Book contents
- Schubert’s Piano
- Schubert’s Piano
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations and Conventions
- Introduction
- Part I The Piano in Schubert’s World
- Part II Instruments and Performance
- Part III Sound and Musical Imagery
- Part IV Understanding Schubert’s Writing for the Piano
- 12 Schubert and the Style Brillant: Variation and Figuration in Schubert’s Concertante Chamber Music with Piano
- 13 Rethinking Development and Variation in Schubert’s Last Piano Sonatas: What Do the Drafts and Final Versions Reveal?
- 14 Reflections and Echoes in Schubert’s Waltzes
- 15 ‘Schubert Would Have No Objection if He Knew about It’: Franz Liszt’s Reception of Schubert’s Music
- Select Bibliography
- Index
14 - Reflections and Echoes in Schubert’s Waltzes
from Part IV - Understanding Schubert’s Writing for the Piano
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 August 2024
- Schubert’s Piano
- Schubert’s Piano
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations and Conventions
- Introduction
- Part I The Piano in Schubert’s World
- Part II Instruments and Performance
- Part III Sound and Musical Imagery
- Part IV Understanding Schubert’s Writing for the Piano
- 12 Schubert and the Style Brillant: Variation and Figuration in Schubert’s Concertante Chamber Music with Piano
- 13 Rethinking Development and Variation in Schubert’s Last Piano Sonatas: What Do the Drafts and Final Versions Reveal?
- 14 Reflections and Echoes in Schubert’s Waltzes
- 15 ‘Schubert Would Have No Objection if He Knew about It’: Franz Liszt’s Reception of Schubert’s Music
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Franz Schubert’s waltzes may seem small, but they bear more than meets the eye. Leopold von Sonnleithner tells us that Schubert ‘never danced, but was always ready to sit down at the piano, where for hours he improvised the most beautiful waltzes; those he liked he repeated, in order to remember them and to write them out afterwards’. The composer appears to have been inspired by the motion and joy he saw and caused, for certain waltzes communicate physical momentum and personalised interiority – reflections and echoes from the past.The effects expressed within Schubert’s waltzes arise from expectations elicited by their voice-leading, coupled with changes in texture, register, dynamics, metre and rhythm. This chapter will explore representative examples from Schubert’s Originaltänze, Valses sentimentales, Valses nobles, and the Zwanzig Walzer (Letzte Walzer) to demonstrate how they convey impressions of physicality and flow, perceptions of distance and disturbance, plus aspects of sonority and spatiality. In turn, these reflections and echoes offer insights regarding Schubert’s art and aesthetics, as well as the past they inhabited.
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- Schubert's Piano , pp. 283 - 300Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024