Sonata Form in Schubert: The First Movement of the G-Major String Quartet, op. 161 (D. 887)

Abstract

The first movement of the G-Major String Quartet, composed in 1826 and published posthumously in 1851 as op. 161, may be regarded as epic or novelistic—in the sense used by Theodor W. Adorno in his book on Mahler—despite the numerous tremolos that characterize almost half the movement, and whose agitation hardly seems suited to the idea of epic composure. The affinity for double variation, essential to the form of the G-Major Quartet, can be traced back to the early history of sonata form and continues to play a role in its later development. In a literal sense it is inadequate—or at least misleading—to speak of a “theme” being varied in the principal group of the exposition of the G-Major Quartet. The bass of the principal idea, the falling chromatic fourth, appears in the G-Major Quartet harmonized as G–D 6 –F–C 6 –E♭–G, which the tradition of the passus duriusculus , as it was called in the seventeenth century.

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