Franz Schubert

Who knows what Schubert really believed in? Was it God? He certainly wrote enough music for the Austrian Catholic church but, compared with his songs and piano pieces, his church music often sounds perfunctory. Was it love? He certainly wrote enough love songs, but, considering that Schubert died of syphilis, one rather doubts that Schubert's ideal of love was untainted by less sanguine notions. Was it music? Yes, it was probably music: in all Schubert's most hymn-like works, the essential core of his belief seems to lie in the healing power of music.

Certainly, Schubert's hymn-like Allegretto Impromptu, Op. 142, No. 2 (D. 935/1), sings not of faith in God or love but of faith in the consolation of music. This simple-sounding Impromptu in A flat major starts with a theme of deep contentment with a moment of heartbreaking beauty on a chord of the flat supertonic, fortissimo, which slips quietly back to the tonic major pianissimo. It is as quintessentially a Schubert moment as it is a quintessentially musical moment. The central D flat major's trio's gently flowing melody in the left hand under undulating triplets in the right sings of the contentment and serenity beyond those found in God or love, of the peace and calm that Schubert found in his music.