Schubert's Last Sonatas - Unifying Elements and Cyclicism

Unifying Elements and Cyclicism

Schubert composed his three last sonatas in close succession; furthermore, he intended to publish them together as a set, as evident by the sonatas' titles. In support of this view that the sonatas are a single unity, pianist and scholar Alfred Brendel has found profound musical links between the sonatas. He has argued that the sonatas complement each other in their different characters, and demonstrated that the entire sonata trilogy is based on the same basic group of intervallic motifs. Moreover, each of the sonatas contains a complex network of inner harmonic and motivic connections linking together all movements, and passages from one movement often reappear, usually transformed, in later movements. Most of these connections are too subtle to be detected during casual listening. In some cases, however, Schubert quotes a theme or passage from an earlier movement with little alteration, inserting it in structurally significant locations, creating an immediately audible allusion. Such explicit connections are related to the cyclic form, one of the musical forms associated with the Romantic period in music.

The most manifestly cyclical work of the three sonatas is the Sonata in A major. In the sonata's scherzo, a joyous passage in C major is suddenly interrupted by a fierce downward rushing scale in C-sharp minor, which closely recalls a parallel passage at the climax of the preceding movement; this is followed in the scherzo by a dance theme whose melody is derived from the Andantino's opening melody. This unique moment is one of the most explicit, audible cyclic references in the sonata trilogy. Another important cyclic element in the A major Sonata is the subtle similarities and connections that exist between each movement's ending and the following movement's opening; the connection between the opening and ending of the sonata as a whole, is even bolder: the sonata ends in a cancrizans of its opening, a framing device which is probably unprecedented in the sonata literature.

Charles Fisk, also a pianist and music scholar, has described another cyclic element in Schubert's last sonatas – a unifying tonal design, which follows a similar, basic dramatic scheme in each of the three works. According to Fisk, each sonata presents at its very beginning, the generative kernel of a musical conflict from which all the ensuing music will derive. The first movement, beginning and ending in the sonata's home key, confronts this key with a contrasting tonality or tonal stratum. This dichotomous tonal design is also manifested in both third and final movements, whose openings are variants of the first movement's opening. Moreover, the contrasting tonality becomes the main key of the second movement, thus increasing the harmonic tension in the middle of the sonata, while projecting the first movement's tonal design (home key – contrasting tonality – home key) on the sonata as a whole. In the first half of each sonata, the musical material in the contrasting tonality is presented in sharp conflict with the material in the home key – in each appearance boldly detached from its surroundings. However, in the third movements and especially in the finales, this contrasting tonal realm is gradually integrated into its environment, bringing a sense of unity and resolution to the tonal conflict which was presented at the beginning of the sonata. Fisk goes further to interpret the dramatic musical scheme manifested in the tonal design of the sonatas, as the basis of a unique psychological narrative (see below).