Debts and credits

Musical Times, Autumn 1999 by McKay, Elizabeth Norman

Firstly, in Hummel's slow movement, in the energico section which follows the sixteen-bar introductory passage of the Andantino sostenuto, the persistently overlapping melodic shape is short and consistent. Only the interval between the final two notes varies (exx.3 and 4). In each work, these patterns overlap in a similar manner (exx.5-8).

Between two statements of these overlapping rhythmic/trill passages, easily recognisable as similar in Hummel's and Schubert's duets, there are likewise similar double- and triple-dotted chordal passages (exx.9-12).

Finally, in contrasting lyrical sections in the centre of each of these movements both Hummel and Schubert accompany their melodies with repeated triplet patterns. In Hummel's sonata the repeated pattern is a triplet semiquaver (ex.13). In Schubert's fantasia it is a triplet quaver (ex. 14). But here the melodic lines, despite the initial rising arc-shape of each, are otherwise so different as effectively to nullify the similarity. Schubert's melody in this instance is far superior, more imaginative and lyrical. Remarkably, however, when he repeats this melody a sixth higher, he fills in the line with some elaborate ornamentation in a manner surely reminiscent of Hummel (ex.15).

In the course of this argument concerning the two piano duets, it can come as no surprise to find a great composer absorbing the music of an admired forebear or older colleague and then, consciously or unconsciously, formulating an idea or creation of his own from seeds sown in his mind by music of the other. Schubert's inspiration for the duet Fantasia has usually, if not always, been associated closely with his supposed devotion to, even infatuation with, the Countess Caroline Esterhazy (Had she and Schubert played Hummel's 'Grand' Sonata together, one may wonder?) The discovery in the Largo section of the Fantasia in F minor of echoes of the music of Hummel and of his undoubted influence on Schubert adds a new and perhaps significant dimension to an understanding of Schubert's music. He completed the duet Fantasia in April 1828, and only a few weeks later began sketches for his last three piano sonatas.9 Surely it was no coincidence that within a few months he was proposing to dedicate these sonatas to Hummel.

AS A POSTSCRIPT to this argument concerning the influence of Hummel's music on Schubert, the following is relevant. Of later great composers, Brahms was among those who were most inspired by Schubert's music. Thirty years after Schubert's death, in 1858, he found inspiration, whether consciously or unconsciously, for the opening theme of his First Piano Concerto, in D minor (bars 3-6) in the rhythmic/trill figuration pervading the largo section of the duet Fantasia in F minor (ex.16).After the solo pianist's first statement of this theme, a resolute echo of Schubert's motif after-Hummel, Brahms followed Schubert with similar imitative overlapping of the figuration (ex.17). Thus the process of absorption and reworking of ideas is perpetuated from generation to generation of composers.