Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
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Once in a while we enjoy the arrival of a genuine milestone in classical music publishing. Bärenreiter’s stunning 2019 release of Jonathan Del Mar’s new edition of the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas was such and occasion, and I reviewed that publication here.
Though not introduced with so loud a fanfare, Bärenreiter have also recently completed their new three-volume survey of the complete Schubert Piano Sonatas, a project several years in the making.
Edited by Walburga Litschauer and based on the urtext of the New Schubert-Edition, this set of publications breaks new ground in scholarship while also offering unrivalled performing editions of this seminal, if still too little-known, cycle of masterpieces…
The Bärenreiter Editions
Before turning to the content of each volume, it’s worth considering the distinguishing features that characterise all three.
With soft covers that benefit from Bärenreiter’s luxury aesthetic, cream paper within and malleable (but lifetime-durable) binding, each volume opens perfectly flat on the music stand and is an immediate joy.
The notation is superbly engraved and generously spaced. Bärenreiter pride themselves on offering the cleanest working urtext scores, and to that end no editorial fingering is included. They have however gone to commendable lengths to ensure that page turns as as practically placed as possible.
Each volume begins with a substantial (and indispensible) Preface in which the editor considers each of the included Sonatas in some detail.
This is followed by a seven-page essay on Performance Practice, encompassing such important topics as touch, legato, pedalling, staccato, portato, accents and dynamics, embellishments, triplets and dotted rhythms. Written by leading authority Mario Aschauer, this makes for essential reading. Both preface and essay appear in both German and English.
Completing each volume, the Critical Commentary is as detailed as one would expect from this publisher.
It is half a century since the publication of the Henle urtext edition which I have previously used as my benchmark reference and performance score; Schubert scholarship has inevitably come a long way. With this new edition, Bärenreiter have certainly and importantly raised the bar.
Volume One
Piano Sonatas I comprises Schubert’s earliest Sonatas, composed between 1815-17.
Schubert was a youthful adventurer in these works, exploring Sonata Form, innovative key changes, and experimenting with the form. Many of his Sonatas from this time are incomplete, but the following works are presented here:
- Sonata in E major, D 157
- Sonata in C major, D 279
- Sonata in E major, D 459
- Sonata in A minor, D 537
- Sonata in A flat major, D 557
- Sonata in E minor, D 566
- Sonata in D flat major, D 568
- Sonata in B major, D 575
Of these, the A minor D 537 is undoubtedly the best known today, the dramatic poise of its first movement a popular favourite (including as a recent set piece at Grade 8).
The D flat major Sonata D 568 is better known in its revised key of E flat major; indeed, many will be unaware that the original was written a tone lower. Bärenreiter include both versions here in full, making for an interesting side-by-side comparison.
Other Sonatas in this first volume are likely to be unknown but to confirmed aficionados of Schubert’s keyboard output. They certainly deserve to be more widely played however, and are in most cases approachable in their entirety for early advanced pianists at around UK Grades 7-8.
Understandably, these early works are the most difficult for an editor to present, the composer’s original manuscript being the main or only source. I like Bärenreiter’s solution of providing a 64-page download supplement including the various fragments and drafts associated with these works.
Volume Two
With Piano Sonatas II, we arrive at the more mature classics, or as described here, The Middle Sonatas. These were written between 1818 and 1825, from which time there are four completed and five unfinished works.
The Bärenreiter volume includes five of these sonatas (the remaining unfinished works again available as a supplement for download):
- Sonata in A major, D 664 (Op. posth. 120)
- Sonata in A minor, D 784. (Op. posth. 143)
- Sonata in C major, D 840 (“Reliquie”)
- Sonata in A minor, D 845, Op.42
- Sonata in D major, D 850, Op.53
Here we certainly arrive in more frequently charted territory, all of these pieces regularly performed today. The A major Sonata D 664 is a particular favourite of mine: surely one of Schubert’s most gorgeous and sunny works, and one that I have performed and taught numerous times.
In terms of Schubert’s career and mastery of the form however, the more significant breakthroughs came with the unfinished Sonata in C major D 840, the Sonata in A minor D 845 (appearing in 1826 with the title “Première Grande Sonate” and the first of Schubert’s sonatas to be published), and the Sonata in D major D 850.
Bärenreiter’s substantial supplement to accompany this book includes the sketches and drafts for the Sonatas D 613, D 625, D 505, D 655, and D 769.
The download also includes the third and fourth movements of the Reliquie Sonata in C major, D 840, not present in the main publication. Some will know these movements from the Henle Urtext edition, which includes them as part of the main text. I think a good case can be made for this; providing them via supplementary download is certainly the next best thing.
Volume Three
And so we arrive at Piano Sonatas III, a volume which delivers The Late Sonatas, four of the greatest masterpieces of the whole repertoire:
- Sonata in G major, D 894
- Sonata in C minor, D 958
- Sonata in A major, D 959
- Sonata in B flat major, D 960
The “Fantasy Sonata” in G major dates from October 1826, and was published just six months later in 1827 by the Viennese publisher Tobias Haslinger. An initial reviewer at the time noted that,
“The beloved and talented Lieder composer has presented the music world with a Fantasy in which he lets his inventiveness loose. He presents the pianist with a harmonic indulgence without however amassing too many difficulties to complicate the execution.”
It’s clear from the tempo descriptions of the four movements that this is a relaxed and reflective piece. The serene and spacious opening of the first movement, Molto moderato e cantabile is contrasted, however, by a more playful second subject, and the Development section includes that sense of drama so characteristic of Schubert’s mature sonata movements.
The gorgeous slow movement is an Andante in 3/8 time, brimming with optimism and replete with the expressive Romantic harmonies of Schubert’s late work. Schubert’s original beginning and ending vary considerably to the final autograph, and Bärenreiter have taken the step of providing these early sketches within this volume’s supplemental download.
The Menuett is a far cry from the courtly elegance of Haydn and Mozart; here there is drama aplenty, and though the movement retains the basic rhythm of the dance, the mood is far more stormy than might be expected. The wistful Trio meanwhile beautifully contrasts the outbursts of the Menuett.
The sunny Finale, Allegretto, is a Rondo with two episodes, a lengthy movement which takes its time to fully unfurl, but in doing so builds on the unassuming opening theme with gusto and imagination, before giving way to a short ‘un poco piú lento’ Coda, which marvellously mirrors the serenity of the Sonata’s opening bars.
There is a unity of mood and purpose underlying this enormous Fantasy Sonata, which perhaps informed Schumann’s view that this is Schubert’s ‘most perfect Sonata in form and spirit‘.
Schubert’s last three Sonatas D 958-60 were conceived as a triptych paying homage to the three last sonatas of Beethoven, in whose shadow Schubert had grown up, and who had died just the previous year.
Written on the broadest of musical canvasses, the Sonatas are replete with Schubert’s unique lyricism, but mixed with significant dramatic import in the first two, sweet resignation in the poignant B flat major Sonata.
As the great 20th century pianist Wilhelm Kempff so poetically put it in an essay from 1970,
“These works prove that he had conquered sonata form, and even more, that he had filled it with his innermost being, his living breath, like a tree sending sap into even its furthest shoots.”
Most likely the last instrumental music Schubert composed, the Sonatas remained unpublished at his death, and were only eventually published in 1839 by Diabelli of Vienna, and dedicated by the publisher to Robert Schumann, following that composer’s visit to the city earlier in 1839.
From the tenderly brooding Fantasy Sonata to the terrifying darkness at the heart of the A major Sonata, and from the Beethovenian angst of the C minor Sonata to the resignation of the final B flat major, Schubert’s Late Sonatas are unquestionably not only the pinnacle of his own piano writing, but present one of the most spectacular mountain-top vistas in Western music.
Closing Thoughts
Serious performers and scholars will rightly look for the very best text when studying any work, or preparing to perform it. And when it comes to the Piano Sonatas of Schubert, the new Bärenreiter set seems to assuredly take the crown.
Though perhaps not as suited to the recital hall as those of Beethoven, Schubert’s Piano Sonatas offer an astonishing musical escape, described eloquently by Wilhelm Kempff (whose recordings of this repertoire are surely among the best) as follows:
“Most of his Sonatas ought not to be subjected to the glaring lights of the huge concert halls. They are confessions of an extremely vulnerable spirit, or more correctly monologues, often whispered so softly that the sound does not carry in a large hall. Schubert reveals his innermost secrets to us in pianissimo.”
Wilhelm Kempff, 1970
Bärenreiter’s landmark new editions of these Sonatas bring unparalleled clarity to those secrets. I can’t imagine any Schubert-lover wanting to be without them.
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