Sonata in A major Op. posth.120, D.664 (Complete)(Schubert).

On one occasion, after he had given a performance of the variation slow movement from his big A minor sonata, D845, Schubert proudly reported to his parents: 'Several people assured me that under my hands the keys become singing voices, which, if it is true, pleases me very much, because I cannot abide the accursed hacking which is a characteristic even of first-class pianists, as it pleases neither the ear nor the spirit'. Schubert’s own cantabile style of playing would have stood him in good stead in this sonata whose genial, song-like nature has made it one of his most popular piano sonatas.
It was in all likelihood this work which Schubert’s civil-servant friend, Albert Stadler, remembered many years later as having been written in the summer of 1819, at about the same time as the Trout Quintet, for Josephine von Koller, the daughter of a wealthy iron merchant, during the composer’s first visit to the town of Steyr, in Upper Austria, in the company of the famous baritone Johann Michael Vogl: Schubert told his brother Ferdinand at the time:. ‘In the house where I am staying there are eight girls, almost all pretty. You can see we’re kept busy. The daughter of Herr v. Koller, at whose house I and Vogl eat every day, is going to sing several of my songs.’ Schubert considered Josephine to be "very pretty" and "a good pianist"
The sighing phrases of the slow movement’s theme carry with them a uniquely ambiguous emotional effect, one of both warmth and melancholy. Schubert anticipated the phrases of a song he would later write in January 1821, to a poem by his friend Caroline Pichler, Der Unglückliche, where they are associated with the comfort of death.
The lyrical, buoyant, and, in places, typically poignant nature of this sonata fits the image of a young Schubert in love, living in a summery Austrian countryside, which he also considered to be "unimaginably lovely".
The original manuscript to this "little" sonata has been lost.
Since most of Schubert's piano sonatas have four movements, this one has a playful, scherzo-like flavour, possibly serving in a double role of being a final movement and a scherzo at the same time.
The first movement’s main theme, although tailor-made for the keyboard, is another of those countless Schubert melodies that could be set to words. Cannily, however, the composer endowed the melody with a distinctive dotted-note figure that is highly developable, a sonata-allegro style.
The three movements are:
1. Allegro moderato (moderately fast) in common time, 4/4.
2. Andante (slow) in 3/4 time
3. Allegrois (fast) in 6/8 time
GlynGlynn, alias GB, realiser.
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