storehouse of beauty, but the “high moments” are in the last two
movements—the fairly intoxicating Trio of the Scherzo, which
seems as if Nature herself were singing to us, and the gorgeous
Finale with its throbbing rhythms. The first movement is laid
out on a vast scale and holds the attention throughout, but the
second movement, notwithstanding its wondrous theme, suffers
from a lack of concentration; the sweetness is so long-drawn out
that we become sated.
[Footnote 177: Schubert was of incredible versatility and fecun-
dity; he literally tried his hand at everything: operas, church-
music, ensemble combinations. Since, however, he exercised lit-
tle power of selection or revision much of this music has become
obsolete. The joke is well-known that he could set a theatre
notice to music, and his rule for composing was “When I have
finished one song I begin another.”]
[Footnote 178: For an original, though at times rhapsodic, study
of Schubert’s vocal style see H.T. Finck’sSongs and Song Writ-
ers, and the last chapter of the Fifth Volume of the Oxford
History.]
[Footnote 179: Schubert did compose a number of Pianoforte
Sonatas in the conventional form, but with the exception of the
one in A minor they seem diffuse and do not represent him at his
best; they certainly have not held their own in modern appeal.]
[Footnote 180: For the account of its exciting discovery in Vi-
enna by Schumann in 1838, after a neglect of ten years, see the
life of Schubert in Grove’s Dictionary.]
As examples[181] for analytical comment we select the Menuetto
in B minor from the Fantasia for Pianoforte, op. 78; the fourth
Impromptu in A-flat major from the set, op. 90, and the B
minor Symphony for orchestra. The Menuetto, though one of
Schubert’s simpler pieces—the first part in an idealized Mozartian
vein—yet exemplifies in the Trio one of the composer’s most
characteristic traits, the predilection for those bewitching alter-
nations,[182] like sunlight and shadow, between the major and
the minor mode.
[Footnote 181: For lack of space no one of these compositions is
cited in the Supplement, but they are all readily available.]
[Footnote 182: This tendency is prevalent in folk-music, espe-
cially that of the Russians and Scandinavians. Schubert, how-