LDV15

20 SCHUBERT Andyetwemeethereagain,morekeenlyhonedthaneverbefore,thecharacteristics of Schubert’s own style: the rhythm used to create forward movement, two short / one long (the obsessive matrix of Lebensstürme ), and its more relaxed derivative one long / four short (the Allegro vivace of the Fantasy, the second themes of the Allegro and Allegretto of the sonata); repeated notes and chords that give vibrancy to the thematic motifs (the entire first-movement development of the Sonata D959; the treble in the F major episode of the Rondo D951; several sections of the Fantasy); abrupt modulations of a semitone – F minor - F sharp minor (Fantasy), A minor - A flat minor, B minor - B flat minor ( Lebensstürme ), B major - B flat major (at the end of the sonata’s Allegro); and abundant ländler rhythms (the development sections of the sonata’s Allegro and Scherzo, the countermelody of the second theme of Lebensstürme , several motifs in the Rondo D951). The Allegro of the Sonata D959, by turns brilliant, cheerful, passionate, and mischievous, holds an astonishingly hypnotic conclusion in store: a pianissimo reminder of the theme, as if coming from behind the horizon, mysterious arpeggios bathed in pedal, suspended amid silence and expectation. Schubert has prepared us here for a groping descent into the receptacle of the most naked grief, expressed, in the ensuing Andantino, by a forlorn and limping Wanderer. When, after only a page, there is already no more of his lament to be heard, there develops a monstrous excrescence, a wild alien that surpasses in instrumental violence anything Schubert had hitherto conceived. The brutality of several eight- note chords (so rare in his piano writing) denotes the end. The end of the world, the end of music. Though the hero may try to recover from this onslaught, all that is left is his gaze staring us in the face and his spirit that haunts us until the final entombment. Howcanwe believe, after this, in the illusion of the Scherzo, nothing but dances, poses and coquetries straight out of Viennese popular theatre?