Piano Sonata No. 14 in A Minor

The sense of despair that characterises Schubert’s Piano Sonata D. 784 (1823)—his last in three movements—reflects his anguished state of mind at the time. He had recently started receiving mercury treatment for syphilis, which was then an incurable disease and one that ultimately brought about his early demise. Tellingly, he worked on the sonata alongside Die Schöne Müllerin, a trailblazing song cycle that describes a young man suffering the pangs of unrequited love (a common theme in Schubert’s tragically short life) and, the music hints, his resulting suicide by drowning. The sonata opens ominously, the inconsolable main theme being supported by the remorseless sound of tolling bells in the left hand. Even when the music occasionally assumes a lighter mood, it feels strangely like smiling emerging through tears. The central Andante’s attempts to find contentment are continually thwarted by unsettling harmonic twists before the finale’s hurtling moto perpetuo triplets drive us closer and closer to the abyss.