*snort*
In 1798, when Beethoven was 27, Schubert was 1 and still in diapers.
That year Lou published his Piano Sonata in C minor, Op. 13, which established him as “Beethoven!” This is the famous “Pathetique Sonata” that every young pianist has to learn to get a serious taste of Beethoven beyond “Für Elise” and the Minuet in G, which were juvenile pieces that Beethoven refused to publish in his lifetime.
Frannie Schubert tackled this piece in his teenage years along with Beethoven’s Second Symphony which he played in the second violin section in the student orchestra at the Vienna Choir Boys School. These were his first exposures to Beethoven.
Frannie’s teacher was Tony Salieri, who was the headmaster at the school. Only a select few were allowed to study music with old Tony, and as the priest said who gave Schubert his musical entrance exam, “This one learned it from God.” Even though Tony was one of Beethoven’s teachers a decade earlier, it was Tony’s considered opinion that everything Beethoven had written after the Second Symphony was grotesque and a waste of music paper. He transmitted that sense to Schubert, and it wasn’t until Tony died in 1825 that Frannie could study Beethoven without feeling guilty about it. It took Frannie no time at all to realize that his old teacher couldn’t have been more wrong. Schubert’s output made a quantum leap in the next three years once he immersed himself in Beethoven’s output.
In 1828, Frannie was 31, and Beethoven had been dead for a year. Because Schubert had occupied the rotating presidency of the Music Guild in Vienna, he had been responsible for arranging the Guild’s participation in Lou’s funeral. This was to be the last year of his life, as a mixture of secondary syphilis and typhoid would finish him off by the year’s end. This was the year of the last four piano sonatas which are a monument to the repertory.
Beethoven’s first movement is in sonata format. There is a slow introduction, then an exposition in C minor with the second subject in E-flat. The exposition is repeated. Development begins by bringing back the introductory material, and it runs through the keys until he recaps in C minor for both subjects. He brings back the introductory material before wrapping it up with a quick coda.
Beethoven: Piano Sonata in C minor, Op. 13, first movement
Thirty years later, Schubert wanted to top Beethoven to make sure everyone understood that he had inherited Beethoven’s mantle as the next Great Composer in town. For example, Beethoven’s Septet for mixed winds and strings had a movement with five variations on an original theme. Schubert wrote an Octet with a theme-and-variation movement that had seven variations.
Not only did Schubert decide to write his own sonata in the Beethovenian key of C minor, he actually took Lou’s thematic material from his Opus 13 and ran with it in a totally different direction. Where Lou’s sonata had three movements, Frannie’s had four.
The first movement starts with the chord pattern and harmonic underlay of Lou’s opening movement, but Frannie doesn’t write an introduction. He just jumps right in. This performance skips the repeat the exposition and jumps right into the development. Watch the crossovers in the hands, something Beethoven didn’t use in his sonata, but which becomes a major feature of Schubert’s. At the recap, Frannie re-composes his first subject, which is something Lou didn’t do. The second subject recaps in C Major. The coda is based on the development material, but Frannie winds it down with a quiet and sullen ending, not at all like Beethoven’s fortissimo ending.