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 work so dominated the critical mind as the epitome of German manhood that critical response to Schubert's work was labeled feminine. If Beethoven's directness, violence, and ferocity in his music was male, surely Schubert's flexibility and lack of tonal anchoring, engendering sympathy and attraction, were female. At least, this was the way critics of the period viewed the difference.
Ms. McClary weaves the comments of musical critics stressing how they thoug...