The final instalment in a series of essays exploring my personal independent study of Schubert’s penultimate piano sonata. This essay first appeared in The Schubertian, the journal of the Schubert Institute UK. O thrice romantic master, wouldn’t you like to stroll under the cherry blossom with your love in the daytime and listen to Schubert […]
Startling contrasts The dark arpeggiated sonorities at the close of the Andantino are transformed into the sparkling arpeggiated chords which open the Scherzo, and a sense of levity is portrayed through staccato articulation and a lyrical dance-like figure, which is further developed in the second section. The Scherzo serves several purposes in the overall scheme […]
Several things have happened since I started this series of articles about my learning and study of Schubert’s penultimate piano sonata. The first is that after a long period of reflection and time away from the piano following my disappointing Fellowship diploma result, I started playing the sonata again – and with a very different […]
A personal journey through Schubert’s penultimate piano sonata
It was Schumann who coined the phrase “heavenly length”, specifically in relation to Schubert’s Great C major Symphony, D944, though this tag has now become synonymous with all of Schubert’s late music. How to approach a work of the scale of the Sonata in A, D959? In common with the other late sonatas (including the […]
A personal journey through Schubert’s penultimate piano sonata The journey continues….. My nature tends towards the intellectual when studying and learning music, and my approach to the Sonata in A D959 was no different. After an initial sight-read through the entire work to gain a sense of the overall structure and narrative arc of the […]
