Beyond Homage and Critique? Schubert’s Sonata in C minor, D. 958, and Beethoven’s Thirty-Two Variations in C minor, WoO 80

Abstract

When Schubert’s instrumental pieces seem to directly quote or allude to Beethoven’s works, some music scholars have interpreted these forms of appropriation either as musical homage or as evidence that Schubert modeled several of his works on Beethoven’s. Other scholars have encouraged us to rethink these perspectives, suggesting instead that the same forms of appropriation can be read as active responses or antipodes to Beethoven’s music. This paper reconsiders the topic of influence in Schubert’s music from a post-structuralist position, drawing from Jacques Derrida’s writings on grafting—the act of placing separate texts side by side to produce a new structure. Using the first movement from Schubert’s Sonata in C minor, D. 958, and Beethoven’s Thirty-Two Variations in C minor, WoO 80 as examples, my paper seeks to rethink the categories of homage and critique by considering the following two ideas: (1) if “[t]o write means to graft” (Derrida [1972] 1982, 355), each composition contains a heterogeneity of texts, challenging the possibility of an original text; (2) matters concerning appropriation do not lie solely within either musical text, but rather between them, inviting us to reconsider how constructions of history and criteria for originality can affect our understanding of appropriation and our music-analytical readings of Schubert’s works.

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