Piano Sonata No. 14

At a glance

• What it isthe third and final movement of a sonata for solo piano. It is in A minor and lasts about six minutes.
• Who, whenFranz Schubert wrote it in February 1823, when he was 26.
• What to listen fornotes racing along under a tempo marking that means "fast and lively," and moments where soft and loud sounds push against each other.

Listen for

• The openingthe dark colour of A minor is there from the very first sound. Follow where the quick notes run.
• Dynamicsthis simply means how loud or soft the music is. Listen for places where a whisper suddenly grows loud.
• Two handstry listening to what the right hand and the left hand are each doing. It is fun to tell apart the hand carrying the tune from the hand supporting it.
• The endinga movement that starts in a minor key has to finish somehow. Notice the mood and energy it lands on.

When it was written

A piano sonata usually has three or four movements, and the last one is often fast. This sonata has three, and this is the final one. The score is marked Allegro vivace, which asks the player to go fast and with life.

In the same year, 1823, Schubert also wrote The Fair Maid of the Mill, a song cycle on poems by Wilhelm Müller. A song cycle is a set of songs sung in a row so that together they tell one story. In the mid-1820s Schubert suffered a serious illness. You may find yourself thinking of that time as you listen, but what the music says is finally up to each listener.

The composer, Franz Schubert

Schubert was born in 1797 in a suburb of Vienna, the son of a schoolteacher. At eleven he joined the boys' choir of the court chapel and studied at its boarding school, and he took composition lessons from Salieri. His friends often gathered to hear his music together, and these evenings came to be called Schubertiades. He died in November 1828, at the age of 31.