Good evening, spel, and thank you for the Friday Night Edition of the Salsa Addiction Emergency Room! ((HUGS))
The early works of Franz Schubert sound a lot like Mozart or Haydn, but without the inspiration. Frannie lacked the sense of surprise that Mozart could deliver.
Like Mozart, Schubert would take a melody in a major key and then run it again in the minor key. Mozart by contrast would repeat the major key melody in the minor, but then he would take off in a completely different direction.
In his early days, Schubert had a tendency to write long lines and not know when to stop. He would use repetitions without them leading to anything significant, or he would repeat musical material that he loved until he beat it into the ground. Musical maturity came to Schubert when he learned to gracefully let go.
Most of what Schubert wrote were art songs, over 600 German poems that he set to music. As early at age 16, he wrote the occasional song that presaged his mature style. But it wasn’t until he was 23 that he began to write instrumental music that leaped ahead into the future. During this period he left behind an unfinished quartet, four unfinished symphonies, an unfinished sonata and a lot of song fragments. He was trying to get a firmer grasp on sonata form and the general shape of musical architecture.
This Quartet Movement in C minor is only the first movement of a quartet that he never finished. He is already thinking out of the box about key relationships: the first subject in C minor leads to a second subject in A-flat, not the expected E-flat. This leap into the unknown was followed by more pieces in his juvenile style. It took a whie before he could get a grasp of his mature style, and he had to undergo a trial by medicine (syphilis) and the death of his mentor (Salieri) before he could make further progress.
This opening sounds like a hive of bees that has been disturbed, something very different for Schubert, who prefers to charm people into following his musical thoughts. This performance repeats the exposition. Note that in the recapitulation, the second subject appears in E-flat instead. Finally it resolves in C Major. The C minor ending is reminiscent of Beethoven.
No prob, Ma! ;-)