ABSTRACT
If scholarship has long abandoned the old notion of Schubert the somnambulantly-inspired bumpkin, performing habits have made patchier progress in throwing off that moth-eaten old garment. A level of rhythmic architecture in this climactic passage still lies concealed. An essential part of the drama lies in the way in which that underlying balance quietly earths each surprise, giving it simple retrospective logic. The visibility of this highly geometric musical thinking matches its audible dramatic effect, progressively compressing the music's articulation before ending with a geometrically compensating expansion. Naturally our constant guide has to be musical sense, allied to source evidence. As we thus observe metre on more than one scale, new layers of rhythmic and formal organization can become apparent All in all, the damaging image of Schubert the rambling cafe tunesmith needs to be left far behind: 'heavenly length' can look after itself while we can look to the phenomenal energy coiled inside this music.
