referred to as Black: ‗Schubert: The Complete Voice‘. 102

Anthony Gritten: ‗Review: Image Making‘, The Musical Times, 1872/141 (2000), 58. 103

Speaking of the D minor String Quartet, Ulrich writes that it has ‗inspired commentators to dwell

on the inner unity of the quartet and assert that death provides that unity. [But] Such an interpretation

is pure speculation, even though it is made to sound plausible. Need the powerful and dramatic first

movement be considered a struggle with death? Can it not also be seen as depicting Schubert‘s

struggle with a refractory motive?‘ Ulrich: Chamber Music, 294. Adorno writes, ‗Death is imposed

only on created beings, not on works of art, and thus it has appeared in art only in a refracted mode, as

allegory.‘ Theodor W. Adorno: ‗Late Style in Beethoven‘, in Essays on Music, ed. by Richard Leppert,

trans. Susan H. Gillespie, (London: University of California Press, 2002), 566.

54

must assume he would not have composed the chamber works of 1824 as he did. We

may consider this question by comparing Schubert‘s treatment of minor-key sonata

forms in the 1824 chamber works with his minor-key sonata forms written before that

year. The most recent chamber work before those pieces mentioned in the

Kupelwieser letter is the Quartettsatz.

The Quartettsatz was written in 1820 and this leaves a gap of four years

between it and the chamber works in question; chronologically and creatively a lot

could happen in this time and it should not all be automatically credited to the letter

of 1824, should significant differences be found. To counter this difficulty, an

analysis of Schubert‘s most substantial intervening essay in minor-key sonata forms,

the first movement of the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor of 1822, will also be

considered. This work occupies a unique position in the study given that it is itself a

symphony and not of the chamber medium. However it is also unfinished and by its

fragmentary nature could legitimately be included in the category of works

designated as preparatory for a complete symphony. As such it may have more in

common with the 1824 works than the 1820 quartet, but its exclusion from a

discussion of Schubert‘s minor-key works of the period 1820 to 1824 would be

inexcusable.

The analyses undertaken in this study are not concerned with exposing to

whatever extent one chamber work is more ‗orchestral‘ than another; there is not

room for a study of all the aspects raised by such questions. Leo Black seems to

harbour a subdued disdain for claims of chamber works being more or less

‗orchestral‘ or ‗symphonic‘ than normal when he writes, ‗The years 1824-1826 were

55

rich in chamber music, in furtherance of his [Schubert‘s] highest aim, to compose a

grand symphony in the manner of Beethoven‘ and on the word ‗symphony‘ Black

attaches a footnote that quotes Hans Keller as having said ‗the only difference

between a string quartet […] and a symphony is that the quartet (or quintet) is more

symphonic‘.104

In contrast to such investigations the present study will restrict itself

to Schubert‘s handling of sonata form, a feature of the music which is equally

comparable between large-scale instrumental forms of significant substance

regardless of the medium in which they are realised (thus foregoing much of the

difficulties in including the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in a comparative study with

chamber works). In other words this study examines one of the compositional

challenges in which Schubert was engaged from 1820 to 1824 and does so in the

context of Schubert‘s intention to mature in his handling of minor-key sonata form

with the motivating goal of writing a symphony that would exemplify the

accomplishments he made in the meantime.

Schubert could have been preparing himself for composing a grand symphony

when he wrote the Quartettsatz and the ‗Unfinished‘ and as is characteristic of many

artists did not feel the need to tell anyone until he had a run of prolific

accomplishments.105

Such an hypothesis is impossible to prove or disprove, but its

tenability emasculates any conclusions made about the music that assume the

information in the Kupelwieser letter applies only to the works mentioned therein.

Our study will consequently presume to achieve no more than to chart Schubert‘s

104

Black: ‗Oaks and Osmosis‘, 291 doubts an orchestral nature in the A minor and D minor quartets. 105

Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music‘, 201 quotes Schubert saying in 1823 that he had no work for

full orchestra he could send out in clear conscience. Also see Newbould: ‗Schubert‘, 10.

56

development as a composer of minor-key sonata forms (whether they be chamber

music or symphonic in realisation) from 1820 to 1824. While we may not be able to

affirmatively divide the works before and after the letter of 1824, we can certainly

consider them all together and look at how, through their collective agency, Schubert

developed his handling of minor-key sonata form at a time when he was at his most

ambitious.

57

Chapter 2: Sonata Form and Dialectic Process

Hegel and Traditional Views of Sonata Form

The contrasting key areas of a typical sonata form exposition and their resolution over

the course of a piece are often likened to Hegel‘s concept of ‗speculative method‘ or

‗dialectical process‘ as the means by which one idea generates another idea and so on

to a conclusion.1 A dialectic occurs when one term rises from another with which it

is incompatible on the same level; ‗the second term rises out of the inability of any

single term or conception to define itself in the absence of some Other.‘2 As Ian

Biddle writes:

The dialectic constitutes for Hegel a universal form that the human mind brings

to reality: every affirmative action has its own negation, and this contradiction

always implies some future resolution (often referred to as ‗thesis‘, ‗antithesis‘

and ‗synthesis‘, although he [Hegel] rarely used these terms himself).3

The tension thus created stirs motion towards a resolution of the two terms.

According to Fieldman:

[…] the contradiction on the first level [i.e. the terms of the exposition] leads to a

subsequent level (or a series of recursive levels) wherein the contradiction is

resolved, made nonexistent by the larger view that encompasses both earlier

entities.4

To develop this idea, Moritz Hauptmann‘s thoughts on the topic are summarised by

Carl Dahlhaus as follows:

[Hauptmann] construed such phenomena as the triad or the cadence as instances

of the Hegelian model of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. According to

1 Summarised by Fieldman from Hegel‘s The Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences 3

rd edn;

London: Oxford University Press, 1972. See Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 108. Fieldman here

addresses concerns that both the term ‗dialectic‘ and its designation as Hegelian may be controversial

but gives her reasons for using them as she does (see her footnote 21). Those same reasons are

assumed in this thesis and the terms are used in the same way throughout. 2 Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 109.

3 Ian Biddle: ‗Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich‘, Grove Music Online, ed. by L. Macy

(http://www.grovemusic.com, accessed 15 August 2008). 4 Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 109.

58

Hauptmann, in the cadence I–IV–I–V–I the tonic is first ‗set up as a direct entity‘

(as if it were being stated unquestioningly rather than being argued); it is then

‗divided in itself‘ (as the dominant of IV and sub-dominant of V), finally to be

‗reinstalled as a result‘ and thus confirmed (retrospectively, IV and V appear no

longer as tonics to which I relates but as subdominant and dominant of I: I‘s

‗existence as dominant‘ turns to ‗possession of dominant‘). This dialectic, which

he evolved in detail, Hauptmann thought of as an active dialectical process, an

intellectual process in the subject matter itself, not a mere mode of description.

He saw dialectical construction as a valid theoretical representation of a principle

that was active in music and that established it as ‗logic in sound‘ and to that

extent as a science.5

Dahlhaus‘ explanation helps show how a dialectic is essentially a process and not

some kind of template, i.e. one idea placed next to another idea with a resolution of

the ideas occurring in a manner generically or abstractly predetermined.

Now let us consider traditional views of the structure of sonata form in

relation to the notion of dialectic process. Harmonically, a typical major-key sonata

form movement has the dominant appear as a contrast to the tonic and functions as

both the agent of departure from, and return to, the home key. The dominant is the

antithesis of the tonic and yet it rises from that tonic as a necessary part of the tonic‘s

ability to define itself. In the overall harmonic plan, the dominant‘s return to the

tonic forms a perfect cadence and so we have resolution. The dominant is both

antithesis and agent of synthesis and convincingly demonstrates the notion of a

dialectic or a dialectical process whereby an argument can be established and

resolved, all out of necessity, using only the elements inherent in, and definitive of,

the first terms.

In the minor-key model the dialectic is less clear and William Caplin counts

this fact as reason enough for us to avoid the attractive view of sonata form that, he

5 Carl Dahlhaus: ‗Harmony §4. Theoretical Study‘, Grove Music Online, ed. by L. Macy

(http://www.grovemusic.com, accessed 15 August 2008).

59

writes, ‗focuses primarily on the initial dramatic conflict of two keys and its eventual

resolution.‘6 He adds that the minor-key sonata form shows the problem with

understanding sonata form too strictly as this tonal-polarity model. A minor-key

movement typically contrasts the tonic with its relative major and the dominant

usually appears towards the end of the development section to effect closure and

return to the home key. The second key-area, the relative major, presumes to take on

the role of antithesis but the agent of closure is the dominant key and therefore the

antithesis and agent of synthesis are not the same, which is not appropriate for the

Hegelian model of dialectic process. In addition to this, as Caplin writes:

The notion of dissonance in the exposition may be evident enough in major-mode

movements, in which the subordinate key is the dominant region. But in most

minor-mode movements, in which home and subordinate keys share the same

basic scale, the sense of genuine tonal polarity [or antithesis] is less palpable.7

The second key robs the tonic of its leading note and therefore can be considered as

being on the subdominant side; a direction in key relationships that is not

synonymous with one of the essential elements of any dialectic, that of raising tension

or creating motion. Fieldman suggests that this is partially reconciled thus:

The recapitulation of the material that was introduced in the relative major […]

re-establishes the tonic key but often not the tonic‘s mode […] the relative major

is unable, by itself, to effect a return to tonic; although structurally it constitutes

the ‗opposing‘ key, functionally speaking the mediant [the relative major] is only

a dividing-point on the way to the dominant, which will finally trigger the

recapitulation. In this we see that the minor-key plan gives us a historically

validated model of the separation between the two roles usually associated with

the dominant, that of opposing key, here replaced by the mediant, and that of

effecting closure, the role the dominant does assume here.8

Fieldman stresses that in a minor-key plan the dominant is less an established key

area than it is a harmony within the original tonic and concludes ‗[…] for this reason

6 Caplin: Classical Form, 195.


8 Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 106-107.

60

minor-key forms as usually constituted do not work as true dialectics [my emphasis].‘

The parallel between major and minor-mode sonata forms is largely a convention and

‗as an imitation of the much more prevalent major-key design, [this convention] aids

a listener‘s comprehension of the [minor-key‘s] form, but it reflects the large-scale

harmonic mechanism little if at all.‘9

Caplin mentions a similar problem concerning the perception of sonata form

in the terms of the tonal-polarity model when he states that this conventional view

‗says little about the tonal plan of the development. At most, the various keys and

regions explored in that section are considered, following Schenker, to prolong a

more fundamental dominant achieved in the exposition.‘10

The major-mode design

does, however, serve as a generic model for discussions of sonata form and is useful

firstly for didactic purposes, and secondly for supplying us with a familiar rhetoric

with which to follow the music and, indeed, to identify it as sonata form. The

problem is that it does not accurately portray the nature of the opposition between the

different terms of the exposition and as Fieldman claims:

It misrepresents the notion of synthesis, presenting it as event rather than process

by posing the tonic in the recapitulation as a sort of tonal conqueror, which

simply absorbs any non-tonic material back into its orbit […] In that emphasis of

design over process […] our accounts of sonata form have largely precluded a

real consideration of the transformational potential inherent in the notion of

dialectic.11

Fieldman‘s issue here is primarily with the view of sonata form as it is described by

the tonal-polarity model. Caplin would have us add to this a second view of sonata

form derived from earlier baroque practice. In Caplin‘s opinion:

9 Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 107.



61

The tour-of-keys model sees the subordinate key in the exposition as the first of

various keys to be explored throughout the entire movement [… an idea is

presented] in the home key and then [explores] systematically the expressive and

developmental possibilities of that idea by setting it in a variety of related keys.12

The tour-of-keys model appears to fail to uphold the notion of Hegelian dialectic only

if we insist the terms of such a dialectic are always two contrasting key-areas in the

exposition. As will be revealed shortly, this need not be the source of

incompatibility.

It would appear that the minor-key model as dialectic argued by key areas is

inferior to the major-key version but this approach assumes that a dialectic depends

on traditional uses of the dominant in large-scale harmony. A dialectic does not

depend on the dominant for adequate representation; it is simply represented well by

the tonic-dominant polarity. Schubert‘s work in the Quartettsatz betrays the

traditionally tonal-polarity tonic-dominant approach to sonata-form yet maintains a

firm sense of dialectic by other means and, consequently, this leads Schubert to adopt

what Fieldman dubs ‗an entirely different approach to the problems of systematic

tonality.‘13

Certainly this approach will appear controversial when compared to the

rigidness of the tonal-polarity model, but many of its characteristics may be

welcomed by the tour-of-keys model which is an equally valid version of sonata

form.14

Caplin‘s tour-of-keys model liberates the development section from the

12

That the tour-of-keys model is derived from baroque practice does not make it archaic or less official

than the tonal-polarity model. Caplin writes, ‗in the second half of the [eighteenth] century the tonal-

polarity model gained ground and eventually came to dominate tonal organisation in the sonata […]

but the tour-of-keys model continued to have an effect.‘ Caplin: Classical Form, 196. 13

Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 109. 14

As Charles Rosen wrote, ‗[Sonata form] is not a definite form like a minuet, a da capo aria, or a

French overture; it is, like the fugue, a way of writing, a feeling for proportion, direction, and texture

rather than a pattern.‘ Quoted from Rosen‘s The Classical Style in the blurb on the back of Rosen:

Sonata Forms.

62

oppression of an obsequious dominant influence and consequently frees up any

dialectic to effect closure in its own terms.

Schubert‘s sonata forms in minor-keys, however, manage to conform to the

notion of dialectic by making use of a Grundgestalt. A Grundgestalt, as used in both

Fieldman‘s article and the present study, is understood to mean a defining or

disruptive ‗moment‘ that sparks off debate and explains the salient features of an

entire movement rather than the alternative, more literal interpretation; ‗motive‘.15

Schubert uses the Grundgestalt to raise the issue of conflict on a smaller scale than

the large-scale key-areas of a tonal plan, and yet that small-scale involvement carries

with it far reaching repercussions which ultimately influence decisions on the

grandest scale. The Grundgestalt contains all the ingredients for incompatibility and

resolution. Schubert reconciles the inherent difficulties of dialectic in the large-scale

traditional tonal schemata of minor-key forms with the use of a Grundgestalt on the

small-scale. What is more he overtly makes efforts to highlight instances where

engrained attitudes would lead us to expect rhetorical and tonal events that may not

be necessary for the resolution of the individual dialectic confronted by a work, albeit

on the global stage of a specific genre (this will be shown in subsequent chapters).

As Gordon Sly writes, ‗One characteristic of Schubert‘s compositional organization

persists […] a movement‘s overarching tonal design reflects some feature presented

in its opening music.‘16

The ensuing analyses will attempt to explain several

15

Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 118 f.n. 41. 16

Sly: ‗Schubert‘s Innovations in Sonata Form‘, 120.

63

previously unexplained anomalies in the sonata form movements in question using

this very principle.

Beethoven is known to have divided the two duties traditionally adopted by

the dominant (dramatic contrast and tonal closure) in a major-key movement by

affording the role of providing contrast to a non-dominant key and only the role of

tonal closure to the dominant.17

Yet Beethoven avoided criticisms of corrupting the

form thanks to his ‗inclination to choose sharp-side tonalities for his second keys, so

that the productive mechanical tension associated with the dominant is actually

heightened.‘18

Webster confirms this practice when he writes, ‗in the middle and late

periods Beethoven often places the entire second group in a remote key. Sharp-side

keys are most common, as in the ―Waldstein‖ and ―Hammerklavier‖ Sonatas […]

Schubert favours either neutrally diatonic keys, or darker remote keys on the flat side,

related to the more passive subdominant realm.‘‘19

Fieldman adds to this observation

that, ‗in part it is because of his [Beethoven‘s] continued reliance on the dominant‘s

ability to harness even distant tonalities and direct them toward closure.‘20

Schubert‘s exploration of tonal relationships did not tend to share this ‗sharp-side‘

inclination and was, until recent years, less well received.21

However, if the form of a

movement is to develop from within rather than be a shell imposed on a piece from

17

Beethoven uses the tonic major mediant as the area of contrast in the first movement of the

‗Waldstein‘ sonata, op.53, therefore applying the minor-key model to a major-key movement. 18




For example, consider Hutchings: Schubert, 99. He writes, ‗The Beethoven modulation is

architecturally functional and therefore thrilling beyond the wonder of its passing colour […] But with

Schubert modulation is used for its own appeal; it is the purple patch of a given point.‘ Also

McNaught: ‗Franz Schubert‘, 129.

64

the outside,22

the exposition should contain within itself both an innate

incompatibility between its terms while simultaneously providing the tools needed to

resolve that incompatibility. The choice of non-dominant key area should be

informed by the incompatibility in the opening and whether or not that second key is

flat or sharp-side is entirely dependent on the demands of the unique dialectic of

which it is a part, not the expectations of an indifferent traditional model.

Many such observations of Schubert and, to an extent, early Beethoven

presume that all harmonic relationships in a key are heard in relation to the dominant

and are subordinate to it; ‗if another key is a factor in the exposition, it is heard at best

as part of directed motion toward the dominant, and at worst as a deflection away

from the dominant.‘23

However, while composers may have toyed with the path from

the first term of the dialectic to the dominant to expand the tonal interpretation of a

dialectical antithesis, it would take considerably greater effort to find a substitute for

22

Such accusations of artificial use of classical forms are thrown at Schubert‘s innovations in sonata

form while innovations in Beethoven‘s use of the form are often lauded as ingenious and necessary

consequents of the music itself. Reasons for such criticisms will be understood in the light of the role

of the dominant in sonata form but an explanation of Schubert‘s actions will be understood in the light

of sonata form as dialectic. See comments from Robert Bruce, Hans Gal, Anton Rubinstein and Felix

Salzer compiled in Poundie Burstein: ‗Lyricism, Structure, and Gender in Schubert‘s G Major String

Quartet‘ The Musical Quarterly, 1/81 (1997), 51-52 hereafter referred to as Burstein: ‗Lyricism‘. It is

touched off in Carner: ‗The Orchestral Music‘, 21. See also Alfred Einstein: Music in the Romantic

Era (London: J. M. Dent, 1947), 89, 91, Hutchings: Schubert, 117, McNaught: ‗Franz Schubert‘, 129

and Arnold Whittall: ‗The Sonata Crisis: Schubert in 1828‘, Music Review, 2/30 (1969), 130. For a

statement to the contrary see Walter Gray: ‗Schubert the Instrumental Composer‘, The Musical

Quarterly, 4/64 (1978), 485. He writes, ‗sonata form was never for Beethoven, or for his younger

contemporary Schubert, a rigid form – it was a living, growing, and changing ideal.‘ 23

Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 112. Thomas A. Denny writes, ‗in most three-key expositions

of Schubert, the second key area clearly serves as an intermediate step en route to the dominant.‘ See

Thomas A. Denny: ‗Articulation, Elision, and Ambiguity in Schubert‘s Mature Sonata Forms: The

Op.99 Trio Finale in Its Context‘, The Journal of Musicology, 3/6 (1988), 344 hereafter referred to as

Denny: ‗Articulation‘. Webster makes similar comments, see Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and

Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 30.

65

the dominant‘s capacity to effect closure in a piece. This creates a problem, as

Fieldman illustrates:

If the only tonal relationships available for exploration by dialectical means are

those whose ultimate dependence on the dominant can be made clear, other key

areas can only represent tonal contrast of varying degrees, but not the kinds of

mechanical relationships upon whose structural interactions a piece rests.24

We may add to this comment Denny‘s observation that:

Throughout most of his life, Schubert experimented with tonal return and

thematic recall as elements which affected one‘s perception of formal closure and

balance, playing with the timing of these elements in the process of closure, and

testing the desirability of articulative clarity in the process of musical form.25

Fieldman suggests that the Quartettsatz is a work designed to deal with the problem

of tonal closure and that if we understand sonata form as a dialectic, as a narrative

borne of multiple small details which give life and meaning to larger events in a

piece, we will see how Schubert created a rhetoric and harmonic plan appropriate to

the different specifics of his tonal dialectics while staying true to the real nature and

requirements of sonata form:

A full understanding of sonata form as a dialectic requires a grasp of the

argument not as defined by large blocks of musical ‗stuff‘ in conflict but as a

narrative, built out of a myriad of intimate details, in which the big events of a

piece […] are less than meaningful until they are understood as consequences of

events and processes that are initiated on a far smaller scale.26

Walter Gray makes an inspiring though somewhat mysterious proposition which it is

hoped the following analyses in chapters 3 through 6 will go some way towards

demonstrating and clarifying. As Gray writes:

24


Denny: ‗Articulation‘, 341. 26

Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 113. In a footnote (no.20) on page 108 Fieldman directs us to

an article demonstrating how ‗process rather than design was valued in contemporary thought‘. She

cites Ian Biddle: ‗F.W.J. Schelling‘s Philosophie der Kunst: An Emergent Semiology of Music,‘ in Ian

Bent (Ed.), Music Theory in the Age of Romanticism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,

1996), 25-36.

66

It is true that Schubert did not hesitate to introduce striking and even

revolutionary changes within formal structures, especially sonata and rondo

forms; but these are always incorporated and absorbed into the classical

structures, so that instead of weakening them or even essentially changing them,

he enriches them.27

Schubert’s Sonata Form

Schubert‘s approach to sonata form, as evinced in his minor-key sonatas from 1820 to

1824, attempts to re-establish minor-key sonata form as dialectic process, often at the

expense of preconceived notions of structural protocol. A study of a group of

Schubert‘s minor-key sonata forms will inevitably reveal ‗striking‘ and

‗revolutionary‘ features which conventional analytical processes are ill-equipped to

deal with. Those features might best be understood as peculiar to individual works

and prove to be most profitably considered separately from the conventional

stereotypes from which they plan to liberate themselves. However, even when one

attempts to avoid comparing a work against a static, generic model there is always the

likelihood that the very collection of works under consideration, for we are

considering a collection of works said to be ‗preparatory‘, will propose or create their

own paradigm. In other words a set of features common to the individual works in a

group of pieces under discussion is likely to emerge and suggest a template of its own

against which are measured the works that made up its constitution. Both

circumstances are prone to create a degree of dogmatism where we might criticise

one piece for not adhering to the general trends exhibited by the other pieces

considered alongside it. We should bear in mind the following words from Donald

Tovey regarding dogmatic generalisations:

27

Walter Gray: ‗The Classical Nature of Schubert‘s Lieder‘, The Musical Quarterly, 1/57 (1971), 71.

67

Dogmatism is entirely with the ordinary doctrines. These are supported only by a

dead weight of uniform ‗masterpieces‘ which the world is politely letting die,

whereas the record of the immortal classics presents a variety of forms which can

yield their principles only to an attention concentrated on each individual case.

The work stands or falls by itself. What may be irrelevant or crude in ninety-nine

works, may be a crowning perfection in the hundredth.28

Yet a movement in sonata form is a work purposefully cast in a certain genre that

carries with it its own conventions and expectations and so, though that work may be

an individual, it still engages in a legitimate dialogue with a standard set of defaults

which are either acknowledged or rejected to create the individual work. Similarly,

thanks to Schubert‘s linking certain works together in his letter to Kupelwieser we

can legitimately count specific pieces as part of their own group. This group may

carry with it numerous expectations and it is the duty of the analyst to ensure the

expectations to which he or she subscribes are not at odds with advice such as that

quoted above from Tovey. For example, gauging the efficiency of how a group of

works said to serve a common purpose progresses toward the fulfilment of that

purpose from one piece to the next is preferable to examining whether each

successive work is more or less ‗symphonic‘ than the previous one or whether each

successive work shows progress in the same direction; much of the act of preparing

oneself is indebted to the freedom to pursue different possibilities and creative

trajectories in preparatory works. In short we are searching either for evidence of

increased experimentation in successive works or the crystallisation of an idea. Thus

the difference between observing trends over a series of works and the act of

constructing an artificial common ground from which to pass judgement on

individual pieces within that group is kept clear.

28

Tovey: Essays in Musical Analysis, 212.

68

Charles Fisk writes of how even noble attempts to find commonalities in

Schubert‘s sonata form run into difficulty:

Recent scholars, explicitly aware of the dominance of Beethoven in the critical

traditions they have inherited, have sought increasingly to develop unprejudiced

characterological terms and even analytic models especially appropriate to

Schubert‘s music. Among the most sensitive of these are Godel, Hinrichsen and

Gingerich […] In all their accounts, however, any compelling logic in the

succession of events in [Schubert‘s sonata forms], any sense of truly functional

differentiation between these events and of why they occur in a particular order,

sometimes all but vanishes […] Contemplation, remembrance, associative

richness, and even the dependence of the conscious on the unconscious have all

finally found a rightful place in these accounts of Schubert‘s music, but the

evolution of the particular unresolved tensions and inner dramas so pervasive in

the mental life that this music evokes has not.29

Fisk notes that these writers are liable to leave behind in their analyses the disruptive

dramatic effect of certain events on the grounds that they are ‗normal for Schubert

[…] simply participating, without residue in the kind of motivic and tonal unfolding

through which Schubert both develops and supplants the procedures of his

forerunners in sonata forms.‘30

As Fisk argues:

Perhaps Schubert‘s material is at odds with its formal framework; but if so, then

he exploits the tension between his forms and his material as an expressive effect

[…] Schubert did not simply pour his musical ideas into formal moulds; he made

these ideas struggle to find their own full voice and autonomy within them […]

The formulations of Godel, Hinrichsen, and Gingerich apply more aptly to

Schubert‘s opening movements than to the subsequent course of his

multimovement works.31

For those that doubt the compatibility of Schubert‘s innovations with the sonata form

he inherited, Scott Messing reminds us of the impact Arnold Schoenberg made on

Schubert reception:

Schoenberg carved for Schubert a historical niche that made the older composer

an individual who possessed in equal measures a mature respect for and intimate

29

Charles Fisk: Returning Cycles: Contexts for the Interpretation of Schubert’s Impromptus and Last

Sonatas (London: University of California Press, 2001), 274 hereafter referred to as Fisk: Returning

Cycles. 30

Fisk: Returning Cycles, 275. 31

Ibid., 275.

69

understanding of his predecessors while having the self-awareness to forge a

personal style of originality and boldness […] 32

Schoenberg showed his respect for this trait in Schubert and demonstrated how he

himself followed that example when Schoenberg based his own String Quartet No. 3,

op. 30 on Schubert‘s quartet in A minor. Schoenberg‘s quartet is clearly indebted to

Schubert‘s work and demonstrates a detailed understanding of the older master‘s style

while at the same time it is full of Schoenberg‘s originality and all the while

Schoenberg reserves the right to respectfully disagree with Schubert‘s example when

necessary.33

Martha Hyde has written good work on the relationship between these

two composers as part of a larger investigation but it is a rich field and deserving of

further study.

To return to Schubert and the group of sonata form movements to be

investigated in this study, it must be admitted that much has already been written

about the most characteristic features of Schubert‘s sonata forms and until those

features can be confirmed or denied in the context of the analyses to follow, there is

little more required at this time than to discuss them in the light of what has already

been written so that we may calibrate our sense of surprise accordingly when we find

evidence of these elements in the various works under discussion:

32

Scott Messing: Schubert in the European Imagination Volume 2: Fin-De-Siècle Vienna (USA:

University of Rochester Press, 2007), 196. 33

Martha M. Hyde: ‗Neoclassic and Anachronistic Impulses in Twentieth-Century Music‘, Music

Theory Spectrum, 2/18 (1996), 220-235 hereafter referred to as Hyde: ‗Neoclassic and Anachronistic

Impulses‘.

70

1. Trithematic and Three-key Expositions

One hundred years after Schubert‘s death Samuel L. Laciar made the following

observation, reproduced in full for its comprehensiveness in terms of Schubert‘s

entire output:

In the opening movement of [the D major quartet from 1814] appears for the first

time that device of form of which Schubert was so fond in his first movements –

the use of two themes of equal importance, both in the tonic, with the second

following the first immediately or almost immediately. The first subject is too

important to be considered an introductory theme and the second too important to

be regarded as a subsidiary, nor from the construction can it be considered as a

theme in two parts. The first is usually rhythmic and the second melodic […] and

both are used about equally in the development. Schubert used this device of

form in all his quartets up to 1820 except in the G minor and in all composed

after that date except the A minor. The finest use of it in his chamber-music

appears in the D minor quartet.34

Laciar‘s early account fails to acknowledge that the second of the three themes is

usually in a key-area of its own. This fact leads some scholars to deduce: if the extra

theme is to be grouped with one of the other groups it is to be the second. In his

observation of a ‗double second group‘, James Webster believes that, ‗Schubert‘s

second group often divides into two separate sections in different keys, of which the

first presents the lyrical second theme in a remote key, and the second brings more

nearly conventional paragraphs in the dominant.‘35

Webster even credits Beethoven‘s

Coriolan overture with inspiring this practice.36

Despite such disagreement as evinced by Laciar and Webster, the result in the

music is anything but scattered. Commenting on the three-key exposition of the D

minor String Quartet, Jack A. Westrup writes, ‗the tautness of this construction

34

Samuel L. Laciar: ‗The Chamber Music of Franz Schubert‘, The Musical Quarterly, 4/14 (1928),

518. 35


Ibid., 27.

71

disproves the generalisation that Schubert‘s expositions are diffuse. That he is

sometimes tempted to wander is undeniable; but here there is nothing irrelevant.‘37

Westrup‘s comment about Schubert‘s tendency to wander is debateable but certainly

not meant to relate to the works with which our study is concerned and so we may

focus on Westrup‘s main point instead and confidently apply his endorsement of the

D minor quartet‘s construction to all the trithematic pieces that will be analysed in

this thesis.

Peter Pesic points out that Schubert‘s music often moves about a circle of

sixths to decide the key-areas his three-key expositions.38

The movement of sixths,

Pesic argues, observes the following cycle before returning to the tonic:

I→VI→ VI/ VI→ VI/ VI/ VI. This may be simplified in two stages. Firstly, the final

key is the enharmonic equivalent of I giving us the formula: I→ VI→VI/ VI→I.

Secondly, if we substitute the numerals for pitches we will easily spot the next

enharmonic equivalent: C→A →F=E→C. Here we have the tonic going to a second

key area before reaching the dominant that will close the cycle with an authentic

cadence. This may indeed form a plausible model for Schubert‘s three-key

expositions which in other treatises have been described as evoking third-

37

Westrup: Schubert: Chamber Music, 38. 38

Pesic suggests that this has parallels with a piece of prose written by the composer, ‗Mein Traum‘,

which ‗may provide a way of understanding Schubert‘s characteristic three-key sonata exposition‘.

Peter Pesic: ‗Schubert‘s Dream‘, 19th-Century Music, 2/23 (1999), 137 hereafter referred to as Pesic:

‗Schubert‘s Dream‘.

72

relationships as opposed to this more helpful ‗cycle of sixths‘.39

For Webster, ‗in

harmonic terms, the first section in a double second group always leads from the

tonic to the dominant, and thus always constitutes a transition.‘40

Fieldman takes

issue with this blanket interpretation in her analysis of the Quartettsatz where she

argues that the first part of the second group is much more than a transition, that it is

a second subject group of its own: a proposition which will be expanded on in

Chapter 3.41

In contrast to Webster and Fieldman, Charles Rosen believes, ‗the three-key

exposition for Schubert is not the interplay of three equivalent tonalities […] the

second key is largely a contrast of mode.‘42

Elsewhere Rosen considers evident in

early Beethoven and Schubert a ‗conception of sonata form as essentially melodic;

the exposition becomes a succession of themes, separated by connecting

developments.‘43

Hence Leo Black‘s observation of Schubert‘s tendency to develop

material even as it is stated.44

However this opinion of Rosen‘s should not be taken

to imply that Schubert does not have important structural reasons for employing

three-key expositions, as will be revealed in successive chapters.

2. Development; sequence and stasis

39

Pesic: ‗Schubert‘s Dream‘, 142-143. 40


Hali Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 116. 42

Charles Rosen: ‗Schubert‘s Inflections of Classical Form‘, in The Cambridge Companion to

Schubert, ed. by Christopher H. Gibbs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 87 hereafter

referred to as Rosen: ‗Schubert‘s Inflections of Classical Form‘. 43

Rosen: Sonata Forms, 354. 44

Black: Music and Belief, 134.

73

Webster suggests that to climax in the development, which Schubert typically does

not, is a Romantic development imposed on the classical sonata form. In Webster‘s

opinion:

The weight of romantic sonata form was […] often displaced away from the

symmetrical polarity of the exposition as antecedent and the recapitulation as

consequent, onto the development as climax and the coda as apotheosis […]

[later Webster comments] in overall construction, they [Schubert‘s development

sections] exhibit one peculiar feature […] organization of the whole as a gigantic

sequence, each member comprising contrasting ideas in several keys.‘45

Though it is true that Schubert often opts not to climax in his development sections it

should be pointed out that his codas, particularly those in the pieces that will be

considered in this thesis, do tend to act as an apotheosis for his sonata forms and are

in that respect very much in keeping with Romantic thinking.46

To return to

Webster‘s observation of Schubert‘s development sections as sequences, Rosen

identifies Schubert‘s unusual use of sequence in the Piano Sonata in A major:

This development uses Classical form for entirely new purposes. The traditional

driving force of a development is suspended: in place of the energetic sequential

movement that had once seemed essential and that we expect from a

development, Schubert creates lyric sequences that have no direction, but rock

back and forth.47

and argues that:

Schubert‘s innovations in sonata forms are less extensions of classical style than

completely new inventions, which lead to a genuinely new style [… such as] his

handling of tonality in expositions and his use of sequence [… but] perhaps

greatest of all: the oscillation between two tonal levels to achieve a kind of

stasis.48

45


For example, Anne Hyland shows how a stratified compositional approach in the first movement of

the A minor quartet has its dual layers brought together for the first time in the coda. See Anne

Hyland: ‗Linearity and Motion across the Schubertian Landscape: A Reappraisal‘, Society for

Musicology in Ireland Annual Conference, DIT Rathmines (12 May 2007). 47

Rosen: ‗Schubert‘s Inflections of Classical Form‘, 91. 48

Rosen: Sonata Forms, 360.

74

In Rosen‘s opinion, ‗Schubert uses his developments to write new melodies with the

motifs of the exposition.‘49

The trend in the above citations is to dub Schubert‘s

innovations as efforts towards contributing to a new style of sonata form but this is

misleading. Schubert does not reinvent sonata form; he liberates it from bromidic

conventions that serve only to strangle a form that is in fact flexible enough to cater

for diverse musical personalities without breaking. This is a point that can only be

backed up by detailed examination of numerous works such as the ensuing chapters

will demonstrate.

3. Ambiguous, Literally Transposed, and ‘Off-Tonic’ Recapitulations

The issue of resolution in sonata form is particularly complicated with regard to

Schubert‘s handling of form; Denny believes, ‗the area of Schubert‘s most persistent

deviation from the norm of classical sonata form results from his prolonged search for

viable alternatives to the prevailing taste for dramatic articulative clarity at the onset

of the recapitulation.‘50

Similarly, Nicholas Marston argues, ‗the critical tradition that sees sonata

form as antithetical to Schubert‘s genius has tended to be particularly hard on his

handling of recapitulations [… deeming it] ―mere routine work‖ for Schubert.‘51

The

implication is that Schubert did not give as much time or thought to his

recapitulations as he afforded other sections. In a related technique, Schubert often

49

Ibid., 361. 50


Nicholas Marston: ‗Schubert‘s Homecoming‘, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 2/125

(2000), 255 hereafter referred to as Marston: ‗Schubert‘s Homecoming‘. In footnote 26 he lists

various scholars of this opinion. Such ambiguity is criticised by McNaught: ‗Franz Schubert‘, 129,

135.

75

began recapitulations in the subdominant – a technique which such scholars as

Donald Tovey dubbed as a labour-saving device.52

Brian Newbould refutes Tovey‘s

now dated observation, which cited the first movement in the Fifth Symphony as an

example of this technique, with the fact that in that recapitulation, ‗Schubert does

change the transition, adding sixteen bars of new invention. If one wishes to impute

laziness (to a composer who produced a thousand works in eighteen years?) one must

choose one‘s examples carefully.‘53

Schubert frequently repeats the second group literally or almost identically.54

James Webster associates this downplaying or reinterpreting of the double return55

as

a consequence of a Romantic bias against ‗literal repetition and formal symmetry‘ but

such accusations can hardly be brought against Schubert;56

on the contrary Schubert

has often been criticised in older musicology for indulging in repetition and not

varying his recapitulations.57

Schubert‘s reasons for downplaying the appearance of

the double return must be different to reasons held by Romantic composers struggling

to reconcile their artistic impulses with the strict Classical style. However, a different

feature of Romantic sonata form mentioned by Webster, namely the elevation of the

52

Tovey wrote that Schubert chose this path ‗in order that the second subject may come automatically

into the tonic without needing an altered transition-passage‘. Cited in Newbould: Schubert: The Music

and the Man, 394. 53

Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man, 394-395. 54


The simultaneous return at the beginning of the recapitulation of both the tonic key and first group

material. 56


For example, see Hans Gal: Franz Schubert and the Essence of Melody (London: Victor Gollancz,

1974), 108 (hereafter referred to as Gal: Franz Schubert and the Essence of Melody) and McNaught:

‗Franz Schubert‘, 137.

76

coda to the status of apotheosis, will be seen in the following analyses to be quite

apt.58

When considering the A Major Piano Sonata, Rosen writes, ‗it is clear that

Schubert can handle a Classical preparation of a return by a dominant pedal with

great skill, but he does not want it to have the same significance in his forms that it

had in the work of previous generations.‘59

Elsewhere Rosen comments:

The opening of a recapitulation in IV is […] used more frequently by Schubert

than by any other composer. It is significant that he abandoned both these

procedures in his last works, in which the handling of classical form is at its

finest.60

The implication is that Schubert‘s use of subdominant recapitulations was an

immaturity which he grew out of. However, one need only refer back to the Tovey-

Newbould dialogue mentioned above to appreciate the subtle craftsmanship that

Schubert employed even when using a subdominant recapitulation. It is likely there

were good reasons for Schubert to compose in that manner at that time, rather than

fluctuations of musical competency. Thomas Denny, for example, points out that the

practice of beginning a recapitulation in the subdominant was more common in

Schubert‘s time than is normally admitted.61

Such comments introduce the

possibility that Schubert wrote in a certain way at a certain time in his career to

engage with and explore contemporary compositional practices.

Earlier it was mentioned that Schubert‘s sonata forms were divided by

Gordon Sly into two categories, it was not mentioned that it was Schubert‘s use of

58

See Edward T. Cone: ‗Schubert's Unfinished Business‘, 19th-Century Music, Essays for Joseph

Kerman, 3/7 (1984), 222-232 hereafter referred to as Cone: ‗Schubert‘s Unfinished Business‘. 59

Rosen: ‗Schubert‘s Inflections of Classical Form‘, 92. 60

Rosen: Sonata Forms, 360. 61

Denny: ‗Articulation‘, 355.

77

off-tonic recapitulations that characterised the works on each side of that divide. Sly

identifies how:

in the early-period sonatas, off-tonic recapitulations are frequently incorporated

into larger tonal designs that contravene the form‘s usual divided voice-leading

structure. Many of these tonal plans depart so substantially from the norm that

attempts to read this structure become hopelessly forced and meaningless. The

late-period works, by contrast, invariably exhibit an accommodation between

these two forces of tonal organization. Thematic returns continue to be carried by

non-tonic degrees, but larger tonal contexts that allow the divided voice-leading

structure to unfold are now constant.62

Whereas Rosen seemed to credit Schubert‘s compositional maturation with the

abandonment of unconventional methods, Sly here takes a much more amenable

approach: he demonstrates how Schubert maintained an individual method but was

able to reconcile it with the principles normally thought to be inaccessible to those

who stray from the prescribed formats. This concept is at the very heart of Schubert‘s

understanding of sonata form but at this point we should discuss one final externally

characteristic feature of Schubert‘s sonata form, his use of transitions:

4. Transitions

Newbould identifies three broad categories of transition.63

The first, most

characteristic of Beethoven and the middle of the Classical period, involves careful

preparation to facilitate modulation to the new key through its dominant. A composer

often approached the key a fifth higher than their true destination so that it would be

possible to fall naturally with gravity into the second key area from a key a fifth

higher, even though that second key was not a fifth below the first key-area.

The second category, often used in the earlier part of the Classical period, 62

Sly: ‗Schubert‘s Innovations in Sonata Form‘, 120-121. 63

Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man, 393.

78

skips the transition entirely and cuts immediately into the next key. The impression

that a new key has been arrived at is aided by cadences and caesurae. The third

category is the shortened transition and this is the type favoured by Schubert.

Transitions of no more than four-bars are quite common in this category. Newbould

points out examples of fast, compressed transitions in the ‗Unfinished‘ and the

‗Great‘ and argues that they need to be understood ‗in the light of Schubert‘s practice

in smaller forms‘.64

Given that many of Schubert‘s modulations demonstrate

movement between keys a third apart it is helpful to note Newbould‘s comment that

‗where keys a third apart are involved there is no necessity for the time-consuming

preparatory manoeuvres of a conventional transition.‘65

Sometimes Schubert‘s first groups are closed and sound like the first part of a

ternary structure but are followed by transitions to a second group. This is not

uncommon in Schubert and examples can be found in the first movements of both the

‗Unfinished‘ and the ‗Great‘.66

As Webster writes:

Rather than prepare the second group by a clear transition which establishes the

new key through its dominant [Newbould‘s first category, Schubert] prefers to

modulate abruptly, or to imply a different key from the one in which the second

group actually begins [… Webster then adds] Associated with the lyrical impulse

we find a tendency towards symmetrical periods or closed forms […] often

alternating with long modulating transitions.67

Later he argues:

In the manner of closing the first group, the nature of the transition itself, the

choice of key for the beginning of the second group, and the way that key is

prepared – in all of these Schubert‘s typical procedures differ significantly from

those of the Classical masters. And the principle which seems to explain these

novel approaches is Schubert‘s aversion to the dominant […] Indeed, many of

Schubert‘s transitions fail to leave the tonic at all; they remain ‗on‘ the dominant

64

Newbould: Schubert and the Symphony, 192-193. 65

Ibid., 193. 66

Ibid., 230-231. 67

Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 19, 20.

79

[…] all of Schubert‘s transitions – both those which lead to the dominant, and

those which establish an intermediate key to begin the second group – remain in

or around the tonic until the very last moment.68

Given the tenuous role of the dominant in minor-key sonata forms when those forms

are composed as dialectics, Schubert‘s so-called ‗aversion to the dominant‘ may not

be the reason for the behaviour Webster observes but rather prove to be the result of a

calculated statement against the tyrannical and unjustified weight of the dominant in

our typical interpretation of sonata form (this will be shown to be very much the case

in chapters 3 and 5). Rosen ties Schubert‘s transitions in with the composer‘s

approach to overall harmonic plans in a manner that questions the authority of the

tonal-polarity model of sonata form and might be summoned to the aid proving

Schubert‘s approach to sonata-form dialectic:

[Schubert] developed an original harmonic structure by refusing to exploit the

contrast of harmony at the cadences, he now uses an analogous procedure to

revolutionize sonata technique. He eliminates the dramatic contrast of key area,

and substitutes a dramatic contrast of chromatic alterations. The dramatic power

is focused upon moments of transition which seem to explode briefly almost

without warning, but the large-scale harmonic structure is no longer burdened

with the standard articulated tensions of tonic-dominant relationships, and can

achieve lyric continuity and breadth.‘69

Rosen‘s discussion of Schubert‘s transitions leads back to his comments quoted

earlier about tonal stasis from the sequences in Schubert‘s development sections.

Both techniques have the potential to be explained in terms of Schubert‘s attempts to

show minor-key sonata form as dialectic and free it from the constraints of a

convention that does not adequately encapsulate it. The analyses that will be

conducted in chapters 3 through 6 will offer practical examples of Schubert‘s

68

Ibid., 22, 24, 30. 69

Rosen: ‗Schubert‘s inflections of Classical form‘, 83.

80

characteristically novel development sections and transitions being perfectly logical

from a dialectic perspective, as well as offering examples of those other features

mentioned above (‗off-tonic‘ recapitulations and trithematic, three-key expositions)

being used for the efficient realisation of the dialectic challenges faced by each piece.

81

Chapter 3: The Quartettsatz, D703 (1820) and Fieldman: A

Model

As a sonata form movement the Quartettsatz appears most unconventional.1 It is a

minor-key movement with three keys in the exposition, none of which are the

expected major mediant. The second key-area in the exposition contains long runs of

stable, tuneful material that establishes it as something more than a key ‗on the way

to‘ the dominant, G, which itself appears in the exposition in the major form.

Where there would ordinarily be a retransition via the dominant to the tonic

for the repeat there is not. The recapitulation itself, arriving at bar 195, begins in

neither the tonic key or with the first group‘s thematic material. Daniel Coren

comments, ‗without the normal return of primary material it becomes very difficult to

demarcate any boundary at all between development and recapitulation in this work.‘2

The movement ends with what appears to be a coda in which we have the only return

of the first group‘s thematic material and an unnervingly brief return to the tonic key.

There is no rendition of the second group material in the tonic key. Frankly, that

from bar 195 onwards can be considered a recapitulation at all is questionable until

we understand the motives for the work‘s many anomalies.

Despite their admiration for the piece, James Webster and Robert Bruce deem

the Quartettsatz formally anomalous, while Martin Chusid considers the work a

1 Examination of this quartet as a sonata form movement is not to say the Quartettsatz represents

Schubert‘s overall approach to sonata form prior to 1820 or, indeed, 1824. Denny comments, ‗the

early quartet forms are too singular and, more important, too remote in terms of Schubert‘s

compositional development, to be mentioned in the same breath with developments of the early

1820s.‘ Denny: ‗Articulation‘, 357. 2 Coren: ‗Ambiguity‘, 574.

82

movement in a straightforward bipartite form.3 It is Hali Fieldman‘s thesis, however,

that the Quartettsatz is a movement in sonata form which will most profitably explain

Schubert‘s compositional processes in this work and allow us to productively

compare this movement with later quartets whose first movement forms are not so

difficult to hear as works in sonata form.4 As Hepokoski and Darcy write:

In order to be considered a sonata, a work does not have to fulfil a certain number

of tonal, melodic, or structural criteria before being admitted under that

classification. Instead, to call a work a sonata is to conclude that, on the basis of

the evidence at hand, it does indeed invite us (in any number of ways) to use our

generic conception of a sonata as the regulative principle of interpretation by

which to understand its events.5

3 Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 26. Robert Bruce: ‗The Lyrical

Element in Schubert‘s Instrumental Forms,‘ Music Review, 2/30 (1969), 131-137 hereafter referred to

as Bruce: ‗The Lyrical Element‘. Martin Chusid: ‗Schubert‘s Chamber Music: Before and after

Beethoven‘ in Gibbs, The Cambridge Companion to Schubert, ed. by Christopher H. Gibbs, 178-179

hereafter referred to as Chusid: ‗Schubert‘s Chamber Music‘. Martin Chusid writes, ‗in bipartite

movements only the thematic ideas heard in the final section of the first part need recur in the tonic key

during the latter portion of the movement.‘ Chusid‘s appraisal is indeed straightforward and he claims

that it is the obvious choice. That Bruce and Webster did not recognise it as such suggests that it is

perhaps not so much overtly representative of bipartite form as it ultimately and externally coincides

with that form. In the end, deeming the Quartettsatz a bipartite form in the manner Chusid does tells

us little about the music or its concerns and we are reminded of Denny‘s comment that to describe a

work in some, or even no, form at all must not be ‗merely an exercise in sterile categorization.‘ See

Denny: ‗Articulation‘, 341. It is not possible to label the Quartettsatz a ‗sonata form‘ movement

without inviting debate. Such a view raises myriad probing questions about the work, sonata form

itself, and Schubert‘s development as a composer. The observation that it is in bipartite form invites

no comment save the argument that it is actually in sonata form. Hepokoski and Darcy write, ‗any

analysis that stops after the mere labelling is no analysis at all.‘ (See Hepokoski and Darcy: Elements

of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2006), 610 hereafter referred to as Hepokoski and Darcy: Elements.) This is

not to say that Chusid is wrong, but if another theory can be proven just as well and profits us more

insights, that alternative theory should be pursued. In a criticism of considering the Op.99 Trio Finale

to be a parallel bipartite form Denny makes a comment that appears to apply equally well to Martin

Chusid in this case: Denny writes, ‗an interpretation of this movement [the Trio Finale] as a parallel

bipartite form […] is based on the untenable notion that early nineteenth-century instrumental form is

primarily, if not exclusively, a thematic affair. Consequently it asks that we ignore the powerful and

controlling role of tonal movement in the articulation of form.‘ See Denny: ‗Articulation‘, 365. 4 Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 99-146.

5 Hepokoski and Darcy: Elements, 610. We may add to this Thomas Denny‘s comments which

challenge the exclusiveness of the term ‗sonata form‘: ‗That there is no consensus as to whether

[certain works] are or are not in fact ‗sonata forms‘ doubtless reveals more about the inadequacies and

inflexibilities of the concept ‗sonata form‘ than about the categorical distinctness of various unusual

movements […] a rehearing of [the Op.99 Trio Finale (this movement was the subject of his article,

but it forms many parallels with the present study)] as a sonata form thrusts it into a wider

compositional context in which it can illuminate not only other extremely unconventional sonata-form

83

We may ask if the Quartettsatz shows Schubert struggling to make sonata form his

own6 while in the later quartets he manages to reconcile his personal idiosyncrasies

with the standard recognisable harmonic plan and rhetoric of the form.7 Alternatively

we may ask if Schubert uncovered a new way of composing in sonata form when he

wrote the Quartettsatz but, deeming this new set of innovations not especially suited

to a grand symphony, shied away from using them in chamber pieces designed to

prepare for such a symphony.8 The first step to addressing such questions will be to

look at how the Quartettsatz can be explained as a sonata form movement, but a short

preamble needs to be made to explain the context in which Schubert‘s innovations

can be understood and appreciated.9

Fieldman attempts to explain the anomalies in the Quartettsatz as evidence of

Schubert‘s true grasp of dialectic process and show how large-scale events come

movements, but many of Schubert‘s most glorious mature movements.‘ Denny: ‗Articulation‘, 359,

366. See also Bruce: ‗The Lyrical Element‘, 136. 6 Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl suggests that it was Schubert‘s early piano sonatas that marked Schubert‘s

period of experiment in sonata form but the unusual shape of the Quartettsatz makes it reasonable to

ask if Schubert might not have been occupied with new questions regarding the form in 1820.

Lindmayr-Brandl‘s findings are summarised in Rast: ‗Das fragmentarische Werk‘, 437. 7Hepokoski and Darcy: Elements, 16. The terms ‗rhetoric‘ and ‗harmonic‘ or ‗tonal plan‘ are chosen

over Salzer‘s three categories of Structure, Form and Design. Salzer‘s theory has been disputed by

David Beach who, like Hepokoski and Darcy, reduces the discussion from three to two categories.

Even so, Beach‘s, categories and subcategories, carry with them the scars of a Schenkerian debate that

is not dealt with here and so Hepokoski and Darcy‘s terms are used for simplicity‘s sake. David

Beach: ‗Schubert‘s Experiments with Sonata Form: formal-tonal design versus underlying structure‘,

Music Theory Spectrum, 1/15 (1993), 2ff hereafter referred to as Beach: ‗Schubert‘s Experiments‘. 8 This is not to suggest any discoveries he made in this quartet were abandoned, only that some of

them were perhaps put on hold while Schubert composed pieces specifically for the purpose of

preparing for a grand symphony. Thomas Denny discusses a sonata form written after the ‗Great‘ was

completed that harks back to the ambiguity of the Quartettsatz’s approach. See Denny: ‗Articulation‘,

340ff. 9 Denny writes, ‗the identification of all movements which generate, even if they do not fulfil, the

expectations of sonata form, would be the essential first concrete step towards a broader discussion of

these issues.‘ See Denny: ‗Articulation‘, 341.

84

from, and are quite meaningless unless they are understood as part of small details

contained within the opposition of thesis and antithesis. As Thomas Denny writes in

relation to the B piano trio‘s (Op.99 D898) Finale, ‗it is essential to broaden our

discussion of sonata form, acknowledging the strong role played by Schubert‘s

recapitulatory concerns in shaping many of the uncategorizable, so-called

―problematic‖ movements which are frequently overlooked in discussions of sonata

form.‘10

Establishing a context from which to examine Schubert‘s innovations seems

to be seen by Joseph Straus to conform too unreservedly to various theories of

generic norms as put forward by Caplin,11

Bonds,12

and Hepokoski and Darcy.13

Straus takes issue with what he perceives to be a consequence of the approach to

analysis displayed by these leading theorists. He points out the potential for ‗musical

form‘ to provide a metaphor for the human body, ‗human form‘:

Both Bonds‘s ‗frameworks‘ and Caplin‘s ‗categories‘ are instances of containers

– formal spaces that can be filled by various kinds of musical content. In a more

oblique way, so are Hepokoski and Darcy‘s ―spaces.‖ Intrinsic to the image

schema of container is the possibility that the container can be ruptured or

distorted […] Caplin‘s terms for this phenomenon [… such as deception and

falseness, suggest] transgression of a boundary that is not only formal but

possibly moral as well. Hepokoski and Darcy‘s even more suggestive term for

this phenomenon is deformation […] thus formal deformations can be understood

as bodily disfigurements.14

10


Caplin: Classical form, 4. 12

Mark Evan Bonds: Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Metaphor of the Oration (Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 14 and 29. 13

Hepokoski and Darcy: Elements, 116–17. 14

Joseph N. Straus: ‗Normalizing the Abnormal: Disability in Music and Music Theory‘, Journal of

the American Musicological Society, 1/59 (2006), 129-130.

85

Straus here recognises in prevailing music theories an attempt to ‗rationalise‘

Schubert‘s innovations according to prevailing norms and interprets this as an effort

at ‗curing‘ Schubert‘s music; to ‗normalize the abnormal‘. Hepokoski and Darcy

respond to the content of Straus‘ article thus:

The distortions and localized reshapings of [many composers] have historically

been assessed as positive features, marks of originality and personal voice […]

they have not been regarded as off-putting disfigurements or ‗disabilities‘ to be

contrasted with some tacitly posited concept of the supposedly ‗normal‘ or ‗well-

formed‘ of how exemplars of the genre ‗ought‘ to proceed. [and then in footnote

no. 14] This claim has been made recently, and mistakenly attributed to us as a

latent implication within the terms ‗norm‘ and ‗deformation‘, by Joseph N.

Straus, ‗Normalizing the Abnormal…‘ In our view the arbitrary and exclusive

binaries driving Straus‘ argument – the categories that he offered his readers were

limited to only ‗well formed‘ vs. ‗deformed‘ and ‗normal‘ vs. ‗abnormal‘ – are

false choices, too narrowly drawn to engage the complexities of the topics at

hand.15

If we follow Straus‘ lead in relation to the Quartettsatz and prioritise an acceptance of

the anomalies therein as abnormalities beautiful in their own right we underestimate

Schubert‘s own awareness of form and the consequences his choices would inevitably

have on the model he was engaged with. As Robert Frost wrote:

There are no two things as important to us in life and art as being threatened and

being saved. What are ideals of form for if we arent [sic] going to be made to

fear for them? All our ingenuity is lavished on getting into danger legitimately so

that we may be genuinely rescued.16

Consequently we are obliged to consider the formal implications of the anomalies in

the Quartettsatz, not in an effort to ‗normalise the abnormal‘ but to realise that

Schubert consciously abnormalised the normal and to examine why he did so. In this

way we can clearly see how Schubert experiments with given structures; the

development of his use of anomalies in the chamber works of the ensuing years shall

15

Hepokoski and Darcy: Elements, 617-618. 16

From a letter to Amy Bonner reproduced in Shamgar: ‗Schubert‘s Classic Legacy‘, 151.

86

prove to be the method by which Schubert will prepare himself for future

compositional challenges.

Method of Analysis

Fieldman‘s plan for an interpretation of the Quartettsatz runs as follows: firstly, the

relationship between the non-tonic keys of the exposition must be determined;

secondly, should the piece prove to be concerned with a structural polarity between

the first two key-areas of the exposition (C minor and A major) it must be asked how

that dialectic is resolved using only those terms to effect closure; and thirdly, in such

a seemingly tonally unbalanced recapitulation, Fieldman plans to examine how a

satisfactory synthesis between the first and second terms is achieved.17

Fieldman‘s

discoveries in this field demonstrate to us the nature of the compositional challenges

with which Schubert was concerned in 1821 and therefore equip us for the

examination of the minor-key sonata form works Schubert would compose

afterwards.

Motion is essential to any dialectic and Schubert sparks this off in the

Quartettsatz with a D major Neapolitan chord in bar 9. Fieldman hears this as a

Grundgestalt, a defining problem in need of some sort of explanation and her

17

Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 118.

87

explanation of the work as a dialectic will stem from this.18

It is neither the chromatic

element nor the resolution of the Neapolitan that draws her attention to this chord for

neither of these is particularly unusual. It is rather the presentation of the chord as an

event via the instrumentation, dynamics, pitch register and hypermetric

considerations (the first three of which are self-evident in Example 3.1) that make it

stand out as something special. Coren acknowledges the chord‘s prominent effect

describing it as ‗the climax of the opening period‘.19

Example 3.1. Schubert: String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, bars 8-10

Fieldman writes, ‗this single gesture, the Neapolitan, serves at once as both

culmination and initiation, summarising the process by which A emerges from the

tonic substance while simultaneously articulating that pitch and its context as the

structural disturbance of the work, which must be resolved as a condition of closure.‘

In the first two bars there is a descending tetrachord which Fieldman dubs a ‗lament

18

For a full understanding of how Fieldman interprets and applies the term Grundgestalt, see

Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 119 and f.n. 43. This will be discussed in more detail in due

course. 19

Coren: ‗Ambiguity‘, 574.

88

bass‘ (Example 3.2) forming a chromatic linear connection between C, A , and G, the

root pitches of the three tonal areas of the exposition. The allocation of pitches to

downbeats ensures that they are not overlooked. Their presentation describes their

relationship to each other in this piece ‗establishing A ‘s functional and melodic

dependence on G, which is subsequently shattered by the Neapolitan chord in bar

9.‘20

20

Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 120, 121.

89


Lewis Lockwood criticises labelling the descending fourth a ‗Lamento‘ bass since, he

writes, ‗there is no special reason to think that Schubert was using the figure in that

traditional association.‘21

Lockwood does, however, make special comment on the

texture of the opening phrase which sees quavers treated as pairs of semiquavers.

This tremolo technique, pp, is more commonly reserved for orchestral media rather

than chamber works. This is evidence of Schubert discovering a wider range of

sonorities in his late chamber work.22

What is more, its unusual character draws

attention to the importance of the motivic ideas it contains.23

Subsequent iterations of the descending line are joined by an ascending

chromatic line, as in the first violin in Example 3.3. Note the opening note of the

ascending line, E , confirms the modality of the exposition. The minor-mode had until

21

Lewis Lockwood: ‗Schubert as Formal Architect: The Quartettsatz, D. 703‘, Historical Musicology:

Sources, Methods, Interpretations, ed. by Stephen A. Crist and Roberta Montemorra Marvin, (New

York: University of Rochester Press, 2004), 206 hereafter referred to as Lockwood: ‗Schubert as

Formal Architect‘. In a footnote Lockwood refers the reader to Aderhold, ―Das Streichquartett

Fragment,‖ page 57. 22

Lockwood: ‗Schubert as Formal Architect‘, 218 f.n. 4. 23

Ibid., 205.

90

now only been hinted at by A and the responsibility of establishing the tonic is here

passed from A to E, a point that will be worth recalling as we work through the piece.

The ascending line, however, also highlights A by allowing the A in bar 4 to occur as

the resolution of a tritone in the previous bar. This emphasis of A is not to help

define the mode but to stress A ‘s dependence on G. On the third quaver beat A forms

an augmented sixth with the F# above and this interval is resolved with both notes

moving a semitone to G. Fieldman considers this moment to be a vertical

manifestation of A ‘s dependence on G, a dependence already displayed ‗horizontally‘

in the chromatic descending tetrachord in the first two bars.24


The augmented sixth in bar 4 that spreads simultaneously upwards and downwards to

G, Fieldman claims, sets the pitch C at the centre of a G octave and forms a:

24


91

[…] graphic foreshadowing of the process by which A will be stabilized- not by

its upper fifth alone, but by a pair of agents, one at the fifth above and the other at

the fifth below [D ]. These together create the fundamental pitch complex of the

piece, of which A itself is the centre.‘25

The D of the Neapolitan chord in bar 9 is the root pitch of A‘s subdominant, a pitch

that stabilises A as a key and sets it apart from the tonic, of which D is a diatonic

pitch. The play between the pitches D and D will be an important element of this

movement and dialectically founded semitonal adversity such as this will be seen to

form a device Schubert employs regularly in the other works that will be discussed in

this thesis. The hypermetric stability was disrupted at bar 9 and does not regain its

larger eight-bar grouping until bar 19. At the same time D replaces the D in the pitch

collection, ‗thus, hypermetric stability is aligned with the pitch collection around A ,

an event we hear clearly due to the parallel relationship between the phrases.‘26

The second group is in two parts; the first part begins at bar 27 and the second

part, a transition to the third group, begins at bar 61 and will reveal the relationship

between the exposition‘s two non-tonic keys. The first part of the second group is

heralded by the dominant seventh chord of A major, a chord that contains both D and

25

Ibid., 122. 26


92

E, the pitches a fifth below and above A respectively. In addition to this, the first part

of the second group finalises A ‘s independence from the tonic by stabilising its two

agents (D and E ) as roots of primary harmonies in the new key. The thematic

material for this part is derived from the descending arpeggios heard in bars 9 and 10

at the Grundgestalt. Lockwood observes how ‗the second phrase of the melody,

beginning at bar 31, strikingly confirms the importance of the pitch D , already

established through the climactic effect of bar 9, now not as Neapolitan in C minor

but as subdominant in A.‘27 Fieldman cites examples of how D is emphasised in the

first part of this group but notes that E is not so well represented, appearing many

times but always undermined by hypermetric instability. Fieldman believes that it is

strange for E to be so poorly represented given how important E is to A but it is quite

in keeping with a concern in this work which Fieldman herself will reveal, namely,

that the dominant may be undermined without sacrificing dialectic.28

As mentioned above, the second part of the second group is a transition to the

third group and as a transition it can be expected to destabilise the key from which it

is departing and to build energy and momentum in the direction of the key it intends

27

Lockwood: ‗Schubert as Formal Architect‘, 206. 28

Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 137. See Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s

First Maturity‘, 18-35 for a discussion on Schubert‘s relationship with the dominant.

93

to take us to. This transition succeeds in destabilising A major by turning

immediately to the minor-mode and it builds energy to carry the listener to the next

key by the diminution of its hypermeasures. Interestingly Coren regards the

transition as evidence of Schubert‘s growth between 1819 and 1820 and states that ‗in

no previous work had Schubert been able to sustain a chromatic modulatory passage

over such a long period of time.‘29

Coren notes that a move to the minor dominant of

C minor begun at bar 77 is backed by its lowered sixth, E , and is finally realised by

an augmented sixth at bar 83 leading to a I6-4 chord in G minor. Thereafter Schubert

switches to the major-mode with the E in bar 90 in a manner that reminds Coren of an

effect Schubert created toward the end of the song Der Tod und das Mädchen D531

1817.30

Contrarily, Fieldman observes G minor not as a goal thwarted at bar 90 but

as a stumbling block on the way to G major. She argues that several attempts are

made in the transition to arrive convincingly at G major, but they are not successful

until an E expected in bar 90 is replaced with an E (Example 3.4).

Fieldman attaches the following significance to the change of mode: the E

creates an augmented sixth chord that facilitates a move to G major but sacrifices

chromatic movement to D in the first violin in bar 91. The chromatic movement that

has been broken contradicts the unbroken lines in the augmented sixth chord in bar 4, 29

Coren: ‗Ambiguity‘, 574. 30

Ibid., 574-575.

94

a movement itself mirrored in its unbroken incarnation in bar 83 (also in Example

3.4). These movements vertically depicted A ‘s dependence on G earlier. The E at

bar 90:

[…] takes us entirely out of C minor‘s orbit. We are, therefore, strictly in the

major dominant. It is a dominant that, by virtue of the broken chromatic

connection, has been robbed of its dialectic vitality and put outside of the central

argument altogether.‘31

G major will serve to lead us back to the tonic for the repeat of the exposition but

Fieldman states that all claims to dramatic dialectic roles are owned by A . Despite

Coren‘s differing interpretation, he acknowledges the major-mode cadence as being

of greater significance than the short-lived arrival in G minor. He writes:

It is necessary to examine this particular cadence in such detail, for its strength in

the exposition is matched only by the Neapolitan cadence at bar thirteen. In the

absence of primary material it becomes the one strong cadence in the entire

recapitulation.‘32

31

Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 128. This event is highlighted and made audible by elements

within the hypermetric groupings, details of which can be found in the Fieldman article. 32


95


Lockwood makes some interesting observations on the third section of the exposition.

He draws attention to the passage from bar 105 to 112 which is repeated in a higher

register with cello pizzicato. He claims that this passage encapsulates much of what

has gone before:

It brings the descending fourth from [scale degrees] 1 to 5 prominently in the

upper line, chromaticizing it in a new way. It offers the ‗modal‘ harmonic effect

of a pure G-major measure followed immediately by a pure F major and then by

E major and its dominant (bar 108), the whole leading now to the crucial return of

the Neapolitan, A major, at bar 109 (now in root position) and then the whole

passage winds quickly back to its starting point by returning to G major […]

thereafter the final four bars of this segment make another move to the

Neapolitan sixth at bar 117 (A major) and set up a cadence that closes the

segment.33

Lockwood draws so much attention to this passage for the precise reason that it was

immediately after this passage, at bar 120, that twenty-six bars of fully-composed

material were excised from the score by Schubert. We will return to this when we

come to discuss the recapitulation.

33

Lockwood: ‗Schubert as Formal Architect‘, 207-208.

96

The development section of the Quartettsatz begins at bar 141 in A major and

quickly sets about destabilising that key via a sequential move to B minor in bar 149.

B minor, in turn, implies its own relative major at bar 153 via the use of an A major

chord with a seventh and shortly thereafter we are in D major. It seems that D major,

formerly an ally to A ‘s stability and chief factor in distinguishing A major from the

tonic in the exposition, is now taking a hand in undoing A in the development. The

lack of a retransition means we hear the A major tonality of the development

juxtaposed against the exposition as the Neapolitan of G major, thus strengthening

our understanding of the piece in terms of the Neapolitan sixth that was the

Grundgestalt.

Fieldman highlights further instances in the development section that, through

the agency of D , A‘s dialectical ally, A loses ever more of its standing as antithesis to

C minor. One particularly interesting example can be found in what Fieldman

identifies as the third section of the development (the first section running until bar

157 and the second section lasting until bar 173). As illustrated in Example 3.5, a

rising sequence in the cello leads us to expect that the line will arrive on D in bar 181

97

but it lands on E instead. Consequently the D that did appear in its expected place in

the first violin part is forced to behave like a seventh over the E and falls to a C# in

the following bar creating an augmented sixth. C# is the enharmonic equivalent of D

and the fact that the first violin continues to a D in the following bar shows how D‘s

energy has been ‗harnessed‘ and ‗redirected toward the service of the forces around G

[…] to begin the final segment of the development.‘34

34


98


We expect the D major in bar 183 to resolve to G major and spark the move to the

recapitulation but it does not resolve so. It alternates between D major and an

augmented sixth chord on E until, at bar 191, the harmonic support drops out from

underneath the first violin.

What follows is an elaborate version of Schubert‘s single note pivot chord

until, at bar 195, the pitch D is reinterpreted as the third of B major and the

recapitulation begins with thematic material from the second group. Interestingly

Marianne Danckwardt does not consider this point the beginning of the

recapitulation, but a continuation of the development and proposes that the

99

recapitulation does not begin until the C major section at bar 257.35

However the

material at bar 257 is far less distinctive than that used at bar 195 and as Lockwood

observes, ‗this is very late in the movement for a recapitulation and leaves the

thematic correspondence from bar 195 onward unexplained.‘36

It may be added to

this that bar 257 does not begin with material from the first group, just as the material

from bar 195 did not. Therefore the primary reason for choosing bar 275 as the

beginning of the recapitulation over bar 195 is the appearance of the tonic. However,

as Denny writes:

The ‗off-tonic‘ recapitulation was an accepted, though admittedly not the

prevailing, recapitulatory procedure in Vienna and elsewhere at the turn of the

nineteenth century. This procedure was acknowledged in theoretical writings of

the period, and it appeared in the music of a wide range of composers. The

isolated ‗off-tonic‘ recapitulations of Mozart and Beethoven are famous […

however] less widely known, but perhaps more central to the interests of the

particular composers, are the more numerous ‗off-tonic‘ recapitulations in the

works of Florian Gassmann, Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Christoph Sonnleithner,

Anton Wranitzky, Anton Teyber, and Muzio Clementi, among others […] for him

[Schubert], the ‗double return‘ was but one option among several for articulating

the thematic return in the recapitulation.37

It is not enough to use the appearance of the tonic to push back the onset of the

recapitulation from bar 195 to bar 275. The present analysis gives much attention to

the off-tonic recapitulation and it might be argued that Denny‘s observation deems

such close investigation unnecessary.38

The difficulty with the recapitulation is that it

begins with second group material as well as being presented in a non-tonic key.

Generally the ambiguity caused by either non-normative approach would be

35

Marianne Danckwardt: ‗Funktionen von Harmonik und tonaler Anlage in Franz Schuberts

Quartettsatz c-moll, D 703‘, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 40. Jahrg., H. 1. (1983), 58-60 referenced

in Lockwood: ‗Schubert as Formal Architect‘, 218 f.n. 7. 36

Lockwood: ‗Schubert as Formal Architect‘, 218 f.n. 7. 37

Denny: ‗Articulation‘, 354-355, 357. Curiously, Schubert‘s ‗interest in ―off-tonic‖ returns

diminished sharply in his last years.‘ See page 357. 38

Denny: ‗Articulation‘, 357.

100

compensated with the normative use of the other and the Quartettsatz is unique in this

respect.39

The reasons for Schubert‘s rhetorical rearrangement of material will be

proved to be very logical in due time, but it is first necessary to show why he chose to

make this obscure by the additional usage of an unusual tonal plan.40

The unusual choice of key and second group thematic material used for

beginning the recapitulation does play down the appearance of the recapitulation as a

recognisable Event. Denny believes, ‗Schubert virtually always used the greatest

amount of new contextual preparatory energy to articulate the beginning of the

thematic reprise [… There are] only four exceptions [… and these include] the

Quartettsatz.‘41

Given that this piece is largely a commentary on engrained attitudes

to sonata form,42

this point seems to demonstrate that the extant rhetoric pertaining to

most sonata-form movements places too much emphasis on the appearance of a

39

Denny: ‗Articulation‘, 356. Maurice Brown observes an example of Schubert beginning a

recapitulation in the tonic key but with material other than the main theme. He writes of the

‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor D759, ‗the affinities of the symphony‘s first movement with that

of the quartet [the Quartettsatz] are remarkable […] the first is the withholding of the main theme at

the start of the recapitulation, in order to use it with greater force for the coda of the movement […]‘

Maurice Brown & Eric Sams: The New Grove Schubert (Hong Kong: Paper Mac, 1984), 99. Daniel

Coren comments that perhaps the ‗main theme‘ identified by Brown should, however, be considered

introductory. See Coren: ‗Ambiguity‘, 577. Brown prepared a response to this thought when he wrote

of the introductory material in the ‗Great‘ as transcending the term ‗introductory‘ and becoming very

much a part of the main theme by virtue of its treatment in the music. Similar attention to the opening

bars of the ‗Unfinished‘ can be observed in the development section of that movement. See Maurice

Brown: Schubert Symphonies (London: BBC Music Guides, 1970), 49 hereafter referred to as Brown:

Schubert Symphonies. The clarity of this recapitulation owes more to the reappearance of the tonic key

than the supposedly expendable nature of the original opening material. 40

A criticism from Martin Chusid concerns the Quartettsatz’s development section. He writes, ‗until

the time of the ―Unfinished‖ Symphony (D759, fall 1822), Schubert‘s greatest problem with sonata

form is his inability to construct development sections that can serve as the climax of the movement, as

Beethoven‘s so often do.‘ Chusid: ‗Schubert‘s Chamber Music‘, 177. The present analysis neither

challenges nor validates this criticism. Suffice it to say that it does not appear to be a concern of

Schubert‘s in this development to create a climax for the movement here. It is not clear how a climax

at this point would serve the dialectic in any way and if Schubert is using sonata form as a dialectic

process the ‗failure‘ to create an effect that has nothing to do with that dialectic is no real blemish on

the movement as a sonata form movement. 41



101

double-return as a sign that all incompatibilities have been dealt with and synthesis

has been achieved. A double-return cannot possibly mean such a thing; synthesis is

achieved somewhere later in a recapitulation when certain elements of the exposition

can be altered or reinterpreted in the light of work accomplished in the piece as a

whole. In a typical sonata form movement, at the moment of arrival signalled by a

double-return, nothing is different to the original appearance of the material in the

exposition (leaving aside introductory material for the moment). It takes time and

change to synthesise various elements, if this were not true a recapitulation would be

satisfactorily accomplished by a simple ‗da capo‘ indication at the end of the

development.

Schubert here understates the moment that is potentially prematurely lauded

as conclusive until something of importance can be achieved and highlights his

concern with sonata form as dialectic rather than a series of events following

predetermined cues. As Charles Rosen writes, ‗[sonata form] is not a definite form

like a minuet, a da capo aria, or a French overture; it is, like the fugue, a way of

writing, a feeling for proportion, direction, and texture rather than a pattern.‘43

Such

demonstrations as Schubert‘s have not always been understood, as should be clear

from the following statement made by William McNaught with regard to the Fifth

Symphony in B (note how he betrays an unhelpfully rigid understanding of sonata

form and, indeed, the reasons for the rhetoric and tonal plan of the form that persisted

under the surface in other writings years after this was penned):

43

Quoted from Rosen‘s The Classical Style in the blurb on the back of Rosen: Sonata Forms.

102

At bar 172 of the first movement Schubert introduces the first subject in E , and

twenty or thirty bars may pass before it dawns on the listener that this is the

formal recapitulation; which is a matter for reproach, since these sonata-form

regulations are designed to let every listener know where he is.44

If we turn to the unusual harmonic plan in the recapitulation of the Quartettsatz we

find that by bar 206 B major becomes, Fieldman suggests, the dominant of E major

and the piece continues in E , a key that is both the relative major of C minor and the

dominant of A major. This dual allegiance makes E an ideal common ground from

which to negotiate a synthesis of thesis and antithesis. Fieldman writes:

The closure function of the structural dominant is, in effect, transferred from the

nominal dominant, G major, through the pitch D (the leading note of E major), to

E major [thus] E major is the agent of return to C minor and the agent of real

closure.‘45

In contrast to early readings of Schubert‘s ‗deviations‘ from sonata form,46

Lockwood

applauds the move to E major from B as:

One of those subtle shifts that […] make all the difference between a master and

a journeyman. The arrival of E as a controlling tonic in this segment allows its

subdominant, A major, to appear again with this same melodic content, but now

in a subordinate role (bars 211-214). The large-scale motion to E major also

facilitates the return to a C-minor/major context for the remainder of the

Recapitulation.‘47

44

McNaught: ‗Franz Schubert‘, 135. 45


Tovey: Essays in Musical Analysis, 207, where, though Tovey makes many allowances for

Schubert‘s innovations, he is still prone to make comments such as, ‗Many of Schubert‘s outwardly

similar digressions are weaknesses […]‘ 47

Lockwood: ‗Schubert as Formal Architect‘, 210.

103

Both Lockwood and Fieldman convincingly explain the use of E major in the

recapitulation but neither offers a reason (dialectical or otherwise) why Schubert

started the recapitulation in the dominant of that key, B major. Surely Fieldman‘s

theory in particular would be better supported if the recapitulation simply began in E

major. Fieldman attempts to brush over the B major section by explaining it as the

dominant of E major but it is interesting how David Beach hears the tonalities the

other way around with E as the subdominant of B major. Beach gives the following

reasons for his conclusion:

Interpretation of this unusual beginning is complicated by the continuation. The

expanded consequent phrase, rather than confirming the new key, is written in the

key of E , which might cause one to hear B as V of E , that is, as if E ( III) were the

real goal of this progression. However […] having heard bar 195, the initial bar

of the recapitulation, as a new beginning, it is difficult (though not impossible!)

to hear the antecendent (sic) phrase as leading to the consequent [… also, given

the melodic preponderance on the subdominant in the second subject it may be

said that] the motion to the subdominant is an integral feature of this theme, and

the modulation to E is thus readily heard as an expansion of this relationship.

This hearing of E as the subdominant of B is crucial to the overall interpretation

of the movement.48

48

David Beach: ‗Harmony and Linear Progression in Schubert‘s Music‘, Journal of Music Theory,

1/38 (1994), 16 hereafter referred to as Beach: ‗Harmony‘. See also Coren: ‗Ambiguity‘, 576.

104

Beach does not in this quote answer the question of why B major is used, but does

invite us to take B ‘s appearance more seriously. Elsewhere in the same article he

provides a possible solution when he considers the use of B an essential part of the

movement‘s structure when taking into account long term linear relationships.

Attention has already been drawn to the descending tetrachord within the opening

gesture that spells out the pitches C-B-A-G (Example 3.2). Beach believes this

tetrachord dictates the overall harmonic direction of the work. The exposition and

development constitute a prolongation of the tonic, C. To find when one prolonged

harmony ends and another begins Beach designates certain harmonic interruptions as

dividing points. ‗The cadence on D at the end of the development sets up the

expectation of g minor, but instead the recapitulation begins suddenly in B .‘49 Thus

Beach identifies B at bar 195 as the next pitch of importance after C. Another

harmonic sidestep occurs later when a move from E minor to C major through an

augmented sixth on D leading us to expect a move to the subdominant, F minor, is

interrupted by an augmented sixth on A leading to G major. The move between the

49

Beach: ‗Harmony‘, 16.

105

chord on A into G at bars 247-48 is repeated and extended a few bars later ‗for

emphasis.‘50

Thereafter, the music returns to various modal incarnations of the tonic

to end the piece.

Taken together, the divisions between one step and the next in the tetrachord

highlight the pitch C as a prolonged harmony until the recapitulation when B takes

over, extended by its own subdominant. The next pitch of importance, according to

this system, is the A of the augmented sixth chord which leads into G. Thus we have

the tetrachord C-B-A-G casting its influence over the harmonic character of the

movement and the use of B major in the recapitulation is granted a rational

explanation.

Although Beach‘s explanation is insightful and useful, some of his assertions

are not entirely consistent. Is he choosing pitches as representative of the work‘s

overall direction based on their credibility as prolonged harmonies? This is certainly

the explanation he gives for C lasting until the recapitulation and it is also one of the

reasons for B being counted as the first important pitch after bar 195.51

If Beach were

not using this system he would have been forced to count the A major second subject

50

Beach: ‗Harmony‘, 16. 51

Of course tied up in this observation is the Schenkerian idea of sonata form divided into two parts at

the point of recapitulation which is necessarily marked by a harmonic interruption. See Hepokoski and

Darcy: Elements, 19.

106

as part of the tetrachord but this would have disturbed the order of the pitches making

up the line.52

Comparable claims to prolonged tonality, however, cannot be offered

to the A augmented sixth chords that appear for less than five scattered bars in the

relevant part of the recapitulation. Nor can such a position be offered to G major

which turns almost immediately to C major. There is another element determining

Beach‘s choices.

It is the notion of harmonic interruption that is consistent with the various

pitches Beach seeks out and that best proves his thesis. The claims to harmonic

prolongation outlive their usefulness once C has been explained as the important

element up until bar 195; thereafter it is harmonic interruption that marks out root or

important pitches for comment. For example, Beach already admitted the potential

ambiguity of the primary key area in the recapitulation, i.e. is B major the dominant

of E major or is E major the subdominant of B major? Though he ultimately sides

with B major as the primary key area, it is not his preference of key at this point that

makes his argument convincing, it is the fact that B is made salient by virtue of its

52

Lockwood claims that the tetrachord, rather than demonstrating a re-enactment of its own line,

simply determines the ‗primary key centres‘ of the movement and as such counts the A major second

group before the B major section in the recapitulation without worrying about line. Lockwood:

‗Schubert as Formal Architect‘, 216-217.

107

Schenkerian harmonic interruption (and, of course, its rhetorical importance marking

as it does the beginning of the recapitulation).

If it is harmonic interruption that determines the signposts for linear

comparison with the opening gesture, then it does not matter whether B major is the

dominant of E major or if E major is the subdominant of B major. Either way the

harmonic interruption highlights B as the next pitch of the tetrachord that runs

through the movement. In the given quote from Beach he argues that it was not

impossible to hear the B as the dominant of E and he leaves us free to choose how we

wish to interpret it.53

Therefore, the most profitable construal of what seemed to be a

disagreement of harmonic interpretation between Beach and Fieldman is that there is

no real disagreement; regardless of the interpretation of the key relationship between

B and E, Beach‘s thesis will remain untouched. Fieldman‘s thesis, on the other hand,

will be strengthened by Beach‘s observation of the linear element of the work. The

linear consideration Beach offers does not undermine E as the agent of closure but

does explain why E was not the first key to appear in the recapitulation; the overall

interpretation of the music as dialectic is only made more complete. There is more to

53

Beach: ‗Harmony‘, 16.

108

be discussed regarding this but first it will be necessary to discuss the twenty-six bars

of material (mentioned briefly earlier) which Schubert omitted from the final version

of the score.

The ‗excerpt‘, as Lockwood dubs it, (Example 3.6) omitted from the

exposition originally rested between what are now bars 120 and 121 in the final score

(herein referred to as the final version or final draft). It is characterised by ff rushing

unison scale passages ascending and descending in G minor (punctuated with fz

interjections) and bursting into the surrounding pp music. Shortly thereafter we have

an example of the greatest dynamic range to be employed in the entire work as the

music quickly shifts to p and then on to ppp before launching back into ff. The

excised material takes an ABA’B’ format: the A sections contain the ff scalar

movements while the B section is a soft transitional passage derived from motifs

established earlier in the final version of the work and makes use of Neapolitan

cadences. The second A section ‗shifts subtly into C major, coloured by diminished

seventh harmonies […] that at last move to a new form of the Neapolitan sixth-V

cadence […] that anticipates the cadential preparation for the closing section.‘54

Example 3.6. Schubert: String Quartet in C minor, Quartettsatz, 26 cancelled

bars from between bars 120 and 121 of the Exposition

54

Lockwood: ‗Schubert as Formal Architect‘, 213.

109

We must consider the move to C major in terms of the dialectic at work. C major

severely undermines the tonic but makes a definite statement in favour of the

Grundgestalt. In the tonic key the pitch D was the chromatic element in bar 9; the

flattened supertonic. The temporary move to C major in the exposition further

110

dramatises this chromatic element by taking the only pitch in the scale that was

chromatic, the flattened supertonic, and making it a diatonic pitch occupying the

same scale degree. D , once a flattened supertonic is now a standard diatonic

supertonic and the other pitches in the scale are dragged into line with it thus opening

the floor to a more violent debate between D and the home key than has been

observed elsewhere in the movement.

Lockwood points out that this excerpt would have marked the only sustained

use of the ff dynamic in the movement. It would have been conspicuous for its

placement in such an otherwise calm section but also for the extremities of dynamic

range contained within it. The introduction of C major into the musical argument

‗augured a substantial complication of the harmonic range of the Exposition beyond

the limits that Schubert finally set for it, emphasizing the leading tone of C minor (C

= B) as a pitch for tonicisation.‘ As there are no traces of this music in the

recapitulation, Lockwood determines the new music was crossed out before the

recapitulation was completed. This does not mean that the recapitulation was not

perhaps begun before Schubert removed the excerpt from the score, therefore it is not

unreasonable to examine a modest amount of the recapitulation in terms of what may

have been proposed by this excerpt.

111

Let us consider the tonal relationships in the exposition when it contained the

now omitted excerpt as a template from which we might find transposed parallels in

the recapitulation. (For example, if C moved to G in the exposition, then an F at a

comparable moment might conceivably move to C in the recapitulation, a perfect fifth

being maintained.) This experiment might not meet the approval of Daniel Coren,55

but it is endorsed by several comments elsewhere in Schubertian and contemporary

analytical literature (many of which are more recent than the Coren article referred).

David Beach writes:

One feature of Schubert‘s style [is] his frequent practice of preserving in the

recapitulation the tonal scheme of the exposition, thus making the tonic the goal

rather than the point of departure in the restatement […] a restatement transposed

to end on the tonic. [Later in his article, in relation to an analysis of the G major

Quartet, he conducts the following hypothesis to prove a point …] If the

following material were to proceed as a transposition of the corresponding

passage in the exposition, as might be expected from Schubert, it would lead to a

B-major chord […]56

Thomas Denny also validates the procedure proposed above when he writes:

In virtually all of his mature recapitulations (and in most of the earlier ones as

well), Schubert restates most, and frequently all, of the material from the

exposition. Usually he retains the original order of the material, and the principal

theme serves as the initial point of reference, signalling the beginning of the

recapitulation [… Denny applies this principle to identify anticipated harmonic

parallels in his analysis of the Op.99 Trio Finale when he writes:] A strictly

parallel resolution would have led to D-F, in D minor.57

55

See Coren: ‗Ambiguity‘, 573. He writes, ‗in only one movement of a completed work, the first

movement of the Piano Sonata in B Major, D. 575, is Schubert‘s recapitulation a literal transposition of

his exposition.‘ 56

Beach: ‗Schubert‘s Experiments‘, 9, 17. 57

Denny: ‗Articulation‘, 356, 346. See also Richard L. Cohn: ‗As Wonderful as Star Clusters:

Instruments for Gazing at Tonality in Schubert‘ 19th

-Century Music, 3/22 (1999), 227 (hereafter

referred to as Cohn: ‗As Wonderful as Star Clusters‘), Coren: ‗Ambiguity‘, 569-570, and Brown:

Schubert Symphonies, 44. Brown uses a deleted tonal choice at the end of the first movement of the

‗Unfinished‘ Symphony to explain the choice of key for the second movement. Also refer to Cone:

‗Schubert‘s Beethoven‘, 785-786 and Gal: Franz Schubert and the Essence of Melody, 108-109.

112

Let us trace the tonalities backwards from the C major in the excerpt through the

exposition. C major appears as the flattened fourth of the third group‘s key area, G,

which is the leading note of the second group‘s key area, A . Therefore the

relationship between the key area of the second group (there is no need to go back

any further since the recapitulation begins with the second group) and the key area

touched on in the excerpt is a minor third (A to C ).

Now let us look at the recapitulation. The third group in the recapitulation is

already in C major so a tonal deviation at this point would be of little use, but can we

be certain C major was the key area Schubert originally planned to be in at this point?

It has been remarked upon earlier that the only thing stranger than the recapitulation

beginning in B major is that it quickly changes over to E major. Let us calculate the

projected tonal plan of the recapitulation that would have unfolded had Schubert not

changed from B so strangely, bearing in mind an initial intention to use the material

of the excerpt. B in the second group would not be interrupted by E but would

remain the first key-area of the second group. B would move down a semitone to A

major for the reprise of the third group just as A moved to G in the exposition. The

113

excerpt would come in with rushing scales in A minor and touch off A‘s flattened

subdominant, D. Recall the dialectic role that it was proposed earlier C major might

play; that it would make D diatonic at the expense of the integrity of the tonic key.

Now that same material is turned once more to making D diatonic but in a key that is

a lot closer to the tonic key. Thus an attempt is made in the recapitulation at

reconciling certain elements of the exposition (not just D with the tonic key, but the

passage formerly associated with C major is brought closer to the tonic). What is

more, in this way the root of the Neapolitan from bar 9, the Grundgestalt, would have

been stabilised in the recapitulation.

D major would only be touched on and would return presently to A major just

as C major returned to G major. It would take very little harmonic manipulation at

this point to have the music turn to A minor instead, thus setting up the move to C

major through its relative minor. This would demonstrate a dialectic reason for the

use of B major in the recapitulation. However, this would have meant the tonic key

would arrive, counting the twenty-six bars that would be required to reprise the

excerpt, fifty-four bars later than it arrives in the final version; a substantial amount of

bars given the length of the piece.

114

If the plan predicted above were to be carried out, an already tonally

unorthodox recapitulation would have been stretched to the point of being thoroughly

confounding and therefore it is just as well that the excerpt was abandoned. It may be

that the point in the development illustrated above in Example 3.5 where C#

‗harnessed‘ the energy of D and redirected it toward the dominant of G undermined

the tonicisation of D that would have occurred at the reprise of the excerpt in the

recapitulation, potentially another reason why it was made redundant.

Lockwood gives different reasons for the excerpt‘s omission, reasons such as

the belief that it would have upset the temporal balance of the work. The temporal

concerns Lockwood demonstrates relate to the sonata in its capacity as a binary form

comprised of the exposition versus the development and recapitulation.58

Lockwood

draws up tables showing how the addition of the excerpt would have tilted the

balance excessively toward the first part of the work but his diagrams are flawed in

that he assumes the excerpt would be maintained in the exposition but omitted from

the recapitulation (this assumption only applies to his calculations, elsewhere he

admits the excerpt would appear in both the exposition and the recapitulation.59

Lockwood further comments that the extremities of dynamics that characterise

the excised passage would have upset the dynamic surface of the work as a whole.

Indeed it might have, but it is not so convincing a reason for omission when we recall

58

Lockwood: ‗Schubert as Formal Architect‘, 215. 59

Lockwood: ‗Schubert as Formal Architect‘, 216 and 208.

115

Schubert‘s fondness for unexpected outbursts.60

The view put forth in this chapter

that the excerpt had far-reaching harmonic goals could go some distance toward

explaining the brief but definite appearance of B major in the recapitulation, had

Schubert perhaps reached a certain stage of the composition before deciding against

the excerpt. It is likely that Schubert made his decision against the excerpt before

reaching the recapitulation, in which case we could say that the removal of the

original reason for B being used should negate its usefulness in the final draft, but

Schubert did not consider B major a redundant key at that phase of the work. David

Beach already explained the use of B with regard to long-term linear relations. But

while Beach‘s explanation validates the use of B it is hard to imagine that Schubert

could not have come up with a linear design less intrusive to the dialectic of the final

version. If Schubert incorporated a technique into a form, the measure of the success

of that exercise would be to see how the technique seamlessly joined in with the

extant design of the dialectic while reinforcing it. In the fair copy, the version

without the excerpt, the use of B seems only to serve the linear considerations and to

obscure the dialectic process. This is not an accomplishment on the level we expect

from a master-craftsman and it may be that there are more elements at play. Beach‘s

60

McKay: Franz Schubert, §6 and MacDonald: ‗Schubert‘s Volcanic Temper‘, 949-952.

116

compelling argument owes none of its persuasiveness to the controversial impact

made by Schubert‘s actions on the normative shape of the form; rather Beach‘s

observations help explain the consequences of that impact and so we may still

wonder what other factors caused the music‘s shape. Indeed, if the tetrachord Beach

observes had run its course by the end of the development rather than half way

through the recapitulation a move from G at the end of the development back to C at

the beginning of the recapitulation would have easily been achieved without

sacrificing either the linear considerations or the typical tonal plan for a sonata form.

Instead in the Quartettsatz, Schubert purposefully wished to follow his own

dialectic regardless of traditional tonal layouts but the B major-key opening the

recapitulation obscures the dialectic and the linear consideration is not enough to

motivate such confusion. Examination of the excerpt better explains B ‘s appearance.

As demonstrated above, B can be explained as a part of the dialectic process if the

excerpt were not omitted. It appears that Schubert designed his linear trajectory in

tandem with considering the twenty-six bar excerpt a part of the finished product and

conflated the dialectic harmonic considerations of one with the linear destination of

the other. When the dialectic reason for using B at the beginning of the recapitulation

was removed, Schubert was already quite far into the composition and found it

117

necessary to use B at the beginning of the recapitulation to fulfil his linear

obligations.

One of the anomalies mentioned earlier of the Quartettsatz was the

exceptionally brief and late appearance of the tonic key in the recapitulation.

Fieldman attempts to show that this is not merely a coda but an important structural

element of the piece.61

We may refer to an article by Robert Bruce in which Bruce

draws an interesting comparison between Schubert‘s Quartettsatz and Beethoven‘s

Andante con moto quasi Allegretto, the second movement of the D major

Rasumovsky Quartet, op. 59, no. 3.62

Bruce observes that both minor-key sonata

forms begin their recapitulations with thematic material from their second groups

and, more importantly, they both reserve the reprise of the main theme for the end of

the piece. The difference on this point being that Schubert then ends the piece while

Beethoven adds a coda. Whether or not one considers the C minor episode at the end

of the Quartettsatz a coda, its unconventional brevity is exacerbated by the

substantial appearance of C major in the recapitulation and this imbalance must be

addressed if we are to understand how the final episode is to be understood as part of

the sonata form.

Coren writes of the C major section, ‗the cadence in C major at bar 257 has

the finality and weight necessary to justify the literally transposed closing material

that now ensues.‘63

Example 3.7 shows how, at bar 254, the chromatic line expected

61


Bruce: ‗The Lyrical Element‘, 131ff. 63


118

in the top voice to create an augmented sixth chord is broken in the same way we

heard the chromatic line broken between bars 81 and 85 which led to what Fieldman

calls the ‗false‘ dominant of G major. Similarly, this instance of a broken chromatic

line over an augmented-sixth chord leads us to what will later be understood to be a

‗false‘ tonic, C major. The major-mode of the aforementioned dominant in the

exposition is here answered by a major-mode version of the tonic in the

recapitulation. This context allows us to hear C major as a local dominant, ‗thus

weakening any sense that it could be heard as a tonic.‘64


64


119

Fieldman draws our attention to points (Example 3.8) where the pitch E undermines

the C major modality. Thereafter subsequent E s cannot hope to undo the damage

and, emasculated, C major winds out with some directionless bars of tonic-dominant

harmony. Finally, reminiscent of what happened to G major at the end of the

exposition and to D major at the end of the recapitulation, all harmony drops out and

only a single voice is left – typical of Schubert‘s sparse textures – with the

responsibility of taking the music into another key. In this instance, the cello takes us

back to C minor with the long awaited appearance of the first group. The piece ends

with the Neapolitan sixth of bar 9, the Grundgestalt, fitting into a perfect cadence and

the piece is brought to a close.


The controversy over this movement continues in contemporary literature where

Coren does not share Fieldman‘s interpretation of the form of the movement and

argues that:

It is possible, when one looks back over the movement, to understand everything

from the return of the secondary theme at bar 195 to the end as a recapitulation

120

with the primary material displaced to the closing bars. But such an analysis,

while it works on paper, goes against the psychological effect of the piece. The

primary material, when it recurs, is unquestionably a coda, not left-over

recapitulatory material. Most important of all, the secondary theme, even if it

were given dominant preparation, would forever sound secondary in function.

Formal ambiguity, I think, must be accepted as one of the definitive features of

the Quartettsatz.65

What needs to be clarified here is what Coren means by ‗the psychological effect.‘

He describes features of the work as different from what is normally expected, or

misleading considering what one is used to hearing in a sonata form movement. In

other words a prior knowledge of other works has, rather than informed his listening,

coloured his psychological position and encouraged him to conclude on formal

ambiguousness.66

Therefore while Coren seems to advocate an appreciation of the

Quartettsatz on its own terms, he only arrives at such a conclusion when he feels the

work cannot be appreciated in terms of a generic norm. For Coren, listening to the

Quartettsatz as an individual work is a last resort. As a volte-face to this, Fieldman

approaches the work as an individual piece first, discusses it on its own terms and

then concludes from that (relatively) unbiased standpoint that it is in fact in sonata

form before consulting generic norms. It is true that Fieldman presents her findings

from an angle that suggests she wants to explain the anomalies in a work already

assumed to be in sonata form, but this is merely a narrative device employed to

demonstrate findings that have at the core of their origin a concern for the details of

65

Coren: ‗Ambiguity‘, 576. 66

This is not meant as a criticism of Hepokoski and Darcy‘s methods (whose work Coren predates), it

is merely an identification of the psychological stance that hindered Coren‘s interpretation of the

Quartettsatz. To make a general conclusion on the merits of a methodology based on a broadly similar

manifestation of that technique in a single analysis is to fall into a trap analogous to Coren‘s mistake of

considering a general format, applying it unsuccessfully to an individual case, and failing to learn

anything about either.

121

the individual traits of the work as an autonomous piece of music. Indeed, the course

of her investigation proves this to be the case.

In short, one investigation, namely Coren‘s analysis, leads us to give up on

finding the form of the piece while the other explains the music in a way that not only

deepens our understanding of the work but also expands our concept of sonata form

in general. In early Schubert literature Arthur Hutchings wrote of the Quartettsatz

that ‗together with a departure from the traditional order of themes and keys [it]

maintains a magnificent homogeneity.‘67

When one avenue of theory fails to explain

such homogeneity, as Coren‘s does, then another must be adopted. As Hepokoski

and Darcy wrote, ‗different questions require different sets of tools in pursuit of

answers.‘68

To this we may add a quote from David Beach who, speaking of the

Quartettsatz and questioning whether or not to call it sonata form writes, ‗it makes

little difference what label we give to it. What is important is to come to grips with

what Schubert has written and to seek a plausible explanation for the relationships he

has created.‘69

The brevity of the C minor episode in the recapitulation is unusual but

Fieldman argues that, if we follow the details of the piece as an argument rather than

the broad strokes we generally expect when we think of a sonata form movement we

will find that most of the argument has run its course before the return of C minor.

While an appearance of C minor is certainly aesthetically required, its brevity makes

a statement against what we typically expect of the tonal plan of a sonata form and

67

Hutchings: Schubert, 112. 68

Hepokoski and Darcy: Elements, 604 f.n.1. 69

David Beach: ‗Harmony‘, 13.

122

the conclusion of the dialectic ‗will not be better served by a lengthy portion of C

minor heaped up at the end.‘70

Another anomaly remains, namely the unusual design of the exposition is in

its particular use of three keys. The exposition moves from C minor to A major to G

major, but the Grundgestalt can be stabilised in A major and so the argument‘s

synthesis can be brought about in the terms of C minor and A major without the

dominant, G major. Combine this observation with the fact that the major dominant

in a minor-key is normally reserved for the end of the development (not the end of the

exposition) and it is revealed that it is G major that is the anomalous presence in the

exposition. While G major is not a necessary part of the dialectic, its content and

duration insist that it cannot be ignored as an ‗afterthought or accident of lyricism

gone out of hand, rather its presence suggests Schubert‘s self-conscious examination

of the issue of the dominant itself.‘71

Schubert presents us with the dominant to show how it is not necessary for the

piece‘s development as a fully effective work in sonata form to revolve around that

key relationship in any way. The unusual placement of the transition confirms this.

Schubert‘s role in this music is didactic; he is teaching his audience the true nature of

sonata form. We may ask if, when Schubert becomes occupied with the task of using

70



123

his chamber work to prepare himself for writing a future project, his work will

become more introspective. The answer will reveal itself as we progress in our study.

Fieldman concludes with an admonishment of engrained attitudes to sonata

form, ‗we are often led through a formal design not so much by the argument itself as

by a series of rhetorical cues.‘ She counters statements that the Romantics brought

about the end of sonata form with the words, ‗perhaps the death of sonata form is

better measured by the absence of dialectical argument than by the absence of such

cues.‘72

From the work covered in this chapter we can see the complexity of the issues

Schubert was dealing with in 1821. Indeed Fieldman believes it was these very

issues which were the cause of the compositional difficulties Schubert was going

through in the years surrounding the composition of the Quartettsatz.73

We learn

from the analyses discussed above of Schubert‘s image of himself in the tradition he

is a part of. Schubert does not seek to rid himself of the old forms but wishes to

reinvent them in their own true image. He questions sonata form in a way that

affirms the form‘s virtues and uncovers the versatility traditional views of the form

have hindered.

Having examined the Quartettsatz we may approach Schubert‘s subsequent

compositions with a more adaptable template than traditional notions of sonata form

could ever hope to endow us with. We know Schubert is likely to base his dialectic

off a small moment rather than the juxtaposition of two large traditionally polar

72

Ibid., 145. 73


124

sections and we know that Schubert makes that moment stand out in some way; we

have in the Quartettsatz several examples of how Schubert might draw attention to

this Grundgestalt as an event. We know the degree of complexity Schubert is likely

to indulge his dialectics with and therefore have a yardstick with which to temper or

encourage the depth of our reading. We know that Schubert is prone to take a

didactic approach to demonstrate his findings and that he is zealous in his

denunciation of dated, limited understandings of sonata form. His dedication to old

forms and his willingness to radically and completely deconstruct them to

demonstrate their true strengths is the apotheosis of the ambivalence that has

surrounded Schubert‘s position as either a Classicist or a Romanticist.

Given that we can fully account for the anomalies of the Quartettsatz as

rooted in the notion of dialectic, we are encouraged to search for anomalies in his

later works and see both how they relate to the dialectics in question, and how the

dialectics in question engage with the more traditional ideas of sonata form. A larger-

scale dialectic is revealed in Schubert‘s minor-key sonata forms whereby the first

term is the traditional tonal plan and rhetoric of sonata form and the second term is

the notion that those rhetorical cues and tonal plans are but one possible outcome of a

principle more central to the concept of sonata form, that of dialectic process. This is

our starting point for analysing the ensuing compositions.

If Schubert is preparing himself for the composition of a grand symphony, as

opposed to preparing some theoretical student or audience, it is likely that the didactic

element of his compositions will become more subtle. In the Quartettsatz Schubert

employs elements entirely outside of the dialectic at hand to show their redundancy.

125

The method is an effective pedagogical device but in purely musical terms it is the

conscious inclusion of extraneous material and is therefore not as economic or

perhaps efficient as later compositions might be. We may keep watch in our analyses

of those later works for a possible synthesis of the two terms of the large-scale

dialectic process to chart Schubert‘s progress along the path to a grand symphony.

126

Chapter 4: The ‘Unfinished’ Symphony, D759 (1822)

In the first movement of the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor Schubert takes on a

controversial but didactic role, just as Fieldman identified in the Quartettsatz. In the

symphony Schubert again confronts the traditional tonal plan of the minor-key sonata

form which often suffers as a dialectic by dividing antithetic and closing functions

between the key of the second group (typically the relative major) and the major

dominant at the end of the development. In the Quartettsatz Schubert emasculated

the role of the major dominant by creating a dialectic that determined a successful

sonata form movement while simultaneously placing the dominant outside of that

argument. The dominant was used in the movement only to show that it was not

required and Schubert will apply a similar teaching method in the first movement of

the ‗Unfinished‘ with regard to the traditional practice of setting the second subject in

the relative major.

The Grundgestalt

In the ‗Unfinished‘ Schubert again uses a Grundgestalt to establish the terms of the

dialectic to be pursued. Fieldman believes, ‗in works of Schubert that contain a

Grundgestalt, the event always stands out in some way, although sometimes it takes a

rather close, contextual reading to reveal it fully.‘1 The practice of interpreting large

scale events in terms of a Grundgestalt is endorsed by James Webster when he

writes, ‗so often, Schubert uses the first significant tonal event in a movement to

1 Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 118 f.n. 41.

127

generate key relationships – and hence form – on the largest scale.‘2 Joseph Kerman

validates this when he points out that ‗a single ―sensitive‖ chord can animate

Schubert‘s instrumental music on the largest level.‘3 In this work the disruptive

moment is to be found at bar 18 (Example 4.1). This moment is highlighted by

hairpins which constitute the first dynamic swell in the movement.


In bar 18 a chord built on G has the intervals (from the root) of a major third, a

perfect fifth, and a minor seventh (a chromatic F ). These intervals describe only one

of three chords, a dominant seventh for a major or minor-key; a II7M chord in a

major or minor-key; or IV7 in a minor-key when the sixth degree is raised. As a

dominant seventh it may be the dominant of C major or C minor (the most likely of

2 Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 20.

3 Paraphrased in Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 28.

128

which is C major, the Neapolitan of B minor).4 As a II7M chord it may be part of A

major or A minor (flattened sevenths in B minor); and as a IV7 it may be part of D

minor (the minor form of the mediant which would be a very unusual choice). The

closest and most Schubertian explanation is that the chord built on G in bar 18 should

be considered the dominant seventh of the Neapolitan C major. As Newbould writes:

[Schubert] likes to use [the Neapolitan chord] as a doorway into the Neapolitan

key itself: the piano‘s opening nine-bar strain in A minor in the ‗Arpeggione‘

Sonata moves, in its sixth bar, to a Neapolitan sixth (a B flat triad), swings for a

moment or two between that and the dominant seventh of B flat to imply partial

entry into that key, and pulls back to A minor for a cadence at the ninth bar.5

The Grundgestalt, or ‗disruptive moment‘, in this movement is the interruption of the

harmonic progression that would have seen the chord in bar 18 resolve to a

Neapolitan sixth. It is important to note that the present discussion, though it draws

on information pertinent to Schubert‘s typical use of the Neapolitan sixth to

comprehensively assess the circumstances surrounding the Grundgestalt, it is not the

intent of this discussion to investigate Schubert‘s use of Neapolitan chords unless

they are essential to the question of the Grundgestalt. In this chapter the Neapolitan

will be watched closely but this is entirely due to the capacity in which it serves the

dialectic set in motion by the Grundgestalt and is not an effort to set up a new branch

of inquiry into Schubert‘s use of Neapolitan chords in general. Though this

movement may be cited as an example of Schubert‘s mature use of the Neapolitan (as

has been done in the first chapter when we were concerned with acknowledging in a

brief overview several of Schubert‘s characteristic uses of harmony, etc.) its

4 Brown: ‗Schubert and Neapolitan Relationships‘, 43. He comments that B minor is ‗a key in which

he [Schubert] can rarely resist Neapolitan flavours‘. 5 Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man, 395.

129

discussion here is very much a consequence of the deeper issue of a dialectic that is

flexible enough to adapt to any musical scenario, no matter how specific its terms

may be.

Two events in the ‗Unfinished‘ bring about the Grundgestalt by conspiring

against the chord in bar 18 resolving to the expected Neapolitan. Firstly, the bass, G,

rises a semitone to a G# thus turning the entire chord into a diminished seventh.

Schubert often turned diminished sevenths into dominant sevenths by manipulating

the bass note by a semitone or changing the upper three notes by a semitone each, but

to do this the other way round is much less characteristic.6

The second feature which brings about the Grundgestalt by upsetting the

move to the Neapolitan is the appearance of C# in bar 19 undermining the allusion to

C major and pointing towards mediant harmony. We would then conclude that the

seventh chord built on G is IV7 in D minor but the music turns to D major, even

undermining the F that helped single the bar out for inquiry in the first place and

identify it with the keys just discussed above. Thus the chord‘s most likely role as

the dominant of the Neapolitan is disrupted.

The chord built on G (the chord in bar 18), when explained as the dominant

seventh of the Neapolitan, C major, does not necessarily mean the music should

move to C major. The music could have used that dominant seventh as a secondary

dominant to give gravity to an arrival on C major which could then in turn reinforce

6 Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man, 396.

130

B minor with a Phrygian cadence by virtue of its authority as the upper leading note.

Curiously, the Neapolitan is undermined by two pitches, G# and C#, and these are

part of that very key C major would have helped secure; the minor tonic. Of primary

antagonism is C# since the G# could have been explained as part of a chromatic line

if necessary. The real role of G# is not to destabilise the move to the Neapolitan

chord, it is to highlight a certain double-standard in traditional harmonic thinking

which Schubert will take the opportunity in this dialectic to explore.

In B minor both G and G#, as two versions of the sixth degree endorsed by

traditional melodic minor-key scales, are accepted equally as part of the key, B

minor. Both may be used without contradicting each other or undermining the sense

of key. However, when Schubert suggests a move toward the Neapolitan (the only

foreign pitch of which is C ) the Neapolitan is entirely undermined and negated by the

immediate appearance of C#. Not only this, but C#, which occupies a more

privileged position in B minor than C , actually pushes the music away into the

relative major, destroying the potential for the chord built from G in bar 18 to be

described as either V7 of the Neapolitan or IV7 in D minor. Why should two

versions of the sixth degree of the minor-key scale be accepted while two versions of

the second degree (which introduces into the scale‘s vocabulary the upper leading

note, a pitch far more harmonically supportive of the home key than either version of

131

the sixth degree) not be equally acknowledged by harmonic conventions?7 The

primary role of the G -G# movement in the bass in bar 18 is to highlight the contrast

in understanding between different versions of the supertonic and the submediant.

The submediant causes just as much trouble as the hint at the Neapolitan but is

acceptable because both G and G# are readily understood in the scale of the home

key.

The dialectic in this movement concerns C , the root pitch of the expected

Neapolitan (and the sole chromatic heir to the frustrated dominant seventh of bar 18),

and the C# that contributed most heavily to its downfall. C will be pitted against C#

and the goal will be the inauguration of C into the scale of B minor on equal footing

with C# in a manner comparable to the relationship already enjoyed by G and G#

within B minor. The struggle between C and C# will be shown to influence directly

Schubert‘s harmonic choices throughout the movement. Once this has been revealed,

the didactic element concerning the second key-area as antithesis will be made clear.

The Dialectic at Work

7 The ambiguity of the chord in bar 18 built on G and the puzzlement it can cause is evidence of the

weakness in harmonic theory confronted by this Grundgestalt.

132

The first important consequence of the Grundgestalt in this work may be said to

influence Schubert‘s choice of key for the second subject. Schubert modulates from

B minor to G major instead of the relative major. While it is not uncommon for

Schubert to modulate using mediant relations it is not enough to use his habits to

explain his choices in mature compositions.8 The penchant for third relationships

would have equally been satisfied had Schubert gone with convention and presented

the second subject material in the relative major, therefore we must consider what

made Schubert go with one choice rather than the other. The answer will ultimately

illuminate Schubert‘s challenge to the role of the relative major as an antithesis when

we reach the recapitulation.

The only note that is different in the key signatures of B minor and the key he

chose for the second subject, G major, is C, sharpened in the first and natural in the

second. The antagonism between these two versions of C will form that driving

tension in the movement that would normally be accomplished by a modulation to the

dominant in a major-key sonata form. The tension can be released by the appearance

of a C major chord in the home key and it will be seen that Schubert brings us close

to this several times, emphasising at times the prominence of C , at other times C#, but

only once gives in and when he does the result is most effective.

After the silent bar at the end of the second subject (bar 62) a shocking ffz

chord of C minor is heard. Schubert‘s use of dynamic extremes may be explained

away as another of his characteristic habits but it is more prudent to consider the 8 For more examples of Schubert modulating in this way see Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and

Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 23.

133

purposes Schubert puts his individual musical language to the service of; in this case

he is drawing our attention to an example of the dialogue between C and C#. The

tension is reawakened in bar 69 when C# is introduced into an E major chord to give

a German Sixth and, rather than being a fleeting colour, C# becomes the root of the

ffz diminished seventh chord of bar 71 (Example 4.2). From bar 69 to 71 the rising

arpeggios that had been in the violins change to stepwise lines in order to maintain

the tension without going outside of their range before the C#‘s diminished seventh

arrival at bar 71, this compromise proves the passage was composed with the climax

at bar 71 in mind.

134


135

C# appears differently in the sequential motive that follows, but more indicative of

dialectical progression is the reappearance of bar 71‘s C# diminished seventh chord

in bar 81. This time the diminished fifth, rather than the third, is in the bass and the

chord is less stable; a temporary challenge to the authority of C#. The C major chord

that is needed to resolve the dialectic appears at bar 86, fz, but is not yet in the home

key and is therefore antagonistic here. The C major chord is strengthened by a

temporary colouring of the C major key before the embellished repeat of the second

subject, again in G major, at bar 93. The push and pull between C and C# again

erupts with a swing back towards C# when, at bar 109, just before the repeat mark all

the strings play C# to prepare for the return to B minor (Example 4.3). C#, being the

fifth of the dominant chord, would be an unusual choice of note to double in all the

strings and have in the bass when re-establishing the dominant of the home key were

it not so crucial to the dialectic at work. One may recall in the previous chapter it was

observed how Schubert in the Quartettsatz hinged a portion of his dialectic on the

play between D and D . In the first movement of the ‗Unfinished‘ Schubert engages

in a similar practice but takes it to a greater extreme whereby we can follow the

dialectic clearly for a substantial section of the movement just by watching the

treatment of two pitches, C and C#.

136


137

The development section is cast in E minor, the relative minor of G major and

therefore another key where the only difference between its key signature and the key

signature of the home key is the note C is used. The difference is overtly stated by

the strings which emphasise the move from C# in bar 109 to the leap up to C in bar

111 (a leap of a ninth which has certain motivic weight, however there is not space to

discuss that here). It is significant that both the first and the second repeat brackets

include the C# of bar 109 (Example 4.3); the transition from the exposition to the

development could have been much smoother had bar 109 been bracketed with bar

110 as part of the first repeat sign and omitted or replaced after the repeat. However,

Schubert maintains bar 109 in the second repeat to emphasise the conflict between C#

and C . Brian Newbould and Maurice Brown consider the use of a repeat for the

exposition an error of judgement in its conventionality, but the repeat is necessary to

highlight the otherwise subtle Grundgestalt and contrast C# against C as much as

possible before entering the development where a more neutral platform is presented

for their discourse. This is compatible with the nature of a dialectic that, by virtue of

an incompatibility on one level spurs into motion another stage of argument.9

After the repeat a long C pedal from bar 122 rises to C# in bar 129 and

initiates a rising chromatic scale which blossoms to explain C# as part of a long-

9 Newbould: Schubert and the Symphony, 185.

138

sustained F# major chord. At bar 146 a shattering C# minor chord comparable to the

C minor chord of bar 63 is sounded ff. Here, the C# minor chord launches the

accompaniment rhythm of the second subject (which now contains B#, the

enharmonic equivalent of C , in bar 153) where the C minor chord in bar 63 had

originally silenced that very figure. The music modulates to D minor and a C# pedal

from bar 162 precedes a modulation to E minor. These choices of key comment

strongly on the role of C and C# in B minor as comparable with adjustable sixth and

seventh scale degrees in minor-keys by placing C, first as the sixth degree in E minor,

and then as the seventh degree in D minor.

At bar 190, at the dramatic height of the development section, B minor returns

but the climax shows no sign of subsiding for B minor itself is not its goal. At bar

194 a ff chord temporarily halts the progress of the climax; it is the chord of C major,

finally appearing as the Neapolitan chord in B minor. It is in second inversion and

suspends the impetus for several bars after which any forte sections are less part of

the climax as they are a consequent to it and a starting point for the ensuing morendo

(Example 4.4).10

10

One recalls Chusid‘s comment that ‗until the time of the ―Unfinished‖ Symphony […] Schubert‘s

greatest problem with sonata form is his inability to construct development sections that can serve as

the climax of the movement, as so often Beethoven‘s do.‘ This does not seem to acknowledge the

possibility that Schubert reserves developmental climaxes for situations when the dialectic can be

served by them. Chusid: ‗Schubert‘s Chamber Music‘, 177.

139


140

One may question whether or not the appearance of the Neapolitan in the

development section undermines its structural significance since one might expect

such a resolution of tension to appear only in the recapitulation. The appearance of

the Neapolitan in the development is, however, quite fitting with its dialectical role in

the question Schubert wishes to address. The alternation of C# and C in the

exposition signified the difference between B minor and G major, the modulation

between which was a modulation chiefly concerned with contrast. In the

development section, the keys of E minor and D minor were used. These latter keys

allowed for ambiguity between C# and C and the modulation between them was a

modulation chiefly concerned with colour. These keys gave the development section

a perfect platform for unbiased musical discourse alternating C# and C relatively

freely.11

It is engaging that the Neapolitan chord appears in the development before

the recapitulation as it justifies the musical journey the development section has

undergone and gives us something to take home.

We see the benefit of the Neapolitan‘s appearance in the development when in

the recapitulation at bar 227 we come to the repeat of the Grundgestalt (Example

11

Charles Fisk also notices that a dialogue concerning C# is at work in the first movement. He calls it

the C#-minor crisis and observes that it impinges on the second movement where it alternates with C

natural frequently. He writes: ‗[…] the virtual quotation [in the second movement], in quiet

transformation, of the C#-minor crisis from the first movement. No other key would allow this return

to take place so naturally in its original key, in such complete stillness. Moreover, the C# minor

brought into such relief by this return thus only makes explicit, however quietly, a tonal conflict

already repeatedly implied within the theme itself of the Andante […] Because of the way it brings

into the foreground a subordinate tonal emphasis already strongly felt within this movement‘s E major,

the C# minor that makes this return so literal has sufficient importance to motivate, by itself, the choice

of E major for this movement.‘ Fisk: Returning Cycles, 100.

141

4.5). As mentioned above, this chord can be read as the dominant seventh of the

Neapolitan but such a reading is hindered by the immediate appearance of C# in the

following bar. At bar 227 the same thing happens, only that the C# in bar 228 is

changed immediately to a C in bar 229 which is supported for a further eight bars (the

first few have been highlighted in red).


142

143

Since Schubert supplied us with the Neapolitan chord in B minor in the development

section he is no longer obliged to provide it here, but by introducing C at this point he

manages to avoid the move to D major which followed the original Grundgestalt. G

still progresses to G# but this is in keeping with the argument. The aim has not been

to eliminate all the characteristics of the Grundgestalt in the reprise but to raise the

duality of C and C# to the level of G and G#. This end would not be served by

removing G# from the reprise, indeed such a move would mean the flexible status

144

enjoyed by the sixth scale degree was not a positive thing and there would have been

no need for the second scale degree to ‗envy‘ and attempt to ‗mimic‘ it. Such

mimesis is something Schubert goes to great lengths to allow for.

In the exposition the Grundgestalt led to a repeat of the main theme but that

repeat was interrupted by different material before it could repeat the Grundgestalt.

In the recapitulation Schubert extends the repeat of the main theme and ensures the

Grundgestalt is heard a second time. This time, as C# alternates with C after the first

statement, the music avoids D major and moves to E minor. The observation made of

the development that E minor rendered C and C# the sixth scalar degree in that key is

again relevant. The Grundgestalt, transposed into E minor, now has a chord with the

intervals of a dominant seventh built on C . True to previous experience, the bass note

climbs a semitone and C and C# can be shown as having been fully incorporated into

the gesture. They are occupying the position previously held by G and G#, two

variations on a pitch normally accepted by conventional readings of the scale of B

minor. The incorporation of C into that scale is served well by such parallels and the

establishment of an equal status in the minor-key between the second and sixth scale

degrees is firmly made. Schubert has officially inaugurated the note of C into the

scale of B minor in this work and thus the recapitulation has that resolution of

145

conflict between the two key-areas of the exposition which originally separated C#

and C . What is more, the Neapolitan chord that this second Grundgestalt suggests is

F major and so the F that inspired so much difficulty in bar 18 is accounted for.

It is, however, in the recapitulation that Schubert makes his open challenge to

the role of the traditionally ascribed second key-area in a minor-key work (the

relative major) as an antithesis capable of generating any real tension for a dialectic.12

The second subject, which was in G major in the exposition, does not appear in the

major tonic in the recapitulation as would be expected. Indeed this is what is called

for by Edward Cone‘s sonata principle13

(namely, that all non-tonic material from the

exposition should return in the tonic in the recapitulation). Instead, Schubert places

the second subject material in the recapitulation in the relative major, D major. Only

the closing group of this section appears in the tonic major and tonal balance is

maintained with a coda in B minor.14

12

It is suggested by Maynard Solomon that such rebelliousness could have had a much more large-

scale impact on the symphony: ‗His [Schubert‘s] failure to complete the orchestration of the third

movement or to sketch a last movement could signify […] dissatisfaction with the traditional

symphonic structure [and, by extension, satisfaction with the symphony as finished in just two

movements].‘ Maynard Solomon: ‗Schubert's ―Unfinished‖ Symphony‘, 19th-Century Music, Franz

Schubert: Bicentenary Essays, 2/21 (1997), 112. 13

Summarised in Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 18. Webster

writes: ‗Edward T. Cone‘s term for the necessity of a recapitulation in the tonic of all material which

first appeared in a foreign key; in sonata form, this applies chiefly to the second group of the

exposition.‘ 14

This was not the first time Schubert used such a tonal plan to challenge sonata form conventions and

his use of it here suggests a long-standing concern harboured against the relative major‘s qualification

as an area of antithesis. Richard Kurth notes: ‗He [Schubert] used it [this key-scheme] in the G-Minor

Andante molto second movement of his 1817 Piano Sonata in E Major (op. 122) [… and] the ―Tragic‖

C-Minor Symphony […] but in the ―Tragic,‖ C major prevails to the end, while B major in the

―Unfinished‖ is finally – almost mortally – undone by the B-minor coda.‘ Richard Kurth: ‗On the

146

That the tonal balance can be restored so easily says much about how little

tension the tonic-relative major key relationship generates without the support of a

dialectic sparked elsewhere. D major allows for no flexibility between C# and C , nor

does it take an opposite stance to the strict interpretation of the second scale degree in

B minor in the exposition that G major provided. What is more D major is incapable

of demonstrating or benefiting from the adjustability between C and C# achieved in

the music so far. D major is largely outside of the dialectic in this work, just as G

major was placed outside the dialectic in the Quartettsatz and is likewise included to

show that it is not essential to the success of this particular movement’s sonata

form.15

Schubert challenges any notion that the terms of a dialectic in sonata form are

automatically to be considered the tonalities of the first and second groups. The

conventional expectations of what a sonata form should do are not very practical

when a work can disobey them and still sound resolved. Martin Chusid writes, even

without the explanations offered by the dialectic uncovered in this study:

In the recapitulation Schubert reveals […] his need to retain the tonal variety of

his exposition. Often, as here, he increases the length of his principal subject area

by introducing new tonal movement (bars 217-42). This allows the same degree

of modulation in sections 2 to 5 of the reprise; and yet the movement will close in

satisfying fashion in the tonic key.16

Subject of Schubert's ―Unfinished‖ Symphony: ―Was bedeutet die Bewegung?‖‘, 19th-Century Music,

1/23 (1999), 10 f.n. 18 hereafter referred to as Kurth: ‗On the Subject‘. 15

One or two features of D major help to prove the dialectic process has been resolved, but they are

not large enough to justify such a bold move. At bar 278 C natural is used to destabilise D major

before G#s and A#s take us back to B minor. What need is there to destabilise D with a pitch that is

also chromatic in B minor unless that pitch has by the associations created in this piece become a part

of B minor? 16

Chusid: ‗Schubert‘s Chamber Music‘, 177.

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What is important, and what gives this work its credibility, is that some dialectic

process is in place and that it is followed through to a conclusion. If an aim of

profitable analysis is to discover why music that we perceive to be good ‗works‘, we

can offer the explanation that a dialectic has been proposed and satisfied in this work

as the reason that the modulations in the recapitulation do not generate any tensions

that cannot be easily resolved by the coda; we can offer an explanation for why a

recapitulation that presents important second group material in a key normally

reserved for presenting that material in the exposition in minor-key sonata forms, as

though to create tension, can be used without stirring the need for the music to

recommence.

Edward T. Cone proffers an alternative reading of the first movement in

which an ambiguity in the opening phrase determines the course of the movement.

He does not use the terms ‗Grundgestalt‘ or ‗dialectic‘ but they could easily be

applied to his reasoning with the definitions they sport in this analysis. What should

be taken from both Cone‘s and the present analysis is that both readings show a

logical dialectical process at work in a movement that owes nothing to the traditional

tonal or rhetorical model handed down to Schubert in the generic minor-key sonata

form paradigm. In each analysis Schubert is shown to make his own way through the

music and whether one wishes to adhere with Cone‘s or the present analysis (if,

indeed, they can be considered mutually exclusive) the fact remains that Schubert

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employed Grundgestalt techniques in this movement and raised the minor-key sonata

form to the same dialectical status enjoyed by traditional major-key sonata designs.17

If one wishes to accept both analyses then each one may assist different

comparisons with the other works here analysed. Cone‘s reading highlights the

important structural role of the coda in Schubert‘s dialectics. Cone details a useful

dialectic process at work spurred by a moment in the opening theme and his

interpretation of the coda as more than a tail to the end of a work is comparable to

Fieldman‘s view of the ‗coda‘ in the Quartettsatz. The dialectic analysis provided in

this chapter highlights two different facets of Schubert‘s thinking in these years

which might also be compared with the other pieces to be studied here. One is a

didactic polemic against the unchallenged authority of the tonal plan of the traditional

minor-key sonata form. In this way the ‗Unfinished‘ supplies a fitting supplement to

the case made by Fieldman in the Quartettsatz against the dominant as agent of

closure. The other element is a challenging of some fundamentals of tonal theory; an

area that it will be shown shall receive more attention from Schubert in the String

Quartets in A minor and D minor.

17

Cone: ‗Schubert's Unfinished Business‘, 222-26. For an extension of the metric ambiguity noted by

Cone in the opening material see Kurth: ‗On the Subject‘, 3-32. Kurth uses the term ‗dialectical‘ to

explain the agonistic features of his analysis on page 26. Carl Dahlhaus presents another dialectical

explanation for the events in the movement that owe nothing to the traditional ascription of dialectic

functions to the key areas of a work. See him quoted at length on page 27 in Kurth.

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Chapter 5: The A Minor String Quartet, D804 (1824)

Applying contemporary thinking about sonata form (i.e. the limited role of the

traditional tonal layout in terms of true dialectic functionality) to the string quartets of

1824 considering the experimental attitude taken by Schubert in both the Quartettsatz

and the ‗Unfinished‘ B minor Symphony, how have those 1824 works adopted

Schubert‘s thinking in sonata form as represented by the essays of 1820 and 1822?

Are those ideas developed, abandoned or put-on-hold when the composer is

considering the task of paving the way towards a grand symphony? The ‗Unfinished‘

B minor Symphony and 1824 works are formally less ambiguous as sonata form

movements than the Quartettsatz; does this commonality between the ‗Unfinished‘

and the 1824 quartets diminish or strengthen the implications of the Kupelwieser

letter, or is it even possible to attempt to draw such conclusions?

Considering the dividing point implied by the Kupelwieser letter between the

‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor and 1824 chamber works, it might now be an

appropriate time to make an observation about Schubert‘s style that has been essential

to the previous analyses and is likely to feature prominently in the ensuing studies. In

my reading of these works it seems that Schubert presents dialectics which nominate

certain pitches as central to a work. These pitches are often immune to harmonic

context and remain constant while the rest of the music modulates to various keys in

a search to find the best way to accommodate them. This can most clearly be seen

when Schubert carries the implications of one movement‘s Grundgestalt across

different movements. Charles Fisk points out, for example, the influence of the

150

debate between C and C# from the first movement of the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in

the second movement. This second movement is in E major but the dialogue there is

not between two versions of the supertonic, as it was in the first, though the dialogue

is again between C and C#. Indeed these pitches influenced the choice of key for the

second movement.1 When contrasting Schubert‘s setting of ‗Ganymed‘ with

Reichardt‘s, Suzannah Clarke comments:

Schubert did not think in the same vertical-harmonic sense as Reichardt. Instead,

the former‘s ‗distinctive‘ compositional style lies in the way his use of pitch

drives the structure. Schubert‘s way of travelling to various keys was primarily

through harmonies related by common tones rather than by virtue of established

progressions. In other words, his treatment of pitch – or a kind of non-

contrapuntal but highly distilled voice-leading – enabled him to expand harmonic

horizons. The modelling of mediants on the tonic-dominant formula that Kramer

posits for Schubert‘s ‗Ganymed‘ is, I would argue, a structural ‗result‘ rather than

the ‗method‘ by which the composer‘s harmonic plan is crafted.2

Immediate Impressions and Hefling’s Criticisms

Compared with the Quartettsatz, the form of the first movement of the A minor

String Quartet appears to be far more conventional. It is clearly in sonata form; there

are two key areas in the exposition, the second of which is in the expected relative

major; the development comes to a close in the major dominant; the recapitulation

begins with the first group material in the tonic minor; and the second group material

is heard in the tonic major. In Martha Hyde‘s opinion:

Schubert‘s first movement, unconventionally for a Romantic sonata form, is not

based on contrast between principal themes. The lyricism of Schubert‘s first

theme, as well as its continuous and static texture, make it stylistically closer to

the second theme of a Romantic sonata than the usual first theme. In contrast to

1 Fisk: Returning Cycles, 85, 91ff.

2 Suzannah Clark: ‗Schubert, Theory and Analysis‘, Music Analysis, 21/2 (2002), 231 hereafter

referred to as Clark: ‗Schubert, Theory and Analysis‘. It should be noted that Clark‘s comment about

structural results as opposed to methods form a fitting analogy for those elements of the Quartettsatz

and A minor Quartet that correspond to elements of sonata form rhetoric and harmonic plans but are

not essential for the dialectic in use in each work.

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this unconventional opening theme, much of the movement‘s form seems entirely

conventional, especially when compared to Schubert‘s other late chamber works.

The movement‘s conventional form makes even more striking the unconventional

lack of thematic contrast.3

It may be that Schubert is once again attacking conventional views of sonata form by

showing that a fully satisfying movement can be achieved without some of the

elements ordinarily assumed to be necessary building blocks for establishing a

dialectic.

Considering the relative clarity of the form of the A minor quartet‘s first

movement, there are some elements that stand out as unusual (other than the character

of the opening theme) and, despite the work‘s lauded quality,4 characteristically they

have not all escaped criticism. The exposition contains a passage from bar 91 to 96,

for example, where the second subject group modulates into A major, a key that is far

removed from the second key area and undermines the tonic. This tonal centre is

particularly antagonistic to the tonic when one considers that its appearance is less

than ten bars away from the exposition‘s repeat mark which takes us back to A minor.

Stephen Hefling criticises this passage and the bars leading up to it as an ‗evasive

shift [at bar 81] to very quiet rehearsal of the pastoral lied [which] remains less than

fully persuasive, as does the surprise foil of a variant in VI (bars 91ff.).‘5 Below it

will be shown that this passage from bar 91 to 96, which can be seen later in Example

3 Hyde: ‗Neoclassic and Anachronistic Impulses‘, 226-227.

4 Hefling: Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, 79. In the paragraph which opens his analysis of the

work he describes the A minor Quartet as ‗extraordinary‘ and ‗cast in a satisfying succession of

movements‘. 5 Hefling: Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, 81.

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5.3, has a very important dialectical role. A reading of the movement by Anne

Hyland shows the passage in question to function as part of a stratified argument that

unifies the entire movement.6 The present chapter will provide another explanation

for the passage in light of an understanding of the movement in terms of a

Grundgestalt once the context that that Grundgestalt generates has been identified

and assessed.

Hefling notes how the development section ‗commences, most curiously, with

a verbatim return of the movement‘s first eight bars,‘ and identifies how, following a

turn to F minor, the ‗cello and first violin become enmeshed in a canonic web of the

theme‘s second phrase leading nowhere but louder.‘7 His appraisal of the

recapitulation is even more unforgiving, believing that it ‗resolves nothing‘.8 These

criticisms (the persuasiveness of the A passage at bar 91, the direction of the

development material, and the attempts to resolve crises in the recapitulation) as well

as Hefling‘s description of the piece as a ‗fundamentally lyrical work‘9 pay no heed

to Schubert‘s understanding of the movement as a dialectic and they shall be

systematically challenged as we uncover Schubert‘s method in this quartet.

Simultaneously, the question as to whether Schubert employed a dialectical process

for this work, as he did in the Quartettsatz and the ‗Unfinished‘ B minor Symphony,

or simply adopted the established minor-key tonal plan (with all its dialectical

6 Anne Hyland: ‗Linearity and Motion across the Schubertian Landscape: A Reappraisal‘, Society for

Musicology in Ireland Annual Conference, DIT Rathmines (12 May 2007). 7 For a movement that has been introduced as relatively conventional, F minor stands out as a rather

distant modulation (as does VI) and these will be explained in due course.

8 Hefling: Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, 81.

9 Ibid., 79.

153

weaknesses), will be tested by examining whether a Grundgestalt, namely a defining

disruptive moment that sparks off a dialectic, can be uncovered that satisfactorily

influences and explains the rest of the work.

Unifying Devices and Identifying the Grundgestalt

There are overtly striking moments in the exposition of the A minor quartet that could

signal an event such as would identify a Grundgestalt. One notes the passage from

bar 15 to bar 22 which is strewn with chromatic chords, or the unexpected move to A

major at bar 91 criticised by Stephen Hefling. It might be that the Grundgestalt in

this work extends beyond a single moment to encapsulate an entire phrase, or it could

be that there is more than one defining problem in the piece. The following study

will show that neither of these options are the answer and neither of the passages

mentioned constitute the Grundgestalt but rather are consequences of it. Indeed, they

are related to each other by virtue of the impetus of the real Grundgestalt that appears

earlier in the work.

In searching for this Grundgestalt we may question any salient features in the

music and one such minor investigation should be mentioned. At bar 5 the pitch C#

appears in a minor triad built off D with an added major sixth creating a harmony that

promotes subdominant-dominant ambiguity (Example 5.1).10

The C# is far too

fleeting to throw the modality of the opening key into any confusion and its easy

10

For more information on this harmony Graubart directs the reader to another of his articles; Michael

Graubart: ‗The Frustrated Supertonic and the Pathetic Added Sixth‘, International Journal of

Musicology, 8 (1999 published in 2002). Michael Graubart: ‗Integration in Schubert: Themes &

motives 2‘, The Musical Times, 1885/144 (2003), 40 f.n. 5. Hereafter referred to as Graubart:

‗Integration in Schubert: Themes & motives 2‘.

154

explanation as a chromatic under auxiliary note renders it content to be understood as

such rather than as a pitch that does not belong and is in need of some sort of

resolution. What is important is that it highlights and illustrates a semitone

neighbour-note motif, a relationship that will be remarked upon later as a useful

device in the interpretation of the work.

Example 5.1. Schubert: String Quartet in A minor, I, bars 1-10

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Bar 9 has a French sixth chord in the second half of the bar. It progresses as expected

to the chord of V but has several disruptive features which mark it as an event and its

establishment as such suggests it is the Grundgestalt. The various features that

contribute to its status as such will be identified in this and the following paragraphs.

It should be noted here that the French sixth is not a commonly used chord in

Schubert; he is much more likely to use a German sixth.11

Such a chord in this

instance would contain a C instead of the B that creates an augmented fourth against

the lower voices in this bar (note green rectangle). The augmented fourth interval

draws attention to the bar itself even before the D# note enters at the third beat.12

11

Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man, 397 discusses Schubert‘s preference for the German

form. 12

Further, the earlier C# auxiliary note emphasises the pitch D. This pitch, D, will be further

supported later by the Neapolitan sixth of bar 19, the touch off D minor in bar 20 highlighted by the

changed rhythm of the lower voices, and the use of D minor as a key area in the development. This

may be setting up a dialogue on the merits of the dominant versus the subdominant with a lot of

emphasis placed on different versions of D. As D# the subdominant is subservient to E, but as D it is the defining pitch in the key of A and as D it is a path back to the tonic and the dominant from A .

156

The note D# stands out, not only for its chromaticism (connecting the root

pitch of the subdominant to the dominant), but because of its rhythmic effect on the

piece. So too, from the beginning of the exposition – apart from the second violin‘s

ostinato which voices every beat of the bar without discrimination – the third beat in

each bar has been severely undermined. The lower voices consistently employ dotted

minims for the first three beats in each bar while the first violin line uses a

combination of dotted minims, rests, and ties to avoid stressing the third beat.

However, in bar 9 the first violin plays two minims, the second of which is the

chromatic D#. The melody thus far has managed to almost give the illusion of being

in triple time. Bar 9‘s undeniable clarification that the piece is indeed in duple time

has the effect of syncopation and we hear the D# all the more loudly.

Hypermetric division in the work begins with two-bar units but at bar 7 the

unit is lengthened to a four-bar unit. Bar 9 is the third bar of this new unit (i.e. it is

the first bar to break the established pattern) and so is burdened with all the attention

of this change. The raise in dynamic at bar 8 drives us into bar 9, clarifying the

extended phrase length as well as highlighting the bar that contains the foreign pitch.

Perhaps Schubert‘s goal is not to highlight D# itself as much as the major

dominant of A minor which, it could be argued, D# points to. But, as the

development of material signals, this is not the case. If the D# is there to highlight

the dominant pitch E, that end would have been served better by the note B; the first

violin‘s melody from bar 6 through to bar 10 establishes a rising sequence of

dropping thirds, but the D# clearly interrupts that pattern. The sequence, if left alone,

157

would have had D in bar 9 drop to B, which would then proceed to E in bar 10. B,

the dominant of the dominant, would have made a more convincing melodic

statement of the importance of E (the second violin sounded the D# pitch anyway, so

the harmonic colour of the French sixth chord could have been maintained). We may

ask if the D# could be intended to emphasise the E anyway but this is not the case. If

we look to the same moment in the recapitulation, bar 176 (Example 5.10), where we

find Schubert decorating the reappearance of this bar with B quavers between the D

and the D#, it is demonstrated that he consciously omitted the B from the melody in

the exposition. In bar 9 the pitch D# is the focus, not the hint at the dominant and its

presence is there to highlight bar 9 as an event that will itself set a dialectic in motion.

The cello and viola lines move in parallel octaves from an E in bar 8 to an F in

bar 9 and back to an E in bar 10 (refer back to Example 5.1). This pattern offers the

most pronounced example up to this point in the movement of a chromatic

neighbour-note motif to be found throughout the piece and draws even more attention

to these bars; particularly bar 9 in which it provides the F that strikes the augmented

fourth against B in the French sixth.13

The unexpected F in bar 9 is a call to attention

in a bar that otherwise suggests it is setting itself up, harmonically, for a move to the

dominant. Whether that dominant is major or minor it requires an F# in bar 9 to be

effective and this, in turn, sets up F as a contentious pitch holding us back in the

13

Michael Graubart, ‗Integration in Schubert: Themes & motives 1‘, The Musical Times, 1884/144

(2003), 40ff. Hereafter referred to as Graubart, ‗Integration in Schubert: Themes & motives 1‘.

158

tonic.14

When F# does appear in bar 15 it is pulling us away from the tonic but

Schubert does not allow it to; he will not allow the chord in which F# appears to

resolve properly and he brings us back to the tonic chord in the home key (Example

5.9, this will be expanded on in due time as a ‗consequence of the Grundgestalt‘).

Recognising a skirmish between F and F# in this movement will be important to

understanding the dialectic at play. Again, an element of the dialectic will be

determined by two versions of a pitch, as we have seen in the Quartettsatz and the

‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor.

Michael Graubart also comments on the chromatic neighbour-note motif,

although he understands it to apply specifically to the pitches E-F-E. Graubart

identifies its presence in the viola (bars 4 to 6 and 18 to 20) and again split between

the viola and cello in bars 20 to 22 as well as in bars 8 through 10 mentioned above.

Graubart goes further to claim that the expanding compass of each phrase creates a

pattern of peak notes that spell out the E-F-E connection.15

This latter observation is

less convincing due to the interruption made by the F#s at bars 15 and 17 making for

an E-F-F#-E shape. However the original observation is still useful if put to the

purpose of demonstrating the connection between the chromatic neighbour-note motif

and problem of F and F# in this work.

14

This movement is in line with the chromatic neighbour-note motif of the piece suggested above, but

on a scale comparable to later incidents, e.g. the D#-E-D# bass-line in bar 290-293. 15

Graubart: ‗Integration in Schubert: Themes & motives 1‘, 40ff.

159

For the reasons given above it is argued that the salient features of bar 9

identify the French Sixth of that bar (with its D# and F ) as the A minor quartet‘s

Grundgestalt. Like the Neapolitan sixth chord in the Quartettsatz, it upsets the flow

of the music. It marks a disruption in the hypermetric pattern from which the piece

will not immediately recover; it disturbs one of the chief characteristics established in

the main theme in its emphatic use of the third beat of the bar and chromatic

movement (the movement thus far has been almost exclusively in leaps with stepwise

motion reserved for notes of shorter durations); and the harmony has been pushed

heavily in the direction of the dominant in a manner that it takes considerable effort

from the second violin in bar 10 to twist and turn us back from. Even when the

melody resumes it is compelled to run into the third beat of the bar at bar 14.

Two more motivic devices, which merit comment, have appeared at this early

stage in the music. One is the sense of chromatic line which initially appears in the

first violin in bars 9 and 10 and will prove to be a hugely important device throughout

the piece for making connections and resolving conflicts (Example 5.1). The second

is the sense of triadic movement, or at least strong arpeggiation; the main theme is

highly characterised by descending thirds, often spelling out triads, for example, see

bars 3 and 4 in Example 5.1. In total, the three motivic devices that will be referred

to in this analysis are the triadic connections, chromatic neighbour-notes, and

chromatic lines. It is true that some of these features originate outside of the

Grundgestalt but this does not distract from the Grundgestalt’s role as the source of

all problems that simultaneously contains the ingredients for resolution. The motives

160

simply supply us with tools to help us interpret the fruits of the Grundgestalt in later

parts of the work. They give us a context from which to work just as they gave the

Grundgestalt itself a context from which it could distinguish itself as an event in the

first place.

Consequences of the Grundgestalt

There are three chief consequents of the Grundgestalt in the exposition: (i) the

passage littered with chromatic chords at bar 15; (ii) the passage in A major at bar 91;

and finally (iii) a deceptively telling melodic quirk in the second subject at bar 226.

1. The Passage from Bar 15 to Bar 22

In bar 15 we are introduced to the chromatic chord II7M (Example 5.2) which

contains the Grundgestalt’s D# and an F#, a pitch that it was mentioned earlier would

appear as a reaction to the F of bar 9. F# here is to be considered a foreign pitch

because it does not progress to G# as would be expected of the melodic or harmonic

conditions associated with that pitch in its present context. II7M is an attempt to

harness the D# of the Grundgestalt and correct the F of that same moment, pushing

both more convincingly toward the dominant. However, as hinted at just now, II7M

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does not resolve properly here; we expect to hear a chord of V, or a I(6-4)-V

progression, but instead II7M progresses to the chord of I(6-3).


The II7M chords in the passage at bar 15 introduce F# and immediately make it a

problem. If bar 9 is the Grundgestalt surely the root of such problems should stem

from that bar. Close examination reveals how this is accomplished. Earlier it was

shown that F was a rather contentious pitch in bar 9; that an F# would have better

162

prepared us for the dominant and eliminated the augmented interval with the B. A

French sixth chord, note for note, is in fact a II7M chord with a lowered fifth. The

difference between the chords (when understood as seventh chords) is the fifth; F in

the French sixth, F# in the II7M chord. The II7M chords from bar 15 exist solely to

balance the F in bar 9 but they themselves do not resolve as correctly as the French

sixth did. The French sixth of bar 9 resolves in bar 10 to a chord (the chord of V)

equally suited to the task of resolving II7M but when the II7M chords arrive the

chord of V is not to be found. Such disruption (the difficult bar 15 passage itself)

might have been avoided altogether if the Grundgestalt in bar 9 either naturalised the

D# (to create a chord of II7, a simple secondary seventh) or sharpened the F to F# in

that same bar (to create a chord of II7M which would have resolved correctly while

pointing more strongly at the dominant key and avoiding the augmented fourth

interval). The root of the difficulty that plagues the passage at bar 15 is to be found in

the Grundgestalt. That the difficulties posed by the Grundgestalt might have been

avoided by the alteration of either of the foreign pitches D# or F means they are both

equally important to the interpretation of this dialectic.

The foreign pitches in the passage at bar 15 are treated as follows; as expected

D# resolves to E but F#, which we expect to move to G#, leaps down to D# and then

resolves to E in the next chord. The B in the Neapolitan at bar 19 temporarily reigns

163

in the F# and D# by treating them as a descending triad that leads to the B but this is

not fully satisfactory. B is an augmented sixth away from G# and we see another key

element of contention in the Grundgestalt attempting to act as an agent of synthesis.

However, G# is the most notably absent pitch from the chords that succeed the II7M

chords of bars 15 and 17, rather than other pitches in V, since the pitch E is shared by

both chords I and V and B is only the fifth of the dominant. G# is required to absorb

the F#. G# does appear in bar 16 in the same voice as the F# in bar 15, but it is in the

wrong octave and it is a non-harmony note (that this pitch is a G# rather than a G is

not unusual since it is already a feature of this piece to have many chromatic lower

neighbour-note appearances, of which this is one). II7M appears at bar 15 and bar 17

with the aforementioned under auxiliary G# appearing in bar 16, but no G# appears in

bar 18, leaving the second appearance of II7M even less resolved than the first. The

tension is harnessed by a Neapolitan sixth chord in bar 19, but the music still requires

a G#. This arrives all too late at bar 22 where it leads us to A major and not the A

minor that would have given the piece more stability.

The II7M chords are emphasised by fp dynamic markings. The Neapolitan

and augmented sixth chords that follow are played with a softer dynamic. These

latter chords sound much more like a chromatic reaction to the II7M chords‘

dissonance rather than a result of the Grundgestalt itself and are quite tame in their

impact as they try to mollify the damage that has just preceded them.

164

The Neapolitan sixth at bar 19 suggests a move to the subdominant (indeed,

such a suspicion is temporarily and immediately sated) to take control of the

chromaticism that has just gone by. At bar 20 the cadence into D minor and the

German sixth that follows it are emphasised by the cello and viola; it is the first time

in the piece that their shared rhythmic pattern is broken. In bar 21 the augmented

sixth chord acknowledges the argument at hand when it sets F against D#, even when

it is trying to soothe the Grundgestalt’s reverberations, but it resolves normally.

These chords and the move to the subdominant should be heard as proposed tools for

use in resolving the issues put forth by the Grundgestalt.

Between bars 15 and 22 the first notes in the melody on every hypermetric

downbeat form a triadic link between the foreign pitches of the work and the minor

dominant of the home key. The downbeats are marked by the fp dynamics on bars 15

and 17, cementing a two-bar hypermetric unit. The triadic link (or more accurately,

the arpeggio that is derived from the falling triad of the main theme) that forms a

connection between certain important pitches operates as follows: F# and D# are

heard together in bar 15. The appeal to hypermetric downbeats suggests that only the

F#, the note on the first beat of the bar, should be counted toward constructing this

alleged arpeggio but the relationship between F# and D# is repeated verbatim on the

next hypermetric downbeat at bar 17 and the notes become audibly inseparable,

therefore both will be counted. The next hypermetric downbeat sounds a B in the

melody (first violin), a note a third down from D# and evidently continuing the

165

arpeggio. The accents placed on bar 20 encourage us to seek the next note in the

arpeggio in that bar where we will find a G . Whether one hears bar 20 as a new

hypermetric downbeat or as hypermetric syncopation will determine whether one

considers bar 21 or bar 22 to be the next downbeat, however overshadowed it may be

by the force of the accents in bar 20. Either way, each bar begins with the same note,

an E, the next note in an arpeggio.

The arpeggio spelled out by the hypermetric strong beats in the bar 15 passage

runs, from top to bottom, F#-D#-B-G-E (the pitches are marked in green in the

example), a chromatically mutilated version of the dominant seventh with an added

ninth which goes some way to showing how the bar 15 passage disturbs the home

key. Note how this arpeggio looks if we replace the foreign pitches, F# and D#,16

with their enharmonic equivalents: the arpeggio now appears, from top to bottom, G -

E-B-G-E, and it is not clear whether this arpeggio is more closely aligned with E or

E. The significance of this observation will be revealed shortly when we consider

further consequences of the Grundgestalt.

2. The A Major Passage at Bar 91

16 B is not considered foreign since it resolves as expected of its appearance in the context of a

Neapolitan sixth.

166

At bar 91 five bars of A major (a passage James Webster might explain as a ‗purple

patch‘)17

are inserted into a C major section (Example 5.3). To facilitate this unusual

modulation the tonic of C becomes the third of A , and to exit it the third of A

becomes the tonic of C, a nod to Schubert‘s favoured mediant relationships and an

overt parallel to the A-C-A key areas encountered when the exposition is repeated. A

major entirely undermines both tonic and dominant and does so in the immediate

presence of the second term of the dialectic, C, a key that by virtue of its dialectic

function in the harmonic plan as an antithesis to the tonic is our only way back to

either the tonic or the dominant of the home key. It is this passage which Stephen

Hefling described as a ‗less than fully persuasive […] surprise foil of a variant in

VI.‘18

It will be argued here that the present passage is important to the dialectic

because it shows one of the exposition‘s attempts to balance itself and one of the

recapitulation‘s successes.


17


Hefling: Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, 81.

167

As stated earlier, the passage at bar 15, discussed above as the first consequence of

the Grundgestalt, was unstable because the II7M chords failed to resolve (a

resolution that would have largely been effected had F# been permitted to progress to

G#). The entire passage was temporarily reigned in by some chromatic chords, as

discussed above, but the passage still requires a G# to balance itself. A , the key of

the passage at bar 91, is the enharmonic equivalent of G#, and is an attempt to supply

that balance. The passage in Example 5.3 is, strictly speaking, not so much a

consequent of the Grundgestalt as it is a consequent of a consequent, a reaction to the

unstable chords from bar 15 on that were inspired by the Grundgestalt. That it should

168

appear so late in the movement can be explained once some more details of the piece

are examined.

Enharmonic games are important in this work. Earlier it was shown that the

passage at bar 15, when considering the hypermetric downbeats and syncopations,

emphasised an arpeggio that, when enharmonically respelled, produced the pitches G -

E-B-G-E. The first three notes of this arpeggio spell the dominant of A major; it

prepares us for that key when it eventually arrives and ties the two passages together.

Hefling comments on the passage in A major as though it were merely a harmonic

gimmick employed for no reason other than to show off Schubert‘s fondness for

distant key-relationships.19

If it were so, then perhaps one could agree with Hefling

for on such a superficial level it is not entirely convincing, but when one understands

its role in the work, one realises that the slightly unsatisfactory effect is entirely

appropriate. Were it complete in itself it would contribute little to the momentum of

the music; it is a factor which is there to be resolved and to aid in the resolution of

other problems. What is more, if one wishes to explain A major as the flattened sixth

of the second key area (as Hefling does), one should notice that the French sixth that

19


169

was the Grundgestalt was built off the flattened sixth of the first key area, F.20 It is

no accident that the A music from bar 91 is heard in the recapitulation in F major.

At this point a comment on G#‘s early appearance in bar 7 and its part in the

Grundgestalt should be made. The G# of bar 7 is related to the chromatic, foreign D#

of bar 9. The hypermetric grouping of bars into units of two at the beginning of the

piece, even though it is broken by that point, still makes us link bars 7 and 9 together

rhythmically as the first and third parts of a four part pattern. They occupy roughly

the same rhythmic position and are audibly linked together. The pitches spell a

perfect fifth and when we think of G# as the enharmonic equivalent of A, D# can be

understood as E , the enharmonic dominant of A major. G#, in its appearance in bar

7, is nothing unusual in itself but it is only after bar 9, and especially bar 15, that it

becomes an important pitch and therefore does not signal the beginning of the

Grundgestalt in bar 7 but merely anticipates it. What it does do is start the mental

connection between G# and D#. D# is the dominant of the G# we expect to hear in

the bar 15 passage. Both appear together in the harmony in bar 10 to emphasise their

20

Also recall the discussion of the VI in a cycle of sixths in Pesic: ‗Schubert‘s Dream‘, 142-143. Also

see Jeffrey Perry: ‗The Wanderer‘s Many Returns: Schubert's Variations Reconsidered‘, The Journal

of Musicology, 2/19 (2002), 380.

170

relationship.21

To borrow the words of Leo Black, ‗much apparent modulation is

structure before it is understood.‘22

3. The Second Subject, bar 59

The second subject, which is stated at bar 59 (Example 5.4), is in the relative major,

C major. At bar 63 some chromaticism in the first violin hints at the dominant of C,

but more importantly it is part of a response to, and consequent of, the Grundgestalt.

Where the Grundgestalt introduced the foreign pitch D# in the melody and the

contentious pitch F in the harmony, the second subject inverts this with an F# in the

melody and a D in the harmony. In the same bar Schubert reverses the

Grundgestalt’s chromatic line of D-D#-E (connecting subdominant, D, to dominant,

E) by drawing a chromatic line from C major‘s dominant, G, downwards creating the

line G-F#-F-E. This chromatic line in the second subject descending from G is a

reversal of the earlier chromaticism applied to the ‗other‘ contentious pitch, F and not

D#. It also connects the dominant of the second key area, G, to the dominant of the

first key area, E.

21

D natural also appears in bar 10, though more as a decoration of a pivot note than as a pitch

contributing to a harmony; D# has the rhythmic edge. 22

Black: ‗Schubert: The Complete Voice‘, 13.

171


At bar 68 we see ambivalence between F# and F (Example 5.5), an echo of bar 63. A

chromatic cello line, rising from D, starts at bar 69. That the line starts with D but

does not strike a note foreign to the local key area until D moves to E may mean that

the line does not actually become chromatic until bar 70 when E is introduced. E

pushes the harmony briefly towards C minor and the sense that this is more than one

line making connections, but the entire body of instruments, gives us the feeling that

172

we are moving from a C tonality to a D tonality through the dominant of C which is

emphasised in the chromatic line by a change of register in the cello but it is also

made significantly more stable by a disruption in the chromatic progression

immediately thereafter. The G in the bass rises a major second to A rather than the

semitone we would have expected; in this way the chromatic line bypasses G# (or A ).

This seems to be a direct reference to one of the chief difficulties of the exposition

and anticipates the key area to follow (A major at bar 91). This moment is further

enhanced by a trill on the A . The D tonality is important for several reasons; firstly it

undermines the troublesome pitch in the Grundgestalt D#; secondly it was a helpful

factor in calming the frustration of the II7M chords in bars 15 and 17 when a G# was

not available; thirdly it is the subdominant and its use may say something about

Schubert‘s thoughts on the role of the dominant.


173

Between bars 75 and 81 a certain ambivalence of dynamics seems to foreshadow the

restless shifting back and forth of harmony that occur thereafter between the relative

major, C, and the subdominant, D minor. It is as though C major and the

subdominant are allied against the dominant traditionally associated with antithesis, a

role not so easily accommodated in minor-key sonata forms. D minor is the

subdominant of the first key area and the dominant of the dominant of the second key

area. Its potential use as an agent of synthesis expounds the values of the dominant

for C major while it undermines the values of the dominant for A minor. As

mentioned above, the first note that seriously undermines the modality of the second

key area is E at bar 70. This is the flattened root pitch of A minor‘s dominant. It is

also the dominant pitch of A , a key that undermines the home tonic. How this

chromatic note and its consequences are treated in the recapitulation will reveal much

about the piece.

Antithesis

174

We may ask in what way C major, the second key area, can be considered an

antithesis to A minor since, as mentioned earlier in the criticism of minor-key sonata

form tonal plans, the relative major shares the same diatonic pitch collection as the

tonic. Fieldman, however, proved that Schubert could make a similar key-

relationship antithetic in the Quartettsatz and we can do likewise here. The fact is

that C major negates the one note available to A minor that is required to resolve the

II7M chord that appears in that key; the pitch G#. While the relative major failed to

be antithetic in the recapitulation of the ‗Unfinished‘ it succeeds in the exposition

here.

At bar 75 in the second group the arrival of D minor sparks a sequence

through A minor, E minor, and back to the relative major, C. It is significant that the

second key area, C, should follow the dominant key area, E, in this passage. It makes

a statement against us hearing the second key area of this piece as a tonality on the

way to the dominant (A through C to E). C is the antithesis in this dialectic, not a

path to an antithesis.

Agent of Return

Traditionally the major dominant is expected to act as an agent of return at the end of

the development section containing, it is expected, all that is required for synthesis. E

major contains the required G# and is the dominant of A minor. It was argued earlier

that such a tonal plan detracts from a work as a dialectic when the agent of closure, in

this case the dominant, is an element outside of the terms of the argument. This

criticism does not apply here, however, because the dominant key itself does not

175

introduce any new information to effect this closure. G#, the pitch required for

synthesis, is already part of the minor scale of the tonic and therefore already existed

within the opening terms of the argument. E major is simply a vehicle in which G#

may be presented formally and the effect of structural closure owes more to the pitch

G# than to the dominant key. Use of the dominant at this point is a convenient

practice that has been traditionally employed when the antithesis happened to be in

the dominant to begin with, but it is not a deciding factor in the present dialectic. Use

of the dominant acknowledges conventional sonata form rhetoric and provides

audible cues to the listener informing them that the development is coming to a close.

When E major is used at the end of the development section we will see how this

rhetorical function, however, is essentially all the purpose that it serves.

Development Section, bars 109-68

Hefling notes that it is unusual to see a development section begin with a number of

bars of the exposition‘s opening material quoted verbatim, as happens in the A minor

quartet. However this may be seen as a nod toward the tour-of-keys model of sonata

form. As Caplin writes, ‗the [tour-of-keys] model is particularly evident when

extensive material from the exposition reappears (transposed) in the development, as

occurs frequently with Haydn.‘23

Schubert‘s typical mode manipulation reaches incredible structural heights in

this work. D minor moves to its minor-mode mediant, F minor, which is the minor

23

Caplin: Classical Form, 196.

176

submediant of the tonic. Significantly, it becomes minor via the superseding of A

with A, the enharmonic pun on G# so important in the exposition. F minor enters at

the point in the melodic pattern that first introduced D# in the exposition thus further

endorsing the connection between these two pitches, D# and F. F minor is the

relative minor of A major and is inherently a statement of F over F#. Incidentally, D

minor is naturally a statement of D over D# and the sequence of keys that follows

keeps to the notion of triads as a unifying device (D, F, A ).

At the upbeat to bar 119 a melody appears in the bass that is derived from the

first group material in bars 7 through 9 that led to the Grundgestalt. It is repeated

once at bar 123 and at the upbeat to bar 127 it appears again, slightly altered and at a

higher pitch, setting itself up to be heard as a sequence (Example 5.6). It is in A

major when the sequence reaches this heightened pitch and no sooner has it started

than the expected melody is broken at bar 129. At bar 128 there is a German sixth

chord in A major. This puts an F# into the abbreviated sequence in A major and

fortifies the relationship between the F# of the II7M chords and A as the enharmonic

equivalent of the G# discussed earlier. The German sixth emphasises this material‘s

connection with the augmented sixth relationship that characterised the Grundgestalt.

177


From bar 127 on we have an example of the development section reeling from the

blows dealt in the exposition and attempting to fit the pieces together. Note how the

F# of bar 128 resolves up to a G, not the G# we required earlier, while the A resolves

down to a G. G is the dominant of the second key area and the very diatonic note that

is antithetical to A minor. This chord progression sparks off the aforementioned

178

modulations connecting C minor through its dominant, G minor, to D minor and the

exercise is ended with another augmented sixth chord. This second augmented sixth

chord, at bar 139, has a G# as the upper note of the augmented interval. It is a

response to the F# of the augmented sixth chord in bar 128 and teases the F# to G#

movement missing in the bar 15 passage (Example 5.7).


The G# in the second violin in bar 139 leaps down a voice and an ‗octave‘ to a G in

the viola in the same bar. It then leaps down a voice and an ‗octave‘ to a G# in the

cello forming a virtual chromatic neighbour shape on G# spread out over several

voices and octaves. At bar 140 a large diminished seventh chord containing several

pitches important to this work halts the proceedings. The top voice at this point plays

D-C#-D, a chromatic neighbour-note. At bar 141 the G# in the cello leaps up to

another G# cementing this pitch‘s temporary triumph over G . It is paired, still as the

179

root of the diminished seventh chord, with D and F, two important pitches to the

Grundgestalt. The other pitch is a B, also a pitch that carries some dialectic weight in

this work (recall it was a B that identified the Grundgestalt’s augmented sixth as a

French sixth and it was a B in bar 19 that helped temporarily reign in the troublesome

II7M chords in bars 15 and 17).

The diminished seventh chord that appears at bar 140 and is held for several

bars is a halfway point between A minor and C major. If the G# bass note drops a

semitone we will have the dominant seventh of C major. If the G# bass should rise a

semitone it will give us the harmonic minor scale of A minor, with which the other

voices may fall into line. Schubert takes neither option but surprises us at bar 146 by

respelling the G# as A , overtly endorsing an analysis of the piece in terms of

enharmonic equivalents and bringing us into E major (Example 5.8). E major is the

dominant of the A episodes and the G#, which fundamentally did not change at bar

146, has temporarily won out over D and F (as opposed to being reconciled with

them) and kept the development section in motion. Incidentally, Example 5.8

demonstrates Schubert‘s acute awareness of the enharmonic equivalents he is playing

with in this piece. At bar 154 in the first violin Schubert writes the descending

180

arpeggio motif as a G falling to an E and so on. In bar 156 he repeats the fragment

but respells the first two pitches of the arpeggio as F# and D#.

181


182

The enharmonic change in the cello from G# to A gives us a dominant seventh chord

that could be the dominant of E major or E minor. Schubert plays on this ambiguity

by giving us a chord of E major in bar 148 and then a chord of E minor in bar 149.

However, the ambiguity permeates deeper than the question of whether E is major or

minor to the question: are we in E at all (and by extension whether or not the repeat

of this passage up a semitone at bar 156 can be said definitively to be in E)? The

enharmonic change to A is something that can be appreciated on paper, but in

listening we do not hear the change from G# to A .

If the enharmonic change had not taken place the G# spelling would have

made for an augmented sixth chord in bar 146. If we hear the chords in bars 146 and

147 as German sixths still in D minor (technically, if the G# is in the bass then they

are in an inversion better described as a German seventh), we would be forced to

observe that the E major chord that follows is not a tonic but perhaps the Neapolitan

sixth of the key to which the German sixths belong. The E major chord is in the 6-3

position which assists us hearing it as a Neapolitan. Schubert, regardless of what we

hear, by his choice of spelling clearly intends for us to interpret these chords in

183

accordance with an A in the cello. However, even understood as that, bar 146 might

be heard as the II7M chord in A major resolving appropriately to its dominant E

major.

The tonality can be determined by looking backwards to see how we arrived

at the problematic diminished seventh chord to begin with. If bar 140, succeeding D

minor as it does, is harmonised as #IVdim7 in D minor, then the equivalent chord in

bar 152 (a melodic pattern confirms it as an equivalent moment), whose bass note is

A must be a #IVdim7 chord. In this case it is coming from E (both major and minor

modes are hinted at, but E major is more prevalent) which is indeed the key that the

enharmonic change from G# to A has brought us to.

At bars 145-46 the root of the #IVdim7 chord did not resolve, it stayed at the

same pitch (albeit with a different spelling). At bar 156 the root of the #IVdim7

chord stays at the same pitch and becomes the seventh in the dominant seventh of E

major, therefore it is E major that leads us back, via a descending chromatic line in

the second violin, to A minor for the recapitulation. To tie all this together, at bar 140

we have #IVdim7 in D minor; at bar 146 the root transforms into the bass note of

V7d in E major; at bar 152 we have #IVdim7 in E major, the root of which becomes

184

the bass note of V7d in E major which sets us up for a return to A minor through the

major dominant, the key area a minor-key sonata form would traditionally utilise.

The E minor and E minor chords that appear in bars 149 and 159 and

undermine the major tonalities of each key respectively may be the result of a

distortion in the neighbour-note motif. In each case, the minor third of the chord

demonstrates a linear move down a step from its preceding note and up a step to its

succeeding note. Unlike other instances of the motif, not all the steps are semitones.

The line moves down a semitone and up a tone. It could be argued that the nature of

the stepwise movement is not essential to the dialectic and it is enough to have the

general shape represented at points of interest, but chromaticism is very important in

this work. The damaged motif may suggest instability in the music which is made up

for by the long chromatic line that begins in bar 158 and leads to the recapitulation.

The pitches in the auxiliary motifs anticipate, and subsequently mirror, the semitonal

harmonic shift between E and E about to be undertaken. The major and minor

appearances of E and E highlight the modality of the tonic A to which they are

headed, representing the dominant key and the dominant chord of the flattened minor

tonic and the minor tonic respectively.

Martha Hyde comments: ‗Most strikingly, the final section of Schubert‘s

development (the retransition) prepares the recapitulation not with increasing

intensity and climax, but with a decrease in rhythmic and harmonic motion, a

185

decrescendo in dynamics, and a gradually emerging textural stasis.‘24

Her comments

entice us to examine this section more closely. Curiously, A minor seems to return a

few bars before the recapitulation begins at bar 168 (Example 5.9). By bar 165, A

minor is essentially established despite the fact that the first group, indeed, the

recapitulation, begins three bars later. Admittedly it does not sound like we are in the

home key until the recapitulation, but when we examine the chords in the final three

bars of the development we can see that the dominant has already relinquished its role

as an agent of closure before the event of the double return. It is, rather, the

chromatic line in the second violin that has been in motion since the dominant was

established at bar 158 that continues to suspend our sense of arrival until the double

return and is our true last moment in the development.

Technically the chromatic movement in the second violin ceases by bar 167

when the B we would expect to follow the B of bar 166 does not arrive and the

second violin contents itself to remain at B for a bar before changing direction and

rising a semitone to the third of the tonic in A minor at the recapitulation. The reason

is to further highlight how the home key has been reached before bar 168; a B or A#,

as these pitches are not part of the scale of the home key, would have made this less

clear. To maintain the momentum a sustained chromaticism would have afforded this

bar, the first violin introduces a chromatic pitch of its own: the leading note of A

24

Hyde: ‗Neoclassic and Anachronistic Impulses‘, 226.

186

minor. This G# appears between two A s and spells out the chromatic neighbour

motif. Chromatic lines and neighbour-notes, essential elements of the Grundgestalt,

are the agents of closure and though they achieve this in the context of the dominant,

the dominant clearly passes the torch before the recapitulation arrives. Schubert is

showing us, via the alternative interpretation of the preceding music as being in A and

A major as easily as E and E major, that he does not need to use the dominant, rather

he chooses to use it to highlight his dialectic‘s self-sufficiency.

187


The key areas passed through from bar 135 to the end of the development are worth

noting here. D minor moves into E major via a diminished seventh chord and E

major, in turn, moves to E major before we arrive back at A minor. The progression

of root pitches in these tonalities is D-E-E, a line that is the enharmonic equivalent of

the D-D#-E motif of the Grundgestalt. Caplin denies the influence of motives to

structure. He writes, ‗the formal function [or compositional convention] of a

particular group does not depend on its motivic content. The appearance of a

188

particular melodic motive […] rarely determines its formal expression.‘ He also

states that ‗motives carry little in the way of functional implications […] this theory

[…] largely sets aside […] Schoenberg‘s own preoccupation with Grundgestalt and

―developing variation.‖‘25

In response to Caplin‘s concerns it should be mentioned that Schoenberg

never expressly defined Grundgestalt as a ‗motive of importance‘, although he

certainly at times used it that way; Fieldman talks about the flexibility of the term and

her use of it in analysing the Quartettsatz does not treat Grundgestalt as a motive but

as a moment, a ‗defining problem‘ of disruptive importance that sets a dialectic in

motion.26

As Fieldman writes:

The term [Grundgestalt] is Schoenberg‘s, one he reportedly used often in his

teaching although without providing an explicit definition for it in his writings.

In the absence of such authorial clarification, it has been taken most commonly to

mean motive, usually translated as ‗basic shape,‘ a unifying device. But among

Schoenberg‘s primary compositional concerns was the issue of the motivation of

a work, the connection between the abstract ‗idea‘ and its composing-out into

actual music. It is in that sense, the sense of ‗shaping force,‘ that I use the term.

The Grundgestalt constitutes the initial manifestation of the problem of a work

and thus is the link between the composer‘s atemporal idea and the realisation of

that idea in time, the work itself.27

The present analysis shares Fieldman‘s view of the Grundgestalt but recognises

within the ‗moment‘ presented at bar 9 how certain motives do have formal

implications. As Caplin writes, ‗a single motive can saturate a musical composition

without obscuring the form,‘28

and in the A minor quartet there is a great number of

instances of the chromatic neighbour-note motive which the present analysis lends no

formal weight to. This analysis does, however, attach importance to a motive when it

25

Caplin: Classical Form, 4. 26

Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 119 f.n. 42. 27

Ibid., 118-119. 28

Caplin: Classical Form, 4.

189

can be seen to motivate larger scale harmonic direction, as shown above (D-E-E/D-

D#-E); or when it underscores important small scale harmonic moves (the D-C#-D

movement in bars 139-40); or when its extensions carry out formal duties normally

reserved for the harmony (the chromatic line that combines with the chromatic

neighbour motive to connect the development to the recapitulation after the dominant

key has lost its usefulness). In short, the analyses presented in this thesis treat the

Grundgestalt as a moment or a defining problem rather than a motive and the analysis

of the A minor quartet only considers motives as formally relevant when they attach

themselves to, or facilitate, harmonic functions. Thus we reconcile the present

approach with Caplin‘s concerns.

The motivically derived chromatic progression of root pitches observed (and

validated) just now, the triad-themed inspiration of the third-related modulations, and

the dialoguing of various contentious pitches against their more innocuous

counterparts pool together to create a development section that confronts the issues

raised by the exposition, shows the full extent of their disruption on the music, and

winds them together into a motivically derived harmonic shift to the dominant. In

doing so Schubert has not only furthered the dialectic, he has brought it into line with

common views of form, utilising that form to highlight his own dialectic processes

rather than modifying his approach to fit into a form which would be, owing to such a

subscription, rendered meaningless. This understanding of the development as part

190

of the dialectic process surely shows it as something significantly more than a

‗canonic web of the theme‘s second phrase leading nowhere but louder.‘29

29


191

Recapitulation, bars 169-274

Stephen Hefling gives a very harsh summary of the recapitulation. He writes, ‗this

reprise alters very little, save for closing in the tonic major, and resolves nothing.‘ He

acknowledges a coda in A minor but feels that rather than offering any kind of

resolution, it supports an Adornian notion of memories of later events reflected in the

beginning of a work30

yet such an explanation does not work for this piece of music if

it can only lead Hefling to conclusions such as those quoted above, nor is it necessary

in this quartet when we understand the dialectic at work. When Hefling states that

the reprise ‗alters very little‘ and ‗resolves nothing‘ he fails to recognise that because

Schubert ‗alters very little‘ we must pay extra close attention to what those alterations

are. Only then will we see that those alterations go a long way towards disproving

his opinion that nothing gets resolved.

At bar 176 in the recapitulation we have the equivalent of bar 9, the

Grundgestalt, and at this point less has been changed than might have been expected.

The D# and Fs appear as they did in the beginning and are treated the very same. All

that has changed at this point is that the line D-D#-E in the first violin contains

interjections of B (Example 5.10). As was mentioned earlier, this recognises a

disruptive quality of the Grundgestalt to the melody in which it occurs where the

sequence led us to predict the note B rather than a D#. The note B would have

30

Hefling: Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, 81, ‗already reflected in memory at the beginning of

the movement […] the coda seems to reaffirm that the exposition is, so to say, a reaction after the

crisis.‘ He cites Adorno: Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992),

155ff.

192

pointed us more squarely at the key‘s dominant and in doing so stabilised the tonic (a

primal level application of the theory of dialectic as seen in major-key sonata forms,

i.e. any one term cannot explain itself unless placed in the context of some other).

The D# still interrupts such a sequence and it will be shown that the recapitulation

reserves some of the resolutions that have yet to be made for the coda. At bars 177-

78 the repeat of the opening theme is omitted, as is the entire passage with the II7M

chords and we skip right to the A major rendition of the theme. Certainly such

omission does not constitute resolution but Schubert‘s methods will soon reveal

themselves.


193

At bar 222 the second subject arrives. Fieldman was quoted earlier as having said of

minor-key sonatas‘ second subjects, ‗the recapitulation of the material that was

introduced in the relative major […] re-establishes the tonic key but often not the

tonic‘s mode and thus often not the original diatonic set.‘31

True to this appraisal the

second subject which was in the relative major in the exposition appears in A major

in the recapitulation but it seems that by returning to A minor at the end of the piece

Schubert acknowledges this problem and in refusing to resolve certain dialectic

difficulties at the first opportunity he maintains the work‘s momentum towards such

an end at a later point.

In bar 225 the outermost voices sound a D against an F# as though it were a

reversal of the chromatic alternatives, D# and F , found in the Grundgestalt. This

pairing of notes sounds rather innocuous and could easily be passed over but at bar

230 the melody changes at the third beat to repeat and draw attention to this

relationship (Example 5.11). The top line, according to the version of the music that

appeared in the exposition, should drop a third to A but it leaps to an F# and

continues as expected from there (though, obviously, at a higher pitch). The second

violin should rise a step to F# but it leaps a fourth to an A (the second violin has

adopted the expected pitches of the first violin while violin one has taken the second

violin‘s expected pitches and raised them an octave so F# is the outermost voice).

The cello should drop a fifth to D but it leaps a fourth to the D above. These changes

31

Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 106-107.

194

are highlighted not only by the hairpin dynamics that were there in the original

rendition but by the addition of an accent on the F# in the first violin.

Example 5.11. Schubert: String Quartet in A minor, I, bar 67 compared with

bar 230

In the exposition in bar 63 there was a chromatic melody line in the second subject

that connected G to E through F# and F (refer back to Example 5.4). This was a

response to the D-D#-E melodic line of the Grundgestalt. In a recapitulation the

portrayal of second subject material in the tonic key is a convention but, having seen

how Schubert can undermine the rhetoric of sonata form while simultaneously

remaining true to its essential principles, we should expect a dialectic basis or reason

for the choice of the tonic key for the recapitulation aside from what is dictated by

tradition. At bar 226 we find that dialectic at work. The melodic quirk at bar 63 that

played on F# and F as a response to the D and D# of bar 9, when transposed into the

195

tonic key, uses the pitches D# and D for that very same melodic idiosyncrasy. In a

very real sense a point of disunity in the exposition is absorbed into the Grundgestalt.

Both chromatic lines taken together create the line D-D#-E-D#-D. This line

treats D# as an ascending (and then as a descending) passing note showing it to be

subservient to D in the context of the tonic‘s dominant. Therefore, at the second

subject‘s reprise, we have the first convincing sign that the Grundgestalt is being

resolved rather than repeated almost verbatim or having its consequences ignored

altogether. If this partial satisfaction of the dialectic, achieved in conjunction with

sonata form conventions, has made any real progress in resolving the D# of the

Grundgestalt, we should be able to find proof of this with the appearance of a version

of the opening theme that is unhindered by the obstruction D# offered in the

exposition. We will examine the return of the opening material in the coda for such a

change when we reach it in our analysis.

Why Schubert chose to offer the second subject in the tonic key is supported

by the comparison it afforded between the pitches D#, D , F# and F in the context of a

consequence of the Grundgestalt. However, why Schubert chose to present the

second subject in the major-mode as convention expects – for convention alone is not

reason enough to illuminate Schubert‘s reasoning – can be explained by the simple

fact that to have the second subject in the minor-mode would have been a poor

representation of the spirit and character of the C major theme and as such would not

196

have had the effect of a true reprise. Aside from the consequence of forsaking the

diatonic set of the true tonic, A minor, this use of the major-mode means that F# has

to be used at various other points in the passage. This, if left unchecked, would

undermine the progress made by converting the chromatic line through F# to a

chromatic line through D#, but true to the dialectic process Schubert has prepared for

this.

The first destabilising element in the second group in the exposition was the E

at bar 70, the dominant of the subsequent A passage at bar 91. At bar 233, the

equivalent point in the recapitulation of bar 70 in the exposition, a C destabilises A

major (Example 5.12). C is the dominant of the F that the major tonality had

deprived us of and when the equivalent of bar 91‘s A material comes around at bar

254 it is in F major. This takes care of the problems with F# in the exposition‘s

second group and resolves the difficult position of the A section in the recapitulation

(it undermined the tonic) by presenting the A section in the submediant of A minor

and hence turning the passage towards the tonic‘s aid.


197

In the exposition Schubert stresses F#s in the II7M chords in bars 15 and 17 with fp

dynamic markings (and not allowing them to resolve to G#) to give us what was

‗missing‘ from the Grundgestalt. Once either the F or its abetting company in the

Grundgestalt has been resolved or justified, the raison d'être for the II7M chord

passage from bar 15 on will have been removed. The II7M chord passage is a

consequent of the Grundgestalt’s F, and the A passage of bar 91 is a consequent of

the II7M chord‘s search for a G#. When the recapitulation comes around the II7M

chord passage is omitted but the A passage remains, only this time it is in F major

(Example 5.13). F is the contentious pitch that was openly questioned by the II7M

chords in the passage at bar 15 and now the chief consequent to that mutiny has sided

entirely with the Grundgestalt. This explains why the passage containing the II7M

chords was omitted from the recapitulation; by giving us the A major section in F

198

major Schubert not only takes away the II7M chords‘ support but converts that

support into an affirmative statement of F over F#, thus removing the reason for the

II7M chords to begin with. Having said that, Schubert has yet to resolve the original

Grundgestalt and in a sense it may be something of a promissory note technique to

borrow resolutions ahead of their place.32

32

Edward T. Cone: ‗Schubert's Promissory Note: An Exercise in Musical Hermeneutics‘, 19th-

Century Music, 3/5 (1982), 233-241.

199


A difficulty is created by the F major section in that it undermines A major as the

final destination of the piece but A major would not work as a final key-area because

it itself undermined the second key-area of the exposition, C major, rather than

absorbing it in any way. D# and F have yet to be resolved in their original

appearance as part of the first subject group. C is an important pitch in the exposition

as it is the root pitch of the second key-area and the note that would have changed the

200

Grundgestalt from a French sixth to a German sixth thus mollifying the difficult F . It

should be noted that it was a C that destabilised A major in the exposition and took us

into F major.33

In addition to this, A major absorbs F# but cannot truly resolve it. A

major can have an F# in II7M lead to a G# but F# is not dissonant in A major. It is

no longer the chromatic element in II7M therefore it does not generate the same

tension as it did in its first appearance. Consequently a move to G# does not sound so

much like a resolution, more a normal progression. A minor must return to close the

piece; even if a C leading to a passage in F major did not appear in the recapitulation

to undermine the major key, A major would not be enough.

At this point we may answer a question that has begged to be asked since the

exposition. Why did Schubert place the A major passage so far away from the II7M

chords in the first group which it was a direct response to (they do not appear until

well after the second subject has been introduced)? The reason, which explains the

non-chronological order in which these items were discussed earlier in the chapter,

was to pre-emptively prepare the way back to the tonic‘s original modality from A

major in the recapitulation through F major once the second group had been presented

in the new key.

33

Recall Example 3.8 which showed a similar method in the Quartettsatz by which Schubert

undermined C major as a final destination in the recapitulation with an E at bars 285 and 287.

201

202

Coda, bars 275-96

At bar 275 we appear to come across a coda. Following Fieldman‘s example in

Chapter 3 we might be reluctant to call this section a coda, understanding that term to

describe a ‗tail‘ to a piece rather than an essential structural component. On the other

hand, in an analysis of the ‗Unfinished‘, Edward T. Cone was moved to comment: ‗In

one last example, yet another coda functions in almost every dimension – melodic

completion, harmonic expansion, rhythmic balance, formal regularization, and

motivic juxtaposition – to produce an expressively satisfying dénouement.‘34

Therefore, is it not easier to say that Schubert may be raising the status of what is best

described as a coda from being merely a tail to becoming an essential part of the

argument that formed the preceding music?

The material in the coda of the A minor quartet is essentially the opening

music in the opening key but at bar 285, the equivalent moment that had the

Grundgestalt, Schubert makes some changes (Example 5.14). He avoids the D# in

the melody (indeed, it is even removed from the harmony) by following the

anticipated melodic line mentioned earlier, moving to a B instead of creating a

chromatic line to E. The lower voices are also different. They do not move to F , nor

do they move to F#. Rather, they maintain an E pedal setting us up for a large final

cadence. The second violin contains a G# which resolves to an A and returns to a G#

creating the neighbour-note motif. Effectively both contentious notes in the

34

Cone: ‗Schubert's Unfinished Business‘, 229.

203

Grundgestalt have been neutralised and the G# that was so important to soothing the

damage those notes created has become motivically enmeshed in the resolved music.

Example 5.14. Schubert: String Quartet in A minor, I, 282-293

204

The melodic line continues its ascending pattern past the dominant and acknowledges

concerns of the dialectic by reaching to an F . At bar 287 the melodic shape is greatly

similar to the II7M material from bar 15 but with all diatonic pitches. F falls to D

showing the sated chromaticism of the exposition and the uniform attitude to these

pitches taken by two disruptive moments in the exposition. This melody echoing the

II7M chords is repeated just as they had been (this time highlighting the relationship

between F and D) but it skips the bars that followed each chord with inappropriate

resolutions in the exposition. This omission justifies the exercise undertaken earlier

in this analysis of taking the first notes of every hypermeter to identify an arpeggio.

205

The melodic line even descends another third in bar 290 to a B, this time a B as

opposed to the B in bar 19.

The music halts on the diminished seventh chord that was heard halfway

through the development (bars 140-45) but this time it is sounded over an E pedal.

Consequently we have an extended E major chord, a chord the II7M chords (which

have just been mimicked) had longed for in the exposition (in this form the chord is

decorated with a ninth so that it contains an F , further undermining the II7M chords‘

existence in the first place). This chord, one will recognise, is the chromatically

rectified version of the arpeggio that was spelled out by the hypermetric downbeats in

the passage at bar 15. At this point almost all the disruptive elements of the

Grundgestalt and its consequences have been resolved. Even the intrusion on the

rhythm of the melody caused by the Grundgestalt has been removed at bar 285 to

continue the dotted minims up until the final cadential bars of the movement.

One disruptive quality in the Grundgestalt has yet to be dealt with and that is

the use of the French sixth. That chord stands out as uncommon in Schubertian

harmony and was responsible for the augmented fourth between F and B which

highlighted the problematic F at the beginning of the work. The unusual form of that

augmented sixth is acknowledged and overridden at bar 292 where, after a brief

silence separates us from the large dominant ninth chord that halted the tread of the

first group‘s reprisal in this final section, a German sixth chord is sounded (refer to

206

Example 5.14). It is surrounded by rests so that it stands out. Where in bar 9 the F

natural was dissonant against a B , it is in bar 291 stabilised by a C and the note that

was the root of the antithetical key area is again the note that restores order to the

thesis.

The same German sixth appears in bar 21 but Graubart regards that chord part

of a ‗Phrygian cadence employing an augmented sixth [i.e.] a German sixth with

French spice.‘35

A chord that is something of a hybrid between the French sixth that

identifies the problematic nature of the Grundgestalt and attempts to break into the

German sixth that would resolve much of the problems associated therein makes bar

21 an interesting dramatisation of the dialectic‘s struggle. The German sixth in bar

291-92 is an entirely different entity thanks to its new context. It is placed in a very

different atmosphere, underscored by methods just mentioned and yet to be

discussed, and comes at a point when the issues that distracted from its first

appearance in bar 21 have been dealt with.

Bars 11 through to 22 of the exposition did not appear in the recapitulation;

apart from the reasons already given for this we might add the observation that a

reprisal of that material may be accomplished by reducing the whole passage to its

one defining element. Recall the arpeggio that was spelled out on the hypermetric

downbeats from bar 15 to bar 22. It played on the ambiguity of E and E and that

ambiguity is summarised best by one chord within that passage; the German sixth at

35

Graubart: ‗Integration in Schubert: Themes & motives 1‘, 41.

207

bar 21. That German sixth contains D# and E in its melodic line. D#, being the

enharmonic equivalent of E , means this chord contains the ingredients for harmony

between the roots of ambiguity within that very passage and this qualifies the German

sixth chord of bar 21 as the defining element in that whole passage.

The German sixth at the end of the work reintroduces D# to the palette,

though in a very different way to D#‘s introduction in the Grundgestalt. Where it

once was part of a chromatic line causing disunity, it is now part of an arpeggio that

strives to show unity among various contentious pitches in the dialectic thereby

illustrating how the issues in this work were resolved using material inherent within

the question. Thus two of the three motivic elements (chromatic line and arpeggio)

identified in this work are commented on in one move with the use of this chord. We

will find, however, that the third motivic element is also present at this moment.

When we incorporate into our consideration of this chord the chords that precede and

succeed it we find the bass line spells out a chromatic neighbour motif with the notes

E-D#-E. This underscores the importance of this chord as well as grounding the D#

as reliant on, and explicable in its relation to, the dominant, virtually uniting the three

motivic devices useful to my interpretation of this work.

The arpeggios in the upper and lower lines of the German sixth of bar 291-92

connect the root pitches of the exposition‘s two key-areas with the pitches that were

originally contentious. In the upper voice C leaps down to A and then to F (no longer

sounding an augmented interval against B); in the lowest voice D# leaps up to A, then

208

up to C, and finally up to another D#. It is the balancing mirror image of the

Grundgestalt, reminding us of past difficulties and presenting those difficulties as

overcome in a manner uniquely derived from the dialectic at hand rather than simply

being dismissed outright or overwhelmed (as might have been achieved by the blind

application of traditional sonata rhetoric without due consideration of sonata form as

a process).

From bar 293 rising triplets in the lower voices reveal D#s, F#s and G#s all

resolving naturally in contexts hinting first at E major, then at A major, and finally

bringing us back to A minor to finish the piece. These closing scales remind us of the

primary contentious pitches the work has encountered and ties them all together into a

scale that ascends, summarises, and leads us with ferocious inevitability to a final

cadence in the tonic minor. Hefling considers these closing bars ‗as bitter as the close

of the Quartettsatz, which also ends in unresolved conflict.‘36

While there is indeed

some harmonic fluctuation in these final bars they are not necessarily as unresolved

as Hefling suggests. It is possible that they are a final statement of a primary concern

with linear elements and what line dictates harmonically. It was after all a chromatic

line that brought the development section to a close and elided it with the

recapitulation, not the E major key that housed that line. By moving through so many

keys it is as though the chromatic line we have already seen perform linking functions

between different tonalities struggles and breaks free of its chromaticism to become a

diatonic scale in the tonic key.

36


209

The coda of this work is clearly far more than a tail to music that has gone

before. It is a part of the dialectic process deemed necessary by the details of the

work to resolve important issues in the music.37

The tonic key is forced home very

strongly by this closing section, as can be observed from the long pedal notes that

exclusively nominate A and E as the important pitches. Hefling‘s claim that the

recapitulation ‗alters very little, save for closing in the tonic major, and resolves

nothing,‘ has been challenged in this chapter and in the light of all that has been

argued above, surely needs no further evidence to effect its refutation. Hefling‘s

appraisal of the work in total as ‗fundamentally lyrical‘ is misleading in that it implies

a lack of discipline and accountability on the composer‘s part for the salient, unusual

features that so characterise the piece. A full analysis of the processes at work within

this music can be undertaken, as above, without resorting to throwing one‘s hands in

the air and describing a mystifying passage as merely ‗lyrical‘38

or ‗expressive‘.39

All

the actions taken in the work can be explained in relation to the Grundgestalt,

meaning this movement is fundamentally a dialectical work that compositionally

transcends the lyricism that effortlessly graces it. As Poundie Burstein writes, ‗there

37

Thomas Denny argues against criticisms of Schubert‘s occasional use of development section

material in the coda, e.g. the Op.99 B Trio Finale. He claims that there is no reason why a coda cannot

perform similar functions to a development. He writes, ‗in much the same way as a development

prolongs the dissonant, ―open‖ point of formal tension, the coda extends the act (and the impression)

of closure and resolution.‘ This statement considered in the light of one of the chief elements of

Denny‘s article from which this quote is taken is the notion of ‗Elision‘ between different sections of

sonata form; the primary example being an elision of development and recapitulation. In a similar way

it may be said that Schubert is in this work joining the functions of the coda with certain as-yet-

unattended elements of the recapitulation. These elements were unattended for reasons that are

paraphrased in relation to a different work by Denny when he writes, ‗one of the principal purposes of

the elided return – and of the displaced contextual preparation within that return in particular – was to

amplify the climactic implications inherent in the expository presentation of the material.‘ See Denny:

‗Articulation‘, 363 and 365. 38

Hefling: Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, 79. 39

Such analyses are condemned in Hepokoski and Darcy: Elements, 11.

210

is no contradiction between the organic logic of Schubert‘s large structures and their

lyricism. Quite the contrary: the ingenious manner in which the structures unfold

often contributes greatly to the sense of lyricism.‘40

Conclusion

In the A minor quartet Schubert acknowledges the conventional tonal plan for a

minor-key sonata movement but does so by showing that he arrived at that tonal plan

solely through his own methods; almost like a series of astonishing coincidences, the

conventional tonal plan is remarkably suited to resolving a dialectic derived entirely

from an independent Grundgestalt. Consequently, if the conventional tonal plan is to

be said to have any merit, Schubert‘s own processes are equally legitimate and his

idiosyncrasies are validated by a form which he is simultaneously guaranteed

freedom to digress from in the future without fear of admonishment. Suzannah Clark

makes the comparable comment:

Schubert transformed the lied by making it ‗high art‘. However, rarely is it

argued that his song composition must continually be measured as ‗deviant‘

against the tradition he inherited. Instead, Schubert is judged to have made it his

own, to have set a standard; hence to use Kramer‘s preferred term, his music has

been ‗recuperated‘. By contrast, the harmonic language used within the songs

[and his approach to large scale instrumental forms] is generally measured […]

against the Classical syntax Schubert inherited.41

Schubert‘s use of the Grundgestalt sparks a dialectic that appears to be very much at

the heart of sonata form (though we will discuss this in more detail later) and his

innovations can be best understood not only in terms of what we traditionally expect

of sonata form, but in terms of the processes inspired by the ideals of that tradition.

40

Burstein: ‗Lyricism‘, 52. 41

Clark: ‗Schubert, Theory and Analysis‘, 224.

211

The analogy presents itself that Schubert‘s sonata form and Sonata Form as we

generally understand it become two contrasting yet fundamentally linked terms of a

dialectic themselves, a dialectic that can be synthesised by simply observing all of the

elements that define both the form itself and Schubert‘s process. The analogy is

taken further by Charles Fisk who writes:

Sonata forms might even be said to have become for him [Schubert], in one

sense, musical embodiments of the Viennese social conventions from which he

sought liberation while seeking acceptance, recognition, and even fame within the

society that endorsed those conventions. More basically, as articulations of

fundamental tonal relationships, sonata forms might well have represented the

kind of home for which he longed but to which he could only gradually find his

way, even in his imagination.42

42

Fisk: Returning Cycles, 275.

212

Chapter 6: The D Minor String Quartet, No. 14, D810 (1824)

The first movement of Schubert‘s quartet in D minor exemplifies that antagonism

between sonata form as dialectical process and sonata form as a series of rhetorical,

pre-determined cues in a manner more profound, and more practical, than any of the

examples discussed in previous chapters. Schubert here re-examines the role of the

Grundgestalt by allowing it to permeate and influence the first of two seemingly

compatible terms to make them incompatible on the same level and thus generate

dialectic. In previous examples the Grundgestalt has contained both terms of the

dialectic but in this quartet the Grundgestalt is linked to only the first term (this does

not diminish its standing as a part of an Hegelian dialectic since, were it not for that

link, the second term would not be an antithesis to the first). Indeed it may be

appropriate to think of the Grundgestalt in this work as something that enables, rather

than sparks, the dialectic. However, the truly remarkable feature of this movement is

that Schubert has also re-examined the dialectic itself; he has questioned the nature of

what constitutes a ‗term‘ and realised that it is possible to have this variable represent

more than a key or a subject or a motif, but that a ‗term‘ can be a recognisable

template as vast as a large-scale form. In other words, the rhetoric of a traditional

sonata form plan can become a single term in a dialectic within a sonata form

movement. The key to understanding how this is accomplished lies first in finding

the Grundgestalt that could spark such a dialectic.

One would be right to note that the Grundgestalt normally draws attention to

itself; in all the examples we have seen so far a Grundgestalt has been a disruptive

213

moment inserted into the music sparking off a dialectic that inspires and unifies in

purpose all the subsequent events in the work, but in its initial appearance it is

always, albeit expertly crafted, something of an intrusion. Even though the

Grundgestalt in each work analysed thus far has derived elements of its identity from

music that preceded it, none of those examples show a Grundgestalt so

fundamentally inevitable that it can truly be said to grow from the preceding music.

In the D minor quartet Schubert confronts this point and overcomes it so that his

Grundgestalt is elevated from being a disruptive moment to becoming a characteristic

feature of the music from the very first bar.

Searching for the Grundgestalt

The enabler of the dialectic in this work, for ‗enabler‘ will prove to be a fitting term,

is more subtle (and far more deep-rooted) than in the other pieces analysed in this

study and it will serve us well to heed the words of Harold Truscott who writes:

That which says strange things in a familiar language is the hardest of all

inventions to penetrate; it is so easy to get stuck on the surface. Largely this has

been the stumbling-block all through Schubert‘s work, but never more so than

here [in the D minor String Quartet].1

The following analysis invests considerable time and effort in the opening fourteen

bars of music and one‘s overall immediate impression might be that the study is

lopsided. However in the many commentaries already written on this quartet the

opening has received relatively little attention. A full consideration of its

1 Harold Truscott: ‗Schubert‘s D minor string Quartet‘, Music Review, 19 (1958), 27 hereafter referred

to as Truscott: ‗Schubert‘s D minor string Quartet‘. To Truscott‘s words we may add a comment made

by Cone in relation to the opening of the ‗Unfinished‘ B minor Symphony: ‗the Allegro moderato of

the B-Minor Symphony […] begins with a phrase so familiar that we rarely appreciate its enigmatic

character.‘ Cone: ‗Schubert's Unfinished Business‘, 225.

214

contribution will deepen our understanding of the rest of the quartet and, indeed,

render more poignant observations already made in other analyses conducted of this

work.

The nature of the Grundgestalt in this work necessitates the use of some

analytical approaches previously uncalled for in this thesis to identify and explain it;

consequently some new – albeit well-established – terminology must be adopted here.

One may question whether the use of new terminology at this point will render

certain findings in this chapter incompatible with discoveries made in previous

chapters but both this adopted terminology and the examination it serves are still

wholly directed toward the discovery of a Grundgestalt in the D minor quartet and so

the results will be entirely pertinent.

The main theme begins at bar 15 and the preceding bars are considered

introductory material in most analyses of this work.2 However, the opening takes on

the character of a main theme and achieves an arresting quality by evoking

expectations of a sentence theme-type which is a theme-type normally associated

with important, tight-knit themes and not subordinate material.3 The purposefully

assertive nature of the opening bars and the fact that their melodic qualities are not

heavily exploited in the movement jointly implore us to search deeper in these bars

for features that either contribute to, or spur on, events on a larger scale in perhaps a

less than conventional manner. It will be found that a disruption not unlike the kind

2 Christoph Wolff considers it a ritornello. Christoph Wolff: ‗Schubert‘s ―Der Tod und das Mädchen‖:

Analytical and Explanatory Notes on the Song D531 and the Quartet D810‘, in Schubert Studies, ed.

by Eva Badura-Skoda and Peter Branscombe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 162. 3 ‗Tightly-knit‘ is a term used by Caplin to differentiate assertive, primary themes from ‗looser‘

subordinate themes. Caplin: Classical Form, 17.

215

created by a Grundgestalt appears to be evident in an interruption of the sentence

theme-type.

To show in what ways the opening of the D minor quartet can be considered

to create an arresting sense of the sentence theme-type, and consequently to observe

in what way that theme-type is disturbed, we must first consider Caplin‘s distinction

between what he calls ‗real‘ and ‗notated‘ bars:

What a listener perceives as ‗one full bar‘ of music does not necessarily

correspond to the notated bar lines of the score. We thus need to distinguish

between a real, experiential bar and a notated bar. The former […] is the only

valid bar for an analysis of form based on our musical experience.4

The opening of the D minor quartet repeats a basic idea over the course of the first

four notated bars but we clearly perceive a two-part rather than a four-part

subdivision of these four notated bars; an interpretation aided by melodic-motivic

consideration and the use of rests. Therefore the ratio of real (R) versus notated (N)

bars in the opening material is R=2N and the overall length of the introductory

section approximates towards eight real bars, the length of a sentence theme-type

(Example 6.1).

4 Caplin: Classical Form, 35. Much of Caplin‘s terminology employed over the next part of this

analysis would be cumbersome to explain in detail. They are succinctly explained by Caplin in pp. 9-

21.

216


First consider the repeated opening gesture. It demonstrates tonic harmony, it

undergoes what is termed ‗exact‘ repetition, it is motivically distinctive, there is no

impression of closure or cadence and it generates energy that, to be properly spent,

requires continuation of the theme. All these features combine to make the first two

real bars a quintessential presentation function. This sets the listener up to expect a

sentence theme-type and the following material seems to encourage this expectation.

The ensuing bars demonstrate the two most recognisable elements of

continuation function: fragmentation of the basic idea and harmonic acceleration.

5 Notated bars that do not coincide with real bars are represented by short dashes.

217

Liquidation is observed at notated bar 7 to prepare for the cadence. At real bar 46 it is

still a little early for cadential preparation but it is not uncommon for continuation

function to be elided with cadential function, as is evident from Caplin‘s coining of

the category, ‗continuation→cadential function‘.7 The tonic to pre-dominant

movement in bars 6 (N) and 7 (N) is indicative of a cadential progression, as is the

liquidated motivic material. Its early onset leads us to expect a full authentic

cadential progression will be reached by the eighth real bar, though a half cadence

progression is also sufficient to close a sentence.

The introduction is not, however, as tightly-knit as it first would seem. The

theme‘s structure is loosened when it ends one real bar short of the required number

of bars for a sentence. In the seventh real bar there is a root position chord of V and a

fermata on the chord of V asserts that the first theme is to be heard as ending with a

half cadence. That a sentence ends with a half cadence rather than an authentic

cadence does not make it any looser but that it should cut off a real bar from the

theme-type is a serious blow to the theme‘s tight-knit status. What is more, to let an

extended cadential progression build anticipation for an authentic cadence by its early

onset and to place a dominant chord on what is expected to be the penultimate bar

undermines the solidity of the entire theme. This qualifies as a disruptive moment

and we could investigate this moment as a Grundgestalt but further examination of

the theme-structure reveals more.

6 Hereafter notated bar numbers will be followed by an (N) and real bar numbers will be followed by

an (R). 7 In this term the arrow means ‗becoming‘ so that the term reads ‗continuation becoming cadential‘

function. Caplin: Classical Form, 45.

218

From the presentation phrase the music gives the impression of a sentence

with R=2N. But there is contrasting activity on another metric level. The material

from bar 7 (N) until the cadence is clearly divisible into two halves, bars 7-10 (N) and

11-14 (N), and suggests a different tight-knit theme-type, the period (refer back to

Example 6.1). Bars 7-14 (N) are clearly divided into antecedent and consequent with

fuller closure attained at the end of the consequent than is achieved at the end of the

antecedent. The difficulty with such a reading is that this theme-type requires eight

real bars duration to qualify as a genuine period, not eight notated bars when the

musically established metre is R=2N. However, Schubert manages to overcome this

difficulty by using a similar technique to that which highlighted the D# in bar 9 in the

A minor quartet (although here it is used for a very different reason). In every bar up

until bar 7 (N) the third beat of each notated bar has been omitted. At bar 7 (N),

however, the third beat is emphasised with all voices playing accented minims.

Immediately thereafter the descending triplet motive present in five of the first six

notated bars is rhythmically augmented so that the descending line is thereafter

represented by descending and ascending crotchets in the outer voices. Even before

these more obvious signals of a change of pace we hear the fragmentation that

characterised the continuation function of bars 4-6 (N) with its multiple rests pulling

away from the R=2N impression (this is reflected in Example 6.1 by the different

type of representation of barline between notated bars 5 and 6). The aural effect is

the sensation of someone pulling a handbrake on the tempo which allows us to hear

from bar 7 (N) onwards in the renewed ratio of R=N.8 Thus the amount of real bars

8 Notational manipulation to create the impression of increasing or decreasing speed is not an

219

for the antecedent-consequent material is brought to a full eight bars for the theme-

type of a period. In this way one tight-knit theme-type, the sentence, is loosened by

the intrusion of another, different, tight-knit theme-type; the period.

Traditionally the sentence and the period are thought by Schoenberg and his

followers to be mutually exclusive polar opposites – a theory that could excite the

search for opposing terms in a dialectic:

In the case of the period we have a symmetrical structure that has a certain

‗repose in itself‘ owing to the balance of its two halves, which are more or less

equal […] The eight-bar sentence, however contains a certain forward-striving

character because of the increased activity and compression in its continuation

phrase, making it fundamentally different in construction from the symmetrical

organization of the period.9

William Caplin observes that such a theory fails to acknowledge the many hybrids

that in reality do exist in the canon, but his ensuing list of hybrid-types does not

provide for an instance where an initially textbook example of a sentence theme in

R=2N is interrupted less than half way through its expression by an equally textbook

period based on related material in R=N.10

Therefore Schubert‘s example operates

outside the theories of both Schoenberg and Caplin. The division of the introduction

into two parts, a curtailed sentence and then a period, appears to be instinctively

acknowledged by Stephen Hefling when he writes, ‗the work‘s opening is the most

riveting in all of Schubert‘s chamber music: loud and imperious, then abruptly

uncommon tool for Schubert, as William Newman comments, ‗Schubert generally will be found to

have indicated tempo inflections more freely in his earlier works, later evidently tending toward

greater restraint or toward the greater security of notating rather than indicating the inflections [and

later in a discussion of variation forms Newman writes …] Another consideration is Schubert‘s general

adherence […] to the traditional principle of a uniform beat from one variation to the next, with

increased or decreased motion achieved not by changes of tempo [indications] but by shorter or longer

note values.‘ William S. Newman: ‗Freedom of Tempo in Schubert's Instrumental Music‘, The

Musical Quarterly, 4/61 (1975), 532, 539 hereafter referred to as Newman: ‗Freedom of Tempo in

Schubert‘s Instrumental Music‘. 9 Quoted from Musikalische Formenlehre, 24 in Caplin: Classical Form, 59.

10 Caplin: Classical Form, 59-70.

220

pianissimo and entreating, it introduces two contrasting characters that will occupy

much of the movement‘.11

It should be noted however that the division according to

dynamics is a misleading misinterpretation of the duality in this opening. The pp

indication arrives in bars 4 and 5 (N) but the music from bar 4 to 6 (N) is, as has

already been shown, inextricably connected to the opening four bars by fulfilling the

continuation function demanded by the opening in its capacity as a presentation

phrase. The division of character is a pairing of sentence and period and therefore the

division point is at bar 7 (N), not bar 4 (N) as Hefling suggests.

Having uncovered this duality we may consider whether that duality

constitutes a Grundgestalt and the seeds for dialectic. Schubert presents us with one

theme-type which is then immediately abandoned for a very different theme-type at

an altered speed. This in itself is not the dialectic impetus for this work for it does

not demonstrate a dialogue so much as it seems to represent a duality of purpose;

both the sentence and the period are in themselves functionally effective (one is

stopped in its tracks but is perfectly competent until then). We cannot say that the

change of speed constitutes the opportunity for a dialectic either. For two terms to

make up a thesis and antithesis they must be incompatible on the same level. A

dialectic based on tempi could excite a discussion of durational antagonism but when

one value is exactly twice the duration of the other then both terms are easily

compatible on the same level.

The duality of sentence and period in these opening bars is not the

Grundgestalt. Instead this duality is a response to an even more fundamental

11


221

difficulty in the opening material and the appropriateness of the response to that

difficulty will be better understood once we uncover this problem. In this way the

duality just unveiled is like a symptom that draws our attention to an event just as

hypermetric disruption in the opening bars of the A minor String Quartet drew our

attention to the Grundgestalt in that work. In the D minor quartet, however, this

duality of theme-type is a symptom of a condition rather than a consequence of an

event and that condition is in fact a harmonic uncertainty in the opening bars.

Typically harmonic instability is the motivation for dialectic in most sonata

forms, i.e. a first subject in the home key is challenged by a second subject being

placed in a key that challenges the tonic. Sometimes achievement of that harmonic

instability is less prosaic, such as when Schubert places first and second subject in

keys that are not mutually exclusive (e.g. the first and second subjects in the A minor

quartet) and generates harmonic instability from a Grundgestalt. The principle is no

different in the D minor quartet but the harmonic instability is more subtle and

perhaps more akin to harmonic insecurity. Rather than present us with a disruptive

moment that upsets a previously harmonically stable environment, we are presented

in the D minor quartet with an environment that already has an element of harmonic

insecurity worked into the music. It may be that a definition of Grundgestalt as a

‗disruptive moment‘ is not really a definition as it is also a description of a common

manifestation of the phenomenon it attempts to define and the definition ‗defining

problem‘, which was also provided by Fieldman,12

is more versatile and fitting.

12

Fieldman: ‗Schubert‘s Quartettsatz‘, 118 and 119. The description ‗disruptive moment‘ has been

maintained until now for its easy application to the examples encountered in previous chapters.

222

Works analysed in previous chapters drew attention to their Grundgestalts by

marking them as events with the aid of various melodic, dynamic, or rhythmic

disruptions. In the D minor quartet Schubert manages to draw our attention to the

Grundgestalt with the duality of sentence versus period but this device does not

operate as the disruptions in previous examples have done. The Grundgestalt does

not occur at the point of disunity between sentence and period but in the total

environment in which those theme-types occur.

Close inspection of the opening material reveals the subtle harmonic

insecurity, the Grundgestalt, that plagues the music‘s opening. For almost every one

of the first thirteen bars some or all of the notes of the D minor triad are being

sounded but there is no leading note anywhere in the music until bar 14 (Example

6.2).13

Furthermore, there is not even a minor dominant in which to secure any of the

C s which appear in the passage (note the unsupportive VII chord in bar 10). The

major dominant chord of bar 14 is denied its resolution into the authentic cadence that

would have helped confirm the tonality. It seems any assertion that we are in D

minor in this opening material should be retracted, despite the constant presence of

that triad, and be replaced with the observation that we are in fact in the Aeolian

mode built on D.

13

From here on all bar numbers are to be understood as notated bar numbers unless expressly stated

otherwise.

223


Stephen Hefling implies that the descending fifths in bars 3 and 4 carry motivic

weight and, under the influence of this observation, one can find several instances of

the strong melodic relationship between the pitches A and D throughout the opening

fourteen bars.14

One might feel compelled to argue on the strength of this that the

tonic is sufficiently reinforced by the root pitch of its dominant – even without the

agency of the leading note – to maintain a good sense of tonic until a cadence finally

arrives. However, while the relationship between D and the root of its absent

dominant is ubiquitous, without a prior appearance of a leading note the pitch A

cannot represent a connection between the roots of the tonic and dominant any more

14


224

than a connection between the root and the fifth of the triad built on D. In any case if

we are thorough in our evaluation of the melodic shapes and compasses used in the

passage we find the most prominent pitch relationship is not the relationship between

D and A, but the relationship between D and G.

G minor features significantly in the opening thirteen bars and seems to

supply an antithetical term to D minor, should D minor be considered a thesis. We

may say for now that a tension between D minor and G minor in the opening material

could be the defining problem of the movement and in that sense the entire passage

presented in Example 6.2 is itself the Grundgestalt but, more specifically, the

harmonic uncertainty supplied by the threat of G minor to the tonic is the

Grundgestalt. To support this claim we must demonstrate in more detail how G

minor might be said to permeate this opening material. The opening melodic idea

spans the lower tetrachord of the scale of G minor and lands on a G minor chord in

second inversion in the next bar over a D pedal. The rising melodic line traced out by

the first violin between bars 4 and 7 spells the G minor triad with the pitch A

appearing to act as a passing note between G and B. The compass for the first

violin‘s melody in the period theme-type spans a D going down to a G. The compass

spanning the cello line for the entire passage descends from a D, not to an A, but

again to a G through a G minor triad with A acting as a passing note. In fact the bass

notes for the entire fourteen-bar phrase show only five bars in which A is the

prominent bass pitch. In all other bars the bass notes are predominantly either a G or

some other part of the G minor triad.

225

Harmonic analysis of the opening fourteen bars shows just how strong the

grip of G minor is on this music. The following chords are calculated assuming D

minor is the home key; note how often the ‗subdominant‘ appears:

i-iv(6-4)-i-VI-i(6-4)-iv7-VI-iv7-i-VI-III(6-3)-VII-III-iv7-VI-iv7-i-iv7-i(6-4)-V

One might argue that the use of a subdominant could confirm the tonic by virtue of its

capabilities as a plagal, IV-I, cadence. However, William Caplin writes in his

discussion of cadences:

I have not mentioned any cadence featuring the progression from subdominant to

tonic, the ‗plagal cadence‘ described by virtually every theory text. An

examination of the classical repertory reveals that such a cadence rarely exists –

if it indeed can be said to exist at all. Inasmuch as the progression IV-I cannot

confirm a tonality (it lacks any leading-tone resolution), it cannot articulate

formal closure […] Most examples of plagal cadences given in textbooks actually

represent a postcadential codetta function: that is the IV-I progression follows an

authentic cadence but does not in itself create genuine cadential closure.15

The absence of a leading note, as mentioned earlier, suggests that Schubert is

restricting himself to the natural minor scale, i.e. the Aeolian mode. Opening a piece

in the Aeolian mode naturally renders the passage in which it occurs susceptible to

modal interpretation: In the Aeolian mode, built on D, the two pitches of importance

are the final, in this case D, and the tenor, A. If, however, we approach the music

from a modal perspective allied with G we find something a little more illuminating.

The entire passage from bars 1 to 13 can also be explained as being in the Dorian

mode built on G. This mode has G as its final and D as its tenor; an arrangement that

re-enacts a tonic-dominant relationship in which D is not the tonic of the passage but

the dominant of G. While this does not fully explain the frequent appearance of A

15

Caplin: Classical Form, 44-45.

226

(just as the Aeolian interpretation could not explain G) it has already been shown that

for the majority of the passage G features more prominently than A with A often

being reduced to the role of a passing note. The melody noted earlier in the first

violin (bars 5-7) that shapes a rising triad in G minor with an A decoration is,

considering the scale degrees in use, a common cell in the Dorian mode with a

normal decoration. All of this emphasises the huge presence the G minor triad

occupies in this opening.

It is not suggested that the opening is actually in G minor. It is in D, but only

just.16

G minor cannot take hold of the music because, like D minor, it also has no

leading note.17

Overall the entire pitch set of the opening section is contained within

the chord of iv7 (of D minor) with an added ninth (and occasionally an eleventh) and

it is almost by virtue of the F alone that we do not hear G minor as the tonic.

Obviously the leading note of G minor is F#, but what might not be immediately

obvious is how important F# is to Schubert‘s sense of tonic, i.e. his sense of D. By

avoiding the F# that would abet G minor Schubert cannot make use of the major-

mode of D minor. He cannot allude to it nor can he avail of any of the colours to

which it is a portal without risk of losing the tonic altogether. In this light consider

the following observations: Charles Rosen writes:

It might be objected that since the music has already reached the tonic, a

preparation for a tonic return is not necessary, but this would be to misunderstand

16

Note that ambiguity of the tonality of an opening gesture was used again by Schubert at the

beginning of the ‗Great‘ C Major Symphony whose opening hints at a dual allegiance to C major and

A minor. 17

It is true that G minor is missing its E , but E is only the lowered sixth of the minor scale and

therefore quite expendable when it comes to establishing a real sense of G minor.

227

the importance of mode for Schubert. It is not the return to the tonic but the return

to the major mode that is prepared with such force.18

James Webster comments:

Schubert fully accepts the major and minor modes as equally valid

representations of the tonic, and constantly juxtaposes the resulting remote (non-

diatonic) chords and keys.19

Leo Black confirms the above comments when he remarks:

A collection of no fewer than thirty-six Originaltänze […] with a strange twenty-

second ringing the changes, moment by moment, on major and minor. It is

written in ‗variants of B major‘; the very first harmony heard is the tonic minor,

the first half oscillates between the modes in the kind of instant transition most

memorably found in the 1826 G major string quartet, and the second half is

entirely minor (G# minor), never returning ‗home‘ at all.20

Based on these quotes and the example of countless instances in Schubert‘s oeuvre it

does not seem like an exaggeration to say that Schubert might not have considered a

home key to be entirely stable unless it could withstand his characteristic shifts of

modality without fear of it losing its tonal centricity. What is more, Schubert is not

free to use another of his harmonic fingerprints, the Neapolitan Sixth, because it

would introduce E to the palette and bring the music even closer to the key signature

of G minor. Schubert is harmonically restricted at a point in the music that is

normally the most stable, the opening.

Even if Schubert did not intend to plan the opening so, the composer almost

certainly felt its consequences and implications after just a few bars. In Richard

Cohn‘s opinion, ‗from the moment of their first presentation to the public […] some

Schubertian passages have invited listeners to acknowledge a degree of tonal

18

Written in an analysis of the Piano Sonata in A major in Rosen: ‗Schubert‘s Inflections of Classical

Form‘, 91. 19


Black: Music and Belief, 109.

228

indeterminacy.‘21

However it is quite unusual to have such indeterminacy in the very

first passage of a work. Brian Newbould comes close to acknowledging it when he

writes of the opening, ‗[it has] the hollow ring of bare octaves, fourths and fifths on

the main beats. After it, the softening is not only dynamic (pp) but harmonic, with

full – though austere – chords […]‘22

It might be argued that since the first chord heard in the piece is D minor, that

chord should count toward declaring the passage in the tonic and indeed our hearing

it as such severely undermines any subsequent threats G minor could make to D

minor‘s authority. Consequently, even though neither D minor nor G minor sport

leading notes in this introduction they are still not, tonally, on the same footing thanks

to the statement made in D minor‘s favour by the opening gesture. However, if we

remove the pedal note (essentially, the cello line) we have the following (Example

6.3):


21

Cohn: ‗As Wonderful as Star Clusters‘, 213. 22

Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man, 355.

229

We can see in the first two bars what William Caplin would call a surface-level

harmonic activity23

(the D pedal belongs to the deeper-level harmonic activity)

pointing more clearly at G minor than D minor (while G minor‘s leading note is still

not present, D minor‘s leading note is negated by the C and if we were presented with

this music alone we would most likely interpret it as music in G minor).

It is common practice, from theory and experience, to use the lowered leading

note and lowered sixth when writing the descending melodic-minor scale. Schubert

exercises this maxim in the very first bar and yet it is this very bar that suggests the

alternate interpretation of the music in G minor rather than D minor on its surface

perceptual level. It is as though a legitimate expression of the minor-key has failed

the tonality it is expected to serve. Consider the opening passage with the sixth and

seventh degrees raised and it is ruined. An attempt to use the harmonic minor scale

with the seventh raised and the sixth lowered is more in keeping with the mood of the

quartet but the augmented second between C# and B and the minor seconds and

major sevenths between the C#s and D s are too jarring and create a sound not

stylistically convincing for music written in 1824. There is only one way to write this

music and even with a D pedal it is still difficult to present it as unambiguously in D

minor. Thus a difficulty in conventional minor-key theory is highlighted and

23

Caplin: Classical Form, 19. In a footnote (no. 29) on page 261 Caplin adds, ‗To say that a given

phrase prolongs two opposing harmonic functions (tonic and dominant) ―at the same time‖ may seem

contradictory. But such disparities can be resolved when we understand that the prolongations actually

occur at different ―phenomenological space-times‖ and thus do not truly conflict with each other.‘ He

cites David Lewin: ‗Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of Perception,‘ Music Perception 3 (1986):

357-61.‘

230

presented for debate, just as Schubert did in the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor

when he tackled the legitimacy of supporting a sense of key by adjusting the sixth

scale degree in a minor key and the conventional illegitimacy of adjusting the second

scale degree for the same purpose (see Chapter 4).

The G minor association applies more strongly to the statement of this

presentation theme (notated bars 1 and 2) than the response (bars 3 and 4) which

grounds itself in D minor more solidly than did the opening. However this

inconsistency reinforces the hidden harmonic insecurity I have identified in this

material and the allying of the statement (the first gesture) with G minor and the

response (the second gesture) with D minor is supported by the first reference to this

material later in the movement. See Example 6.4 in which this portion of music

returns, its silences filled with ferocious triplet activity. Note the triplets that follow

the statement clearly spell out the triad of G minor while the triplets that follow the

response spell out the triad of D minor.


231

We may now acknowledge a fundamental flaw in the presentation function of the

sentence at the beginning of the work. Where a presentation is meant to establish a

tonic prolongation by virtue of its repetition, Schubert‘s opening bars expose a subtle

but deep-seated insecurity in the music‘s tonality. As such the effectiveness of the

presentation function is weakened and this is most likely what prompts Schubert to

abandon the sentence as his opening theme-type less than half way through its

expression and start again with a period, as discussed above. The period, however, is

also unable to shake free of G minor and ends in a half cadence.

What is remarkable about G minor in this opening is that its presence is never

overt; it can remain a real threat to D minor without even the use of its full key

signature (E) or its leading note (F#). For this reason terms like tonal ‗instability‘ or

even ‗polytonality‘ are avoided to describe this passage; rather, the moniker of tonal

‗insecurity‘ is most appropriate. It is this insecurity in D minor that will fuel the

harmonic choices of the movement and more. Indeed, this observation can finally

offer an answer for the most striking and puzzling feature of this quartet, the setting

of every movement in a minor-key. The Lied Der Tod und das Mädchen to which,

Christoph Wolff shows, not only the second movement but indeed much of the

quartet is indebted to, was written in D minor. We may now take Wolff‘s

observation much further: the second movement of the quartet which most overtly

draws on that material is not set in D minor. It is set in G minor; a stunningly clever

232

play on D minor‘s insecurity.24

This blow to the status of the work‘s home key is felt

strongly and the music clings desperately to its sense of identity by setting the final

two movements in D minor (avoiding the major mode that G minor has frightened

off) so that the overall key scheme for the four movements creates the unusual

pattern: D minor- G minor- D minor- D minor. Paradoxically the quartet is made

individual and characterized by the struggle to establish its own identity.

The Dialectic Enabled by the Grundgestalt

Even though we have identified the defining problem of the movement, the term

‗dialectic‘ cannot legitimately be used to describe the struggle between D minor and

G minor proposed by the Grundgestalt. It is not really a dialogue between two terms

incompatible on the same level because one of those terms, G minor, is never really

established overtly enough to be considered an opposing force and is not really on the

same level as D minor at all.25

G minor is an unrealised, but very potent, alternative

tonic and the music must do all that it can to deny G minor an opportunity to grace

the stage.26

This process is a curious volte-face to a practice seen elsewhere in

Schubert where the tonic is rendered ‗unhomely‘, but only in the recapitulation.27

The truth of the matter is that D minor failed to establish itself at a point in the music

where normally there would not have been even the threat of another key-area to

distract from it. Throughout the first fourteen bars, at almost every opportunity, one

24

Note the highly symmetrical, calm nature of the themes in the G minor movement solidifying that

key‘s position compared to the open-ended and unstable themes in the first movement. 25

To say that G minor is ‗implied‘ is also a term that carries with it unsuitable theoretical weight. 26

It might be proffered, then, that G minor should not be used as the key-area of the Andante con moto

but this is not a suitable parallel. In the second movement the G minor/D minor ambiguity is no longer

a dialogue within one movement, it is a dialogue between two pieces, namely, the Lied and the second

movement of the quartet, all in the light of the first movement. 27

Marston: ‗Schubert's Homecoming‘, 248-270.

233

or more notes of the tonic triad were pounded out and yet D minor failed to gain any

real security. It will be noted that while the music after bar 15 makes use of the

leading note of D minor, it also contains several disruptive features and though the

tonic suffered from insecurity in the opening fourteen bars, that insecurity becomes

tonal instability when the main theme gets underway (and yet that itself will prove to

be a part of the true dialectic at work).

The opening material itself, more specifically the tonic, is only the first term

(or thesis) in the dialectic that makes up this movement. The G minor suggested by

the Grundgestalt may not be the second term in the dialectic but it is through the

influence of the Grundgestalt that we are made aware of the second term (or

antithesis) of the dialectic, i.e. the template of traditional sonata form rhetoric itself

and the expectations such rhetoric places on the listener.

The first term of the dialectic is the tonic key as presented in the opening

material. Schubert creates tension in the D minor quartet between this first term and

the second term, the conventional plan of sonata form itself, by the use of a

Grundgestalt that lends the first term a significance, purpose, and individual character

which in turn allows that first term to stand outside of, and engage with, the sonata

form rhetoric of which it would ordinarily be a part. The first term, by virtue of its

insecurity, desperately attempts to correct that insecurity by firmly insisting on D

minor as the tonic of the piece (attempts that are foiled by many disruptions detailed

below). However the conventions of a sonata form rhetoric governed by a series of

cues which the listener, rightly or wrongly, is conditioned to expect results in the

music attempting to move on to a second key area for a second subject and so on.

234

Dialectic tension is created between the first key area (which is unwilling to modulate

to a new key before it has overcome its own tonal uncertainties) and the sonata form

which, thanks to a momentum inherited from countless examples in the past, wants to

modulate to new keys in accordance with the cues tradition expects. It is significant

that the first term arises from material heard before the main theme began at bar 15.

Since introductory material is traditionally an unessential component of a typical

sonata form plan the first term's existence outside the second term is secured and the

first term can be said to exist on the same level as the second term because its

struggle for tonal security permeates the entire movement.

When we examine the first movement of the D minor String Quartet in the

light of the insecurity revealed in the opening material we find that the traditional

tonic-dominant polarity that traditionally makes enemies of the dominant and tonic

comes into action while the tonic is still struggling desperately to define itself. The

tonic needs the dominant‘s assistance to confirm its own tonicity. Consequently the

dominant feels obliged to entertain in the exposition a dual allegiance to the functions

of polarity and supportiveness to the tonic, functions that are normally separated by

sonata rhetoric.

An analysis of the thematic and cyclic elements of this work will not be dealt

with here since several fine studies have already been conducted identifying these

functions.28

However, certain observations in the literature which until now did little

more than highlight points of interest can be revisited in the light of the Grundgestalt

28

Many of these have already been referenced in this chapter. See also Chusid: ‗Schubert‘s Cyclic

Compositions‘, 37-45.

235

and be seamlessly redirected to the service of our present analysis, thus shedding

much more light on the processes at work in this quartet.

236

Disruptive Features in the Music after the Grundgestalt; Symptoms of the

Dialectic

It was mentioned above that the music after bar 15 (Example 6.5), which is normally

identified as the real beginning of the first group, makes use of the leading note but

also contains several disruptive features which turn the tonal insecurity of the opening

material into tonal instability. We may investigate these disruptions as consequences

of the Grundgestalt. As the Grundgestalt continues to challenge the authority of the

tonic and gives the first term a reason to resist the modulatory tide of sonata form

rhetoric, those disruptions become representative of that resistance. C# becomes a

prominent neighbour-note to D and the frequent appearances of F contribute to the

sense that we are finally in D minor. However, two bars later we already have

evidence that this is not enough to establish D minor as the home of the movement.

In bar 17 C# immediately reverts to C in the second violin and follows a

chromatically confounding melodic path, at least it is puzzling when considered in the

light of all the minor scales that could possibly represent D minor. Of course C is an

acceptable part of the descending melodic-minor scale but here it descends to a raised

sixth, B. On reaching this pitch the melody immediately reverses and rises up to D

going through C again. The notes of the descending melodic-minor scale have been

applied to the ascending shape and this is repeated in the cello in bar 18. The same

237

practice is applied in reverse in the second violin in bar 19 when the pitches of the

ascending melodic-minor scale are applied to a descending line. The phrase in which

these confusions occur is then repeated and there is no ignoring their disturbing effect

on the tonal stability of even this passage. It is as though Schubert is preparing in this

work a treatise on the effectiveness of minor-key scales for securing a tonic.


An F# in bar 17 (that recurs in bar 18 and several more bars thereafter) does mark the

beginning of an ascending chromatic line but within bar 17 it is indicative of the

crisis faced by the opening bars; it is exploring the unstable predicament faced by the

238

modal shift in the light of the prior suggestion of G minor. Indeed, all the accidentals

in bar 17 reflect the tonal insecurity that has gone before: the F# pushes toward G

(one would have expected F# to move straight to G# to prepare for the dominant but

the interpolation of G weakens that and the scale has to be repeated immediately in

bar 18 without chromaticisms to show a convincing move toward the dominant); the

C undermines the tonic; the second half of bar 17 forms a Neapolitan sixth for either

modality (D minor or major) and its E provides the pitch that was missing from G

minor‘s key signature; the B in the second violin followed almost immediately by a B

in the cello reflects the inconclusiveness of the melodic-minor scale in this work.

One further comment on the F#: in being combined with a C it fails to provide a

modal shift to D major and contradicts the second key area, F major, therefore its

main purpose is to highlight D minor‘s struggle for tonal indisputability. So much is

happening in this bar (which is marked by a crescendo) that one would be tempted to

label it the Grundgestalt were it not for the fact that it merely summarises and makes

more overt troubles already extant in the opening bars.

The following harmonic features also contribute to the instability of the music

after bar 15 and may also be considered consequences of the Grundgestalt. It is by

noting such consequences that we witness the early seeds of tension between the first

and second terms of the dialectic that the Grundgestalt enables. Note the pitches that

239

are mentioned in the following list and how those pitches relate to the opening‘s

insecurity; how pitches important to D minor are portrayed as subservient to, or in

dialogue with, pitches sympathetic to G minor:

i. Bar 28: C# against E is followed immediately by C against E . The second

half of the bar results in a diminished seventh chord built off A (vdim7),

therefore presenting C and E in the context of A and G , thus undermining

both D minor and G minor in close proximity to each other

ii. In bars 29-30 the diminished seventh is maintained

iii. At bar 31 vdim7 leads into iv7

iv. At bar 32 the music moves back to vdim7 (uncertainty with the tonic pitch is

displayed)

v. At bar 33 a chromatic line has begun to descend in the bass causing the root of

vdim7 to become A with the dimensions of a dominant seventh chord for D .

vi. At bar 34 the chromatic bass-line takes us to G . The upper voices planned to

hold their vdim7 chord above the bass but the G in the viola is obliged to

coincide with the G in the bass. G would be a convincing move against the

threat of G minor were it not for the fact that (a) G is part of a chromatic line

240

and (b) D has been alternated with D repeatedly in the first violin from bar 32

on, rendering the tonic too unstable to take advantage of such a pitch at this

time. B in the bass decoration also becomes naturalised (note that that B was

originally a B in the first draft of the manuscript; this, being the enharmonic

equivalent of the dominant, is avoided to keep the tonic in jeopardy).29

vii. Bar 35 shows the cello and viola move a semitone in opposite directions from

their positions in the previous bar to re-establish the A dominant seventh

chord, now in third inversion.

viii. At bar 36 V7(4-2) resolves to I(6-3) in D major.

ix. At bar 37 a chromatic line in the cello is abandoned. Chromatic lines begin to

ascend in all other instruments, save for double-stopped elements in the

second violin and viola which display semitone neighbour-note shapes. D# is

prominent.

The instability evident in the tonality from bar 15 onward is reflected in the nature

and number of the first group‘s themes and the consequences of the Grundgestalt

become ever more far-reaching. Hefling comments on the first part of the main

theme-group (bars 15- 24): 29

Maurice J.E. Brown: ‗Schubert's D Minor Quartet: A Footnote‘, The Musical Times, 1532/111

(1970), 987.

241

The core of the movement begins quietly at bar 15, growing higher and louder

through two open-ended five-bar phrases […] however, there is no traditional

consequent; the movement seems to begin anew [… at bar 25] the tortuous

chromaticism of bars 32-36 and 38-40 is particularly unsettling […] Out of this

rising ambiguity emerges the opening motto, its silences now filled with

clattering triplets – as though all we have heard hitherto were a vast antecedent

about to be complemented at last. Instead […] there are no consequents, but only

new beginnings [when the second group begins at bar 52 …] Nor does this music

achieve closure; the consequent phrase ending at bar 71 is disrupted, and the

ensuing digressions are irresolute. 30

From this kaleidoscope of observations in Hefling‘s analysis we can see the fruits of

that insecurity in the opening reverberating through the ensuing music. The frequent

interruptions to themes from the first group seem to be a pun on the interrupted

sentence theme-type of the introduction. The second group is in F major and is not

free from the unrest that harassed the first group. Truscott notices ‗a general

reluctance for its phrases to end on a chord of F or any other normal part of the key‘31

but Susan Wollenberg argues that the disturbance is much more obvious, writing that

the ‗quality of sweetness […] in the ―second subject‖ […] is controlled or

counterbalanced by harmonic, rhythmic and textural acerbities.‘32

Both Truscott‘s

and Wollenberg‘s observations make essentially the same point in relation to our

discussion, i.e. even when F major is reached both the reluctance of phrases to end

normally and various acerbities encountered on the way are testament to the unsettled

quality in this music as the desire of the music to assert the authority of the tonic

fights against the new key areas introduced by the second term in the dialectic.

Hefling later makes the following comment:

30

Hefling: Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, 86-87. Hefling‘s use of the terms ‗antecedent‘ and

‗consequent‘ do not directly correspond to Caplin‘s but his meaning is clear. 31

Truscott: ‗Schubert‘s D minor string Quartet‘, 28. 32

Susan Wollenberg: ‗Celebrating Dvorak: Affinities between Schubert and Dvorak‘, The Musical

Times, 1783/132 (1991), 435.

242

[…] quickened sequencing [after bar 90] brings further irresolution; diversion to

the major mode of the dominant is charming but unconvincing (bars 101ff.), and

suddenly the whole quartet seizes upon the sixteenths, unisono, in a desperate

retreat to the relative and its rustic lyricism (bar 112-14). But F is merely a

neighbour chord; neither this nor a second attempt to establish it (bar 120) holds

ground.33

It should be clear that while Hefling‘s work here is attentive, he is not venturing any

reasons for his observations and therefore is doing little more than describing the

music. In the light of our understanding of the opening material and the dialectic at

work we can interpret both the ‗unconvincing‘ modal inflection mentioned above and

the failed attempts by F major to take hold as evidence of the struggle between the

first and second terms. Let us also consider Harold Truscott‘s thoughts on the

passage already described by Hefling above (and ensuing material):

Tonally the passage [from bar 83] is a no man‘s land. It has no fixed centre […]

Twice in the course of this passage Schubert contrives to sound F major harmony,

and each time it has lost a little more of its individuality as a tonality; and twice

he sounds A, major the first time, minor the second, the second time stronger than

the first. Finally the music […] settles finally and fully in A major [… Later] the

music shoots up a chord of A minor, to land with great force on a chord of F

major [at bar 114 …] this F major harmony occurs twice [a second time at bar

120] and each time is gradually dissolved back to the tonic, now A minor […]

Thus the whole group [section] is an affair of two fully established keys and two

full transition passages, with F major continually reappearing, but each time with

a different character, each time less of a key and more of an independent

harmony gradually being absorbed into another key simultaneously establishing

itself.34

That Hefling and Truscott refer to the A major section as a diversion and a full,

important key respectively is a symptom of the indecisiveness in this exposition that

stems from the first term‘s lack of cooperation with the second term. Furthermore,

the frequent appearance of F major can be understood in the context of the

Grundgestalt as a reaction to the role F played in the opening bars; F major represents

the ambiguity of the opening passage by negating with equal force the leading notes 33


Truscott: ‗Schubert‘s D minor string Quartet‘, 27-28.

243

of both D minor and G minor. Its frequent appearance in the context of the dominant

is a disruption to the overall stability despite its close harmonic proximity to the

tonic, D minor. In this way a former ally for the tonic, indeed an ally that is part of

the tonic‘s identity, is turned against it and this is the very nature of insecurity. Even

as the second key-area, F major suffered from interrupted phrase endings (bars 59 and

71) and a meandering inability to close on F. Despite being the relative major it

achieves a unique standing as an antithesis in this particular work, for its antithetical

obligation is tied up with its diatonic closeness to the tonic. Therefore in this work it

may be said that Schubert simultaneously confronts, accommodates, and even defines

the difficulty of the relative major as a second key-area in minor-key sonata forms in

a way not accomplished in any of the other works analysed in this study. This

material demonstrates that the first term is largely concerned with overcoming the

seeds of tonal doubt placed by the Grundgestalt in the opening material but its

attempts to deal with this are frustrated by the momentum of sonata form rhetoric, the

second term.

The restlessness between A minor and A major can also be explained by the

insecurity of the introduction. Both keys contain leading notes that undermine G

minor. In addition to this they often undermine G minor in the context of its own

leading note making the line F#-G# a diatonic progression explicable in terms of

tonalities (the major and minor dominant) that should be subservient to the tonic. But

as is the nature of insecurity a battle won externally is not a true victory, i.e. G minor

is undermined in the dominant but not in the tonic and it is not made clear that A is

244

the dominant of a key that can unequivocally be said to be the home key, such is the

victory D minor needs over G minor to properly address the Grundgestalt.

G minor needs to be undermined in the context of D minor as a local tonic.

The shifting between major and minor-mode alternates C# and C , bringing back to

the fore the very pitch that failed to assist D minor in the beginning and highlighting

the freedom it enjoys, even though that freedom cost D minor so much already. That

A major should appear at all, when typically only the minor dominant would appear

at this point in the exposition, is a bold attempt to resolve the music‘s insecurity

before reaching the development section. We should note that the root pitches of the

harmonies used in the exposition, D F A, do not only spell the tonic triad that is in so

much peril, they recreate the relentless but futile hammering of the tonic triad that we

witnessed in almost every bar of the introduction.

A minor is the main tonal area for the third section of the exposition with A

major as a secondary colour within that. It will be noted that all the main key-areas

of the exposition are designed to help establish D minor as a tonal home rather than

pull away from it. Despite what traditional understandings of sonata form would

suggest is the function of these key areas it is keys on the flat-side that threaten the

tonic in this work, less so the relative major and the dominant.35

35

Admittedly, it would be more in keeping with the paradigm of traditional sonata form rhetoric to

have only two keys in the exposition, but the conventional sequence of keys Schubert chooses allows

the second key area to be easily interpreted as a step on the way to the third key area and so this is as

traditional a template for minor-key sonata form as one can expect if a three-key exposition is to be

used. That it is used at all is a clever response to the details of the Grundgestalt used in this particular

dialectic, as explained above.

245

As Hefling points out in the development, following its opening in C major (a

striking vote of C over the leading note so sorely missed from the beginning), there is

‗an urgent need to escape from D minor and its dominant (which must ultimately

yield to D). Yet, just as a few bars earlier, the resolute advance does not hold.‘36

The

music attempts to move on to the development section but D minor is not ready; it is

still trying to establish itself as the tonal centre of the work, as though it is in fear that

the development section will not find its way back to the correct home. Tension is

created less between tonic and dominant in this movement than it is between the

frustrated efforts of the tonic to establish itself and the desire of the music to move on

by beginning a development section after three key-areas have been touched in the

exposition. It may be said that Schubert in the dialectic in this work is questioning

another element of sonata form we take for granted: that an exposition must move to

a development section once certain rhetorical targets have been met, regardless of

whether it is in the best interests of the problems faced by an individual work to move

on at that time.37

Achieving Synthesis

If the first term in the dialectic in this work is the tonic which is antithetical to the

second term by virtue of a Grundgestalt that inspires the first term to fight against the

36


This is not a criticism of the D minor Quartet. It is not to say the development section comes too

early or that it is in any way unconvincing. As is the case in all the pieces analysed in this thesis,

Schubert manages to highlight difficulties of form without succumbing to them or sacrificing the

quality of his essays.

246

tide of sonata rhetoric in order to overcome its own ‗defining problem‘, how can

these two terms which are rendered incompatible on the same level achieve a

synthesis such as examples discussed earlier in this dissertation have enjoyed?

Theoretically synthesis might be achieved in this dialectic anytime the first term

eliminates the threat of G minor, however this is made difficult by the modulatory

expectations of the second term and so resolution of the Grundgestalt is not likely to

occur until the first and second terms can work together toward that goal. The answer

to the question of how that synthesis is achieved is beautifully simple; Schubert need

only let the rhetoric run its course and it will provide the ideal platform for the first

term to overthrow the threats the Grundgestalt made to its security once and for all.

In an exposition the pattern for a typical sonata form is to move progressively further

from the home key and naturally, in this instance, this will create tension with the

first term. A development section typically explores several more remote key areas

and the tension may continue to be felt. A recapitulation, however, marks a reversal

of this rhetorical drive and momentum. A listener‘s expectations lead them to believe

a recapitulation will typically begin in the tonic and will presumably draw any

material from the exposition that occupied foreign keys into that key. A coda will

further endorse the home key. The typical rhetoric of sonata form, anticipating all its

limitations, is thus put to the service of the D minor quartet‘s unique dialectic on two

perceptual levels. Firstly it allows for a very controlled dialectic as a second term in a

sonata form movement by granting synthesis an uncanny level of inevitability.

Secondly the external sonata form both of these terms operate within houses the

tensions unique to the dialectic at hand in all the traditional areas, i.e. the terms create

247

tension in the exposition and development and resolution in the recapitulation and

coda.

It is not true to say that sonata form rhetoric, the second term, will cease to

play an active part in the engagement with the Grundgestalt and, by extension, the

dialectic once the recapitulation has begun. Rather, sonata rhetoric becomes at that

point a facilitator for the first term to confront its own defining problem of tonal

insecurity in a supportive environment without fear of interruption. In a

recapitulation a second subject can be expected to stay in the tonic and a coda can be

expected to endorse the home key – whether it does or not is entirely the business of

the first term in its struggle with the Grundgestalt. If the first term encounters

difficulties overcoming its insecurity in the recapitulation then sonata form rhetoric

encourages us to hear the music with a bias in favour of D minor and can offer the

convention of a coda if the first term fails to overcome the disturbances of the

Grundgestalt in the recapitulation, requiring more musical space to absolutely refute

G minor.

To clarify, domination of D minor over G minor is the stabilisation of the first

term on its own grounds and given that that instability made possible a dialectic

between the first key area and sonata form rhetoric itself means that the elimination

of G minor is also a part of the dialectic and in need of resolution. Even if the first

and second terms are no longer creating tension amongst themselves, theirs is a

synthesis that could be gained by simply allowing events to play out from exposition

to recapitulation (sonata rhetoric would naturally cease pulling away from the tonic

once it had run its course). The real compositional craftsmanship of the synthesis in

248

the recapitulation is to be found in how Schubert uses the newly-found cooperation of

first and second terms to eliminate the Grundgestalt that gave rise to their antagonism

in the first place.

The Remaining Course of the Dialectic and Resolution of the Grundgestalt

Let us consider more examples of the tonic struggling against the tide of form, now

seeing them as part of the dialectic just described. F# minor, the relative minor of the

dominant major, appears firmly at bar 152 as a counterweight to the prominence of F

major, the relative major of the tonic minor, in the exposition; an amusing palindrome

Schubert was quite likely aware of. It sparks a sequence that moves from F# minor to

E minor to D minor. This may be an attempt (considering the root pitches of the

harmonies just mentioned) to ally F# with the tonic, thus freeing up D to be treated in

both the major and minor-modes. However in making a premature grasp for tonal

security this exercise pushes the music back to the tonic it has, as Hefling understands

it, ‗so sorely sought to escape.‘38

The appearance of the tonic at this point in the

development further illuminates the cross-purposes of rhetorical momentum and tonal

security outlined in the previous paragraph. In frustration at finding its own tonal

insecurity again interfering with the sonata form the music reprimands itself violently

at bar 176 by attempting to negate D minor ‗through gnashing dissonance (making it

a secondary dominant ninth), which launches a rapid chromatic sequence replete with

38


249

scorching cross-relations and neighbour-note clashes. Yet all the sound and fury

brings on the dominant of D nonetheless (bars 182-86).‘39

The authority of minor-scale theory which Schubert has been shown to

question several times in the course of this thesis is commented on before the return

of the recapitulation and, in its reference to the Grundgestalt in this work, may be

said to signal a turn in the dialectic with sonata rhetoric preparing to introduce the

recapitulation. At bar 188 the music finally makes a statement that addresses the real

problem of the introduction reconciling the, in the present work, unsatisfactory laws

of minor scales with the melodic and modal effect he sought to portray (Example

6.6). The first violin, in a reference to a melody from the Lied Der Tod und das

Mädchen, rises through A-B-C#-D creating the augmented second that would have

been perhaps a little un-stylistic for the opening bar. What is more, the melodic line

is decorated with triplets which place B s in between the B and the C# to subtly

smoothen the interval. It is by no means a full solution but it is a significant step

towards that end.

Shortly after this the opening gesture returns in the tonic to begin the

recapitulation and the first term attempts to overcome the Grundgestalt in the

supportive environment provided by that second term which is no longer antithetical

to it. The recapitulation begins with a reprise of the music that originally appeared

from bar 41 onward and, as such, still contains the rising triplets which spell first G

minor, and then D minor in the repeat of the opening bars of the introduction and

39

Ibid., 88-89.

250

overtly state that the return to the home key is not yet a return to a solid D minor but a

key haunted by its own subdominant. Obviously, the difficult role of G minor in this

work prohibits Schubert from using a subdominant recapitulation and it seems that

Schubert is challenging himself in this work by creating a scenario that restricts him

in this as well as enforcing the limitations placed on his typical modal shifting and

Neapolitan usage (as discussed earlier).40


The second group which originally appeared in F major now appears in D major and

we have a solid example of the second term‘s synthesis with the first easing the

tension that spurred the movement this far. It is in part the fruit of that sequential

material we heard in the development that aimed to harness F# and turn it toward the

service of modal variety in the tonic without fear of modulating to G minor. In this

way we are reassured of Schubert‘s compositional engagement at every part of the

movement for, even though it has already been established that the exposition and

recapitulation are of primary importance to the dialectic at play in this particular

40

See Brian Newbould: Schubert: The Music and the Man, 94 for a discussion of Schubert‘s use of

subdominant recapitulations.

251

movement, the development section can be seen to have contributed to the concerns

at hand. By placing the second group‘s F material in D major there is a direct

conversion of F into F# within the undeniable context of D. It takes command of the

ambiguous F major in the context of the modal/tonal difficulties posed in the

introduction.

Yet still difficulties remain for the security of the tonic. At this point F# has

been taken care of but G minor itself has still not been overtly confronted by the

tonic. The music soon turns back to D minor revelling in its newly regained modal

freedom but at bar 250 the music turns to B major. In Truscott‘s analysis he explains

B as a flat-submediant region in D sharing the same relationship to the tonic in the

recapitulation as F did to the dominant in the exposition.41

However more is at stake:

B major is the relative major of G minor and the perfect medium through which to

impact the music for a tonality that has never ‗existed‘ in the piece. D minor is still

too insecure to face G minor for what it is and instead confronts it through the mask

of G minor‘s relative major. From bar 260 we have the reprise of the material that

originally introduced disruptive Fs in the dominant. Now the cello makes use of F s

again but within B chords (bars 272 and 278) which, in B major, only serve to

41

Truscott: ‗Franz Schubert‘, 31.

252

confirm that tonality. James Webster criticises this feature in both the exposition and

the recapitulation. He writes:

The exposition shows the three-key plan, somewhat weakened by the recurrence

of F (already used for the lyrical theme) in the later outbursts. The recapitulation

avoids this problem. But the piano section in the plain submediant B is blander

than the major dominant, the key-scheme has become I-VI-I (as in the exposition

of the G-major Quartet), and the outbursts in B are robbed of tonal

significance.‘42

However, it has already been discussed that the weakening effect of the recurring F in

the exposition is a fitting expression of the insecurity that plagues this work and the

alleged blandness in the recapitulation has a similar function made all the more

chilling for its absorbing nature. Having lost F# to D major, the destructive invisible

force in this work, G minor, is now turning F to the aid of a key other than the tonic

and so an element of the tonic threatens to be turned against itself. At bar 272 we

arrive at a point equivalent to that moment in the exposition which saw a modulation

from A to F and we expect that in this case B will similarly drop a third back into the

tonic, but it does not. The music remains in B major and the threat to the tonic‘s

security is made even more real. One notes an enharmonic change in bar 282 in the

first violin between C# and D which looks like a late attempt at claiming the leading

note of D for the flat-side tonalities but it is unsuccessful and the music makes its way

back to D for the coda at bar 299.

42

Webster: ‗Schubert‘s Sonata Form and Brahms‘s First Maturity‘, 34.

253

It is time to introduce a new analytical term that will allow us to recognise

that sonata rhetoric, as the second term of the dialectic, offers practical support to the

first term with which it has reached synthesis throughout the recapitulation‘s ordeal

with B. If a dominant can effect closure into the tonic at the beginning of a

recapitulation then obviously that recapitulation must feature some sort of change to

stay in the tonic till the end of the piece. However, a recapitulation may occasionally

modulate to other key areas at some point after the recapitulation has reintroduced the

tonic before returning to the tonic again. In such a case the key that allows for this

second return to the tonic might be called an agent of secondary closure. It will be

noticed that the key that manipulates the second transition in the recapitulation so that

the music can return to the tonic is B major, therefore despite B‘s initial disruption in

the recapitulation it eventually does facilitate the return to the tonic in a rhetorically-

derived fashion. Since B major shares the same diatonic pitch set as G minor it

appears that the source of insecurity has been turned toward the aid of the tonic‘s

authority as a second agent of closure. This is indicative of synthesis on one level but

synthesis with B major is not a goal of this work. Rather the elimination of the threat

of G minor is of greater importance. It will be seen that the apparent synthesis will

not last, G minor has still not been dealt with and therefore the symptoms of its

254

influence will return, namely, B will appear again in its capacity as a troublesome

presence and the help of the second term will again be required to overcome it.

Sonata-rhetoric comes to the aid of the first term at this late stage by offering

the convention of a coda in which D minor may continue to assert itself. The

introduction, in its full constitution, does not appear in the recapitulation but is

reserved for the beginning of the coda, indeed the incomplete phrases that followed it

in the exposition up until bar 41 are skipped in their original appearance until this

point. Where the presentation function at the beginning of the work encouraged us to

try to hear the music as R=2N, even though we were then taken away from that

division by the period, here the statement and response of the presentation have been

curtailed, the rests omitted, and we now hear them as R=N (Example 6.7), thus a

disruptive feature of the Grundgestalt has been at least partially addressed. The

unrest caused by the change of speed in the introduction, however, has still not been

dealt with, it has merely been avoided in this rendition and Schubert makes up for this

later with the otherwise relatively unSchubertian Più mosso indication at bar 311.43

To return to Example 6.7: there are, of course, still problems with the

authority of the first term at this stage. The continuation function now has a D pedal

and avoids the subdominant as much as possible but B can soon be found in the viola

and cello. This maintains the shadow of B major and reminds us that D minor has

43

Newman discusses how Schubert usually kept steady tempi, see Newman: ‗Freedom of Tempo in

Schubert's Instrumental Music‘, 544.

255

still not truly eliminated G minor as a presence in the home tonic. Hefling writes,

‗twice sounds the previous effort to pull away from D minor through dominant-ninth

transformation (bars 303 and 307; cf. 176) – the second weaker than the first.‘44

At

that bar, 303, E (the pitch missing from G minor‘s key-signature) is introduced along

with a C (the troublesome flattened leading note of D minor). C# appears at bar 306

but it is immediately corrected by another C and E.


44


256

In the new Più mosso tempo at bar 311 the coda resumes with the theme that

originally followed the opening. It is interesting how Schubert has deferred dealing

with certain elements of the Grundgestalt material until the coda; such action proves

the value, in Schubert‘s mind, of the coda to sonata form as dialectic (recall the

discussion of the coda to the Quartettsatz in Chapter 3 as more than a tail to a form).

The theme sounds its first five-bar phrase and is still ripe with indecision in regard

the correct chromatic inflections of the melodic-minor scale (a challenge to the

authority of conventional theory we have seen in Schubert in other works in this

study, particularly regarding the use of minor-key scales – see Chapter 4). This is a

moment of weakness for the tonic and G minor takes advantage, once again veiled

behind the mask of its relative major, and the music suddenly drops at bar 316 into B

major. Hefling chronicles how the tonic indignantly asserts itself in a grand gesture

following this intrusion from B. He writes:

257

There is resistance in the sudden drop to VI at bar 316 (the key of the second

group in the recapitulation); predictably, VI gives way to V, but the motivic

chromatic rise from D to A is underway and soars into the shrill wail that had

been stifled by the inevitable D minor of the reprise. So, too, here (bars 324-26).

But the entreating vocal gesture of the movement‘s introductory bars returns,

twice inflecting the minor Neapolitan – a frequent symbol of pathos – to no

avail.45

Before we comment let us consider Leo Black‘s interpretation of the coda:

So when at the end of the D minor quartet‘s first movement the music finds itself

rooted to the spot by a terrifyingly ambiguous, heavily doubled chord that is not

its tonic triad, only to shake itself loose into alarmingly rambling harmonies that

make the earth seem to move under one‘s feet, there is no point in asking what

precisely the music ‗reflects‘. One simply waits for the hairs to die down on the

back of one‘s neck.46

The return to the opening at bar 326 is marked by a Tempo I indication which

attempts to reign in the restlessness of tempo that was suggested in the opening music

but not acknowledged until the coda. The ‗rambling‘ harmonies Schubert uses in this

section are not nearly as impenetrable as Black suggests. For instance, Hefling

interprets the minor Neapolitan chords by painting them in the same light as the VI of

bar 316; as harmonic devices trying to pull away from D minor. On the contrary, the

minor Neapolitans are by far the most overt assertion of D minor and absorption of G

minor in the entire work. Indeed it is only in these chords that Schubert faces the

ubiquitous but unseen G minor head on (Example 6.8) and the first term can stand a

real chance of eradicating its ‗defining problem‘.


45


Black: Music and Belief, 112-113.

258

By examining the given example we may see how the first term triumphs and how an

unusual chromatic chord can be explained in terms of the Grundgestalt. Not only

does the Neapolitan chord introduce the pitch G into the opening material that

259

previously suffered from the threat of G minor‘s tyranny, it sounds G in the context

of E and B. Both of the flats of G minor‘s key signature, by virtue of their

association with D minor‘s Neapolitan are turned to the aid of D minor and where a

major Neapolitan (in this particular music) would have opened a door too widely to G

minor, the minor Neapolitan ensures that such a door remains shut. The chord is

sounded twice and after each appearance it is followed by G#s which in turn show

subservience to A, D minor‘s dominant.

We may observe further denunciation of the first term‘s defining problem. In

bars 331 and 337, after each of the presentations of G has been followed by G#, G

makes an appearance. It is being directly confronted by D minor and is no longer a

threat. In each of these bars G appears in the context of D minor‘s leading note, an F

and an E ; the music reinforces D as tonic at the very sight of G . The final four bars

show a figure repeated in the cello charting a tetrachord from G through F , E, and

down to D. This reverses the relationship that we saw in the very first bar with D

descending to G. In the first event C was passed through, thus negating the leading

note of D minor and leaving its authority as a key area subject to attack. Now, in

these final bars, F is passed through negating the leading note of G minor, therefore

260

the same type of minor scale that undermined the tonic and strengthened G minor in

the beginning is used again here to undermine G minor and reinforce D minor and

parallels to the Hegelian dialectic re-emerge.

Several areas of interest for Schubert (which have been embraced in works

analysed in earlier chapters) come together in the D minor quartet: the concept of

rhetorical cues as a series of events leading an argument versus a true dialectic

process that generates those or other events as necessary and are lead by that

argument; the role of the coda as more than a tail to a dialectic with the resolution of

various elements of a Grundgestalt deferred from the recapitulation to the coda; and

meditation on elements of traditional tonal theory other than form, such as minor-key

scales. Schubert has in previous works systematically challenged and then

accommodated on his own terms traditional notions of sonata form. Now he uses the

expectations that traditional plans of sonata form generate by integrating those

expectations and that form within the form they normally dictate, but as subjects of a

true dialectic of the kind that should ideally be the one dictator of a sonata form

movement‘s shape. The traditional plan is simultaneously challenged and, in a

unique way, endorsed. Schubert has in this quartet found a way of making the

traditional template for a minor-key sonata form function as a dialectic as effectively

as its major-key counterpart functions. Schubert has found an answer to the problem

of traditional notions of sonata form in a minor-key.

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Conclusion: Sonata Form and Preparatory Works

1. Schubert’s Sonata Form

In the Quartettsatz, the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor, and the A minor String

Quartet Schubert engages in an aggressive campaign against the dialectic

ineffectiveness of traditional models of minor-key sonata form. He shows how he

can undermine the rhetoric of sonata form while simultaneously remaining true to its

essential principles. In the Quartettsatz Schubert includes the dominant key only to

show that it exists outside of the dialectic at work in that movement and Fieldman

described this as something of a didactic measure:

Because the dominant is present here not as the structural opposition, the actual

antithesis, but as an acknowledgment of other, perhaps more normative formal

possibilities not taken, its incorporation into the exposition is part of an

extraordinarily public, almost pedagogical demonstration of compositional

process, in which a composer uses a finished movement to aurally introduce

various possibilities and explore their consequences, favouring some and showing

the unsuitability of others to the specifics of the argument at hand.1

Similarly the ‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor effectively argued against the

ability of the relative major to function as an antithetical key-area capable of

generating tension by successfully including it in the recapitulation of the second

group without upsetting the sense of closure. In the A minor String Quartet Schubert

attacks the role of the dominant as agent of closure and extends his polemic to include

a rebuttal of traditional notions that a second theme should contrast with a first theme

by being markedly more lyrical. Finally in the D minor String Quartet Schubert finds

a way for those discredited cues to become meaningful again by putting them to the


262

service of a unique dialectic that uses the traditional expectations those cues evoke to

chart a legitimate course for the argument at hand.

As can be seen from the brief summary above, if we were to set about

searching for a change in Schubert‘s attitude to chamber works before and after he

decided on the course of action outlined in the Kupelwieser letter, the most important

change we uncover does not occur when he sets himself the task of designating a

preparatory function to certain works but, rather, occurs half-way through the project

when he comes to the quartet in D minor. The D minor and A minor quartets are

traditionally considered as something of a pair by virtue of their appearance together

in the Kupelwieser letter but the most significant development in Schubert‘s sonata

form thinking from that period is accomplished between the A minor and the D minor

quartets and this makes them as distant on one level as they are close on others.

There is a difficulty with Schubert‘s attempt to rework traditional minor-key

sonata form rhetoric as dialectic process. Charles Rosen provided us with the

following definition of sonata form: ‗[Sonata form] is not a definite form like a

minuet, a da capo aria, or a French overture; it is, like the fugue, a way of writing, a

feeling for proportion, direction, and texture rather than a pattern.‘2 Replacing the

traditional paradigm with a dialectic process which is rooted in the higher principles

of the very model it seeks to negate does not bring us any closer to Rosen‘s

description, it merely enables us to apply the theories inherent in that traditional view

to a wider repertoire of examples. It is useful, but the view of sonata form as an

Hegelian dialectic is not the truth at the heart of sonata form, it is the truth at the heart

2 Quoted from Rosen‘s The Classical Style in the blurb on the back of Rosen: Sonata Forms.

263

of the traditional formula used to describe the sequence of events in a sonata form. It

is the evolution of engrained thinking and we should be fully entitled to abandon it

when necessary in favour of something more personal and profitable to an individual

piece. If we fail to realise this it is only a matter of time before we dub works in

which we cannot clearly identify any Grundgestalt or Hegelian dialectic to be

ineffective as sonata forms in the same dogmatic manner we had hoped to escape

from when we lauded Schubert‘s examples of this analytical technique. Schubert

escapes this danger with the D minor quartet when he stretches the boundaries of

what might conventionally be considered terms within a dialectic to new extremes.

He uses the formula for sonata rhetoric and the formula for dialectic, but does so in a

way that each formula is the inevitable result of a unique set of circumstances that

generate their own processes and determine the conditions of their own synthesis.

One may observe a dichotomy between Schubert‘s violent attitude toward

traditional minor-key sonata rhetoric – as evinced in the Quartettsatz, the

‗Unfinished‘ Symphony in B minor, and the A minor quartet – and his general

sympathy for Classical traditions themselves.3 It was shown in Chapter 2 that a flaw

in the execution of a dialect in traditional minor-key sonata rhetoric was the

inspiration for Schubert to dedicate a number of works to its study. If Schubert‘s

initial quest, either as a Classicist with Romantic traits or a Romantic with Classicist

traits, was to find a way to make minor-key sonata forms work as dialectics, just as

major-key sonata form rhetoric works, then the Quartettsatz, the ‗Unfinished‘

Symphony in B minor, and the A minor String Quartet‘s overt and covert

3 Newbould: ‗Schubert‘, 1, 2 and 11.

264

demonstrations of traditional rhetoric‘s inherent dialectic inefficiency will not achieve

that. To change the form minor-key sonata rhetoric developed over time by going

back to its roots is not to make the form, as Schubert inherited it, function

dialectically; it is to acknowledge it as broken, dismiss it, and start again. In the D

minor quartet Schubert takes what he has learned in the earlier compositions and

finds a way to imbue the template of traditional minor-key sonata form rhetoric with

the function of carrying out dialectic as a process and thus embraces the form from its

higher concepts right down to its engrained traditions. This is the apotheosis of the

minor-key sonata form, not simply its upheaval, and Schubert‘s achievement in the D

minor quartet is an even greater accomplishment than the trend the exceptional earlier

works had promised. Schubert has rescued the form and its traditions from a laziness

that threatened to discard them as a series of archaic, irrelevant rules.

Schubert‘s investigation seems to have come full circle but a problem

remains: Schubert wrote his letter to Kupelwieser after completing the D minor

quartet, therefore even though he had already accomplished so much in the finished D

minor quartet he still intended to write a third preparatory quartet. What might

Schubert have felt was still in need of investigation? It may be that Schubert did not

believe the D minor quartet had solved the problem he set out to address or perhaps

he did believe so but wanted to complete another example to solidify his findings.

Work on composition of the ‗Great‘ did not start until 1825, but Schubert was

finished his D minor quartet in March 1824; a lot of time had passed before Schubert

composed the ‗Great‘ and yet Schubert did not produce another quartet in that time.

It may be that, with an opportunity to reflect on his achievements (the letter to

265

Kupelwieser and the quartets in A minor and D minor were all written in March)

Schubert decided he was indeed amply prepared by his exertions up to that point.

Alternatively he may have grown weary of the subject of his preparatory works or he

may have been inspired by outside events – such as Beethoven‘s composition of a

large minor-key symphony – to get to work right away on a major-key symphony.

This is all speculation and the only thing we can say with certainty is that Schubert

displayed a great interest in the ramifications of Hegelian dialectic in the traditional

rhetoric of minor-key sonata form from 1820 to 1824 and, by virtue of his

experiments in that field, a group of works were linked together as collectively

serving to prepare him for the day he could confront those difficulties with

confidence on the extrovertly public platform of a grand symphony (for he most

certainly was prepared for such a day when the D minor quartet was completed,

despite his hesitation). That he ultimately never did compose such a symphony does

not change these facts, particularly when we remember we are dealing with a

composer whose life was cut so short.

2. Schubert’s Chamber Music as a Road towards a Symphony

When Schubert decided to use preparatory works, as evinced by the letter to

Kupelwieser of 1824, he effectively grouped a number of works together as having a

shared concern; a concern which – on a musical, analytical level beyond the obvious,

broader, sense of the works all being grouped together as ‗preparatory‘ to begin with

– was a way to put dialectic effectiveness back into what Schubert apparently

considered the stale rhetoric of minor-key sonata forms. This would logically prepare

266

him for a symphony that either shared this concern or could showcase the findings

made by the preparatory works in relation to minor-key sonata rhetoric as dialectic

process. However the symphony Schubert wrote after these preparatory works were

completed was a major-key work and therefore could not entertain either of these

options.

Whatever the reason for Schubert‘s writing his next symphony in a major-key

– some possibilities were discussed in Part 3 of Chapter 1– the 1824 works cannot be

said to look forward and prepare or pave the way for the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony

because the concern for minor-key dialectics those preparatory works shared and,

indeed, prepared, was not adopted for the ‗Great‘ Symphony. This does not eliminate

the fact, however, that the ‗Great‘ does indeed share a very real relationship with the

1824 chamber works. As detailed in Part 1 of Chapter 1, there are several ways in

which the ‗Great‘ draws from those pieces. The key phrase here is ‗draws from‘

because in this relationship the ‗Great‘ is looking back to previous compositions to

freely borrow successful ideas from his past. This observation allows us to offer an

answer to the question: what is the difference between writing a series of self-

sufficient ‗preparatory‘ works and simply having a regular back-catalogue, the

experiences of which may be drawn from at any time? The difference is that a set of

preparatory works which share a common goal (such as examining the dialectic

efficiency of minor-key sonata rhetoric) should maintain a similar connection with

the work they are understood to have been preparatory for. Genuinely preparatory

works contribute custom-materials to a final composition. What is more, a distinction

is clarified between which features of a supposedly preparatory work can be

267

considered genuinely forward-reaching and which features of the same work were

simply re-used in later compositions.

There may be other concerns besides sonata rhetoric that the 1824 chamber

works and ‗Great‘ C major Symphony did share. The discovery of even one of these

other areas could potentially prove the 1824 chamber works to indeed function as

preparatory for the ‗Great‘ but space permitted us to consider in this thesis only one

area for study. In our progress we have, however, demonstrated a model for

discovering what qualifies one work as preparatory for another and this model may be

usefully employed in further studies of different areas of Schubert‘s work. Despite

the limitations of our study we may conclusively state that, as far as Schubert‘s

development of minor-key sonata form is concerned, the string quartets mentioned in

Kupelwieser‘s letter were not preparatory exercises composed for the specific benefit

of the ‗Great‘ C major Symphony, even though that symphony drew from them in

various, less consistent, ways. The quartets of 1824 do bare the stamp of preparatory

works by virtue of their shared concern with minor-key sonata rhetoric as dialectic

process, but the envisaged symphonic work that would benefit directly from that

preparation was never composed. In ways we may have been closer to the truth of

what Schubert meant by a ‗grand symphony‘ in 1824 when we believed that the

‗grand symphony‘ was a lost work written at Gmunden and Gastein in 1824 and 1825

than we were when we believed the Kupelwieser letter described the lineage of the

‗Great‘ C major Symphony.4

4 Summarised in Griffel: ‗Schubert‘s Orchestral Music‘, 202.

268

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278

Discography

Schubert, Franz, and Antonín Dvorák, Death and the Maiden; Dvorák: American

[Scored for String Orchestra] (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Charles Rosekrans: CD Telarc, B0000A4G3Z, 2003)

Schubert, Franz, and Bela Bartók, Bartók & Schubert: String Quartets (Végh Quartet: CD Orfeo, B0000059D5, 1995)

Schubert, Franz, and Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann: Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon [Box Set] (Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam/Leonard Bernstein: CD Deutsche Grammophon, B000ASAEM6, 2005)

Schubert, Franz, and Felix Mendelssohn, Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 5, 8, 9; Mendelssohn: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 (NBC Symphony Orchestra/Arturo Toscanini: CD RCA, B00000JPCF, 1999)

Schubert, Franz, and Hugo Wolf, Schubert: String Quartet in Dm No14, D810, D810; Wolf: Italian Serenade (The Hollywood Quartet: CD Testament, B000003XJM, 1996)

Schubert, Franz, and Ludwig van Beethoven, and Gustav Mahler, Mahler's Arrangements of Schubert's 'Death and the Maiden' & Beethoven's String Quartet 'Serioso' (Concertgebow Chamber Orchestra/Marco Boni, CD Arts Music, B00000HZUD, 1999)

Schubert, Franz, and Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven: String Quartet Op. 95/Schubert: Quartet D.887 (Hagen Quartet: CD Deutsche Grammophon, B000026CCH, 2003)

Schubert, Franz, and Robert Schumann, Schubert: String Quartet ‘death & the Maiden’/Schumann: Piano Quintet Op.44 (Borodin Quartet: CD Elatus/Warner Classics, B00006I4BG, 2006)

Schubert, Franz, and Victor Kissine, Schubert: String Quartet G Major (Kremerata Baltica/Gidon Kremer: CD ECM, 162750, 2005)

Schubert/Matthus Death and the Maiden, Maiden and Death (The Petersen Quartet: CD Capriccio, B00000DFF4)

Schubert, Franz, The Great Composers and their Music, v, Symphony no.5 in B flat major D485 and Symphony no.8 in B minor (‗Unfinished‘) D759 (Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Karl Böhm: LP Deutsche Grammophon 410 482-1)

———‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ D 810; String Quartet D 32 (Artis Quartett: CD Sony, B0000028N6, 1993)

———‘Trout’ Quintet, Death and the Maiden (Hagen Quartett: CD Deutsche Grammophon, B00006L71O, 2002)

———Complete String Quartets Vol. 6, Quartet D887, Op. 161 (Kodály Quartet: CD Naxos, 8.557125, 2002 [2005])

———Death & The Maiden - String Quartet No 14 D810 (The Alban Berg Quartet: DVD EMI Classics, B000BDIY54, 2006)

———Death & The Maiden (Schreker: Chamber Symphony: EMI, B00000JJR3, 1999)

279

———Death and the Maiden [Soundtrack] (Keller Quartet: CD Elektra/Wea, B000005EDI, 1994)

———Flonzaley Quartet Plays Romantic Masterpieces (Flonzaley Quartet: CD Biddulph Records, B000001ZF2, 1997)

———Franz Schubert: Quartet No.15 in G (Tokyo String Quartet: CD RCA, B000003EW2, 1990)

———Franz Schubert: String Quartets D 804 ‘Rosamunde’, D 810 ‘Death and the Maiden’, D 887, D 703 and String Quintet D 956 [Box Set] (Emerson String Quartet: CD Deutsche Grammophon, B00000I0L8, 1999)

———Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 8 (9) ‘The Great’ (Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Carlo Maria Giulini: CD Sony, B00000296O, 1995)

———Franz Schubert: Symphony No.9 "The Great"/Symphony No.5 (Boston Symphony Orchestra/Charles Munch: CD RCA, B000003FQN, 1994)

———Great Artists of the Century: 25 Launch Releases (London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Adrian Boult: CD EMI Classics, B0001HAHRI, 2004)

———Great Conductors of the 20th Century: Karl Böhm (Dresden Staatskapelle/Karl Böhm: CD EMI Classics, B0000AKPI7, 2003)

———Great Recordings of the Century, String Quartets D810 and D887 (Busch Quartet: CD EMI Classics, 0946 3 61588 2 2, 1936 and 1938)

———Great Recordings of the Century, String Quartets D810 and D887 (Busch Quartet: CD EMI Classics, 0946 3 61588 2 2, 1936 and 1938)

———Octet D. 803 for strings, clarinet, bassoon and horn; Octet D. 72 for oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns (Schubert Ensemble, Budapest: CD Naxos, 8.550389, 1992)

———Quatuors nos 13 & 14 ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ La jeune Fille et la mort (Melos Quartett: CD Harmonia Mundi France, HMA 1951408 HM 31, 1992 and 2001)

———Schubert Symphonies (Complete) (The Hanover Band/Roy Goodman: CD Brilliant Classics, 99587)

———Schubert Symphonies (Complete) (The Hanover Band/Roy Goodman: CD Brilliant Classics, 99587)

———Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann: Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon [Box Set] (Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam/Leonard Bernstein: CD Deutsche Grammophon, B000ASAEM6, 2005)

———Schubert: Quatuors Nos. 12 & 15 (Melos Quartett: CD Harmonia Mundi, B0000634YQ, 2002)

———Schubert: String Quartet in Cm No12, D703; String Quartet in G No15, D887, Op 161 (Alban Berg Quartet: CD Angel Records, B000002RZ5, 2000)

———Schubert: String Quartet, D887; Piano Trio (Takács Quartet: CD Artek, B00008YJEU, 2003)

———Schubert: String Quartets (Hongrois Quatuor: CD EMI Records, B000024E0R, 2001)

———Schubert: String Quartets (Hongrois Quatuor: CD EMI Records, B000024E0R, 2001)

———Schubert: String Quartets (Tokyo String Quartet: CD Vox Classical, B000001KDT, 1992)

280

———Schubert: Symphonien Nos. 8 & 9 (Dresden Staatskapelle/Giuseppe Sinopoli: CD Polygram International, B000001GIL, 1993)

———Schubert: Symphonien Nos. 8 & 9 (Dresden Staatskapelle/Giuseppe Sinopoli: CD Polygram International, B000001GIL, 1993)

———Schubert: Symphonien Nos. 8 & 9 (Salzburg Camerata Academica Mozarteums/Sando Végh: CD Capriccio, B000001WRC, 1994)

———Schubert: Symphonien Nos. 8 & 9 (Salzburg Camerata Academica Mozarteums/Sando Végh: CD Capriccio, B000001WRC, 1994)

———Schubert: Symphonien Nr. 4 & 7 (8) ‘Unvollendete’ (Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Carlo Maria Giulini: CD Sony, B000002AXZ, 1996)

———Schubert: Symphonies 5 & 8 (Dresden Staatskapelle/Herbert Blomstedt: CD Berlin Classics, B00000JWMK, 1999)

———Schubert: Symphonies No.8 ‘Unfinished’ & No.9 ‘The Great’ (Cleveland Orchestra/George Szell: CD Sony, B0000027XR, 1992)

———Schubert: Symphonies No.8 ‘Unfinished’ & No.9 ‘The Great’ (Cleveland Orchestra/George Szell: CD Sony, B0000027XR, 1992)

———Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 9 (Vienna Philharmonic/István Kertész: CD Decca, B00000JQJH, 1999)

———Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 5, 8, 9; Mendelssohn: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 (NBC Symphony Orchestra/Arturo Toscanini: CD RCA, B00000JPCF, 1999)

———Schubert: Symphony in Bm No8, D759; Symphony in Bf No5, D485 (Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra/Stanislaw Skrowaczewski: CD Polygram Records, B00000AFRW, 1998)

———Schubert: Symphony in C No9, D944; Die Zauberharfe D644 (Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Riccardo Muti: CD EMI Classics, B000040OCI, 2000)

———Schubert: Symphony No. 9 (Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Günter Wand: CD RCA, B0001TSWO6, 2004)

———Schubert: Symphony Nos. 8 & 9 / Mass No. 6 (Lyon Opera Orchestra/John Eliot Gardiner: CD Elektra/ Wea, B000026BC2, 2001)

———Schubert: Symphony Nos. 8 & 9 / Mass No. 6 (Lyon Opera Orchestra/John Eliot Gardiner: CD Elektra/ Wea, B000026BC2, 2001)

———Schubert: The Complete Symphonies, Vol. 2 (Dresden Staatskapelle/Wolfgang Sawallisch: CD Philips, B0000041CX, 1995)

———Schubert: The Last Three Quartets (The Chilingirian Quartet: CD Nimbus Records, B00000E04Y, 1994)

———Schubert: The Late String Quartets; String Quartets [Box Set] (The Lindsays: CD Asv Living Era, B0001Z2RSW, 2004)

———Schubert: The Symphonies on Original Instruments [Box Set] (Hanover Band/Roy Goodman: CD Nimbus Records, 1992)

———Schubert: Winterreise (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Alfred Brendel: CD Philips, 464 739-2, 1986 and 2001)

———Schwanngesang; Lieder (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore: CD Deutsche Grammophon, 463 5032, 2000)

———String Quartet D810 (The Julliard String Quartet: CD Testament, SBT 1372, 1981)

281

———String Quartets (Complete) Vol. 1, String Quartets D703 and D810 (Kodály Quartet: CD Naxos, 8.550590, 1991)

———String Quartets D804 & D810 (Takacs Quartet: CD Valley Multimedia-Closeouts, Cdvmm 4368432, 2002)

———String Quartets no 13, 14 (Guarneri String Quartet: CD Arabesque Recordings, B000000T9L, 1997)

———String Quintet in C Major, D956; String Trio in B Flat Major, D581 (Ensemble Villa Musica: CD Naxos, 8.550388, 1990)

———Symphonies nos 5 and 8 and Rosamude Ballet Music no. 2 (Slovak Philharmonic/Michael Halász: CD Naxos, 8.550145, 1988)

———Symphony No.9 ‘The Great’ (Berliner Philharmoniker/Simon Rattle: CD EMI Classics, 0946 3 39382 2 9, 2006)

———Symphony No.9, D944 ‘Great’ (Failoni Orchestra/Michael Halász: CD Naxos, 8.553096, 1994)

———The Kolisch Quartet plays Schubert Quartets (The Kolisch Quartet: CD Symposium, B00005TO01, 2002)

———The Twenty-One Most Famous Symphonies, vii, Symphony No.8 ‗Unfinished‘ (Radio Symphony Orchestra Ljubljana/Marko Munih)

———Tribute to a Unique Artist (Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Carlos Kleiber: CD Deutsche Grammophon, B0002QXRM0, 2004)

———Trout Quintet, Death and the Maiden (Amadeus Quartet: CD Deutsche Grammophon, B000001GXF, 1997)

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