Music of Schubert

Susan McClary examines the second movement of Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony" with reference toward gender and constructions of subjectivity, and she poses the idea that during the early nineteenth century, concepts such as identity and masculinity were being newly defined, with art being one of the defining processes. In literature, the bildungsroman (or the novel of character development) were part of the "privileged genre," and through these novels, the middle class became educated as to the proper role of a civilized man. McClary finds that the sonata was the musical equivalent of the bildungsroman. The construction of the movements of the sonata shows the development of a theme that goes though many changes of identity and then resolves in the original key and theme. A sonata provided a model for experimentation that would resolve with "security and closure."

Beethoven's sonatas, especially the Eroica, used the theme as a force "hammering" through tender moments. This is classified as forceful music that seems heroic and powerful, denying the self, rallying strength as its theme triumphs in the coda. Ms. McClary states that this is the epitome of what has been defined as the virility of Beethoven's music. Beethoven's music was popular in his own time and became the model, the standard, by which other music was measured.

Schubert, on the other hand, was not a well-known composer in his own time. By the time his work became open to criticism, Beethoven's wor

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in the Grave. Such an introduction was optional, but Beethoven makes good use of it here. Such introductions are rare in Beethoven's sonatas, with only three of the 32 having introductions. His use of the slow introduction here becomes a dramatic statement that is recapitulated twice in the movement itself, which is also unusual. Beethoven uses the introduction to introduce a hint of drama and tragedy, and the recapitulations accomplish the same thing by hinting at that same sense of the dramatic at key points. The symphonic form is similar to the sonata in that it develops themes usually in four movements, developing them in a fuller and richer context. Beethoven and Schubert both wrote in the form, and here is another instance where critical opinion saw a gender difference between the two. Such an assessment is a value judgment depending on the criteria used to differentiate, and the distinction cited by McClary involves a degree of supposedly masculine assertiveness on Beethoven's part and a lack of assertiveness on Schubert's part, though again, the difference might not be so easily noted if it were not for the primacy of Beethoven at the time, making him the touchstone against which all else was measured. The mascul

Category: Arts - M