Here’s what a music reviewer wrote about this late piano piece by Schubert:
I find it hard to account for the intensity of the spiritual response that the slow movements of late Beethoven and late Schubert produce in me… the slow movement of D960, one of the last creations of a desperately ill 31-year-old-man who has lost his Catholic faith, is frightened out of his wits by the ordeal that lies ahead, and yet produces music of the most magical serenity.
Piano sonata #21 D960/ second movement
And this second piece with its ‘inherent weirdness.’ It fascinates me how accu
rate, poetic and articulate some music critics can be!
In the great Andantino movement of the A major, the pianist is alive to its inherent weirdness as Schubert sends a nostalgically beautiful melody off the deep end to fragmentation, then reassembles it into a broken shadow of itself.
Piano sonata #20 in A major second movement
Schubert PS 20 second movement