LDV15

18 SCHUBERT In the domain of the duet for piano four hands, there are three marvels. Listing them in order of appearance, the first is the Fantasy in F minor D940, written between January and March 1828. One is tempted to take the Allegro in A minor of May (stupidly entitled Lebensstürme , ‘Storms of life’, by the publisher Diabelli) for the first movement of a vast sonata that remained unfinished. Indeed, might not the Rondo in A major that followed in June have been the intended finale of this sonata? At any rate, it pleases us to think that the overflowing energy and rage of the Allegro D947 is answered by the tenderness and the poignant melancholy Schubert displays in the rondo, even if we will always lack a slowmovement and a scherzo to support our hypothesis . . . This frenetic work schedule, a challenge to his failing health,was certainly a reaction to the death of Beethoven in March 1827, which freed Schubert from the shadow of that overwhelming authority figure. The four works presented here multiply the signs of acknowledgment and indebtedness.