Schubert's Last Sonatas - Beethoven's Influence

Beethoven's Influence

It is well acknowledged that Schubert was a great admirer of Beethoven, and that Beethoven had an immense influence on Schubert's writing, especially on his late works. Schubert often borrowed musical and structural ideas from the works of Beethoven, to combine them into his own compositions. There are two outstanding examples for this practice in the last piano sonatas:

1. The opening of the Sonata in C minor is "taken almost note-for-note" from the theme of Beethoven's 32 Variations in C minor.
2. The structure of the finale of the Sonata in A major is borrowed from the finale of Beethoven's Piano Sonata, Op. 31, No. 1, as evident through numerous parallels in structural features.

Numerous additional, less obvious similarities to works by Beethoven have been frequently mentioned in the literature. In these cases, the question of whether or not Schubert had actually borrowed his ideas from Beethoven is open to musicological debate. Here are some examples:

• in the C minor Sonata, certain passages in the first two movements resemble parallel passages from Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8, Op. 13 (the Pathétique), written in the same key.
• in the A major Sonata, bars 200–206 from the end of the development section in the finale recall bars 51–55 from the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2 (the Moonlight Sonata).
• in the B-flat Sonata, the opening theme of the first movement recalls the opening of Beethoven's "Archduke" Trio, whereas bars 34–39 recall bars 166–169 from the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto, the Emperor; in the latter case, both passages are similarly modified in the recapitulations. The opening of the sonata's finale, in turn, recalls the opening of the finale from Beethoven's String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 130.

A striking feature of many of these alleged borrowings from Beethoven is that they retain, in their borrowed state, the same structural position they had in Beethoven's original design – they appear in the same movements, at the same structural points. However, despite all this evidence in support of Schubert's borrowing from Beethoven, "he evokes the memory of Beethoven and the classical style, but is no docile follower", as Alfred Brendel points out. "On the contrary, his familiarity with Beethoven's works taught him to be different... Schubert relates to Beethoven, he reacts to him, but he follows him hardly at all. Similarities of motif, texture or formal pattern never obscure Schubert's own voice. Models are concealed, transformed, surpassed". A good example of Schubert's departure from Beethoven's line can be found in his most overt quotation of Beethoven – the opening of the Sonata in C minor. Once Schubert's theme has reached A-flat – the highest note in Beethoven's theme – instead of the original, witty cadence in the tonic, Schubert's theme continues to ascend to higher pitches, culminating fortissimo on another A-flat, an octave higher, tonicized as a downward rushing A-flat major scale. From this A-flat major interlude – an evasion of the opening material's harmonic goal, the main generative thematic material for the entire sonata will arise. In this way, what had initially appeared to be a mere note-to-note plagiarism of Beethoven has eventually given way to a radically different continuation, one which invokes Schubert's own, idiosyncratic compositional style.

But perhaps the best example of Schubert's departure from the style of his idol is the finale of the A major Sonata. Although starting from themes of equal length, Schubert's movement is much longer than Beethoven's. The added length comes from the episodes within the rondo structure:

• Schubert's second theme (the B section of the rondo) indulges in a long harmonic and melodic excursion, going through the keys of the subdominant and flat submediant. Beethoven's more traditional short and simple theme merely consists of alternating tonic and dominant harmonies.
• Schubert's development section ends with a long passage in C sharp minor, with no parallel in Beethoven's finale.

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