The Secret Melody

For the tenth part in his series of complete sonatas and major piano works by Schubert, Mathieu Gaudet turns to a work of undisguised romanticism: the Sonata No. 4 in A minor (D. 537), composed in 1817. While the outer sections have a highly dramatic character, the central slow movement is characterized by a long and enchanting melody of almost fragile delicacy. He returned eleven years later, in 1828, to this melody and used it as the theme for the final movement of Sonata No. 19 in A major D. 959, his penultimate sonata. This Allegretto is perhaps the most 'Schubertian' of all: It is generous, gracious, full of hope despite heavy melancholy and always in motion. Schubert's return to the melody he had composed at the age of twenty testifies to his special love for it; it was his personal hymn, his secret melody.