Allegretto in C minor D 915 is a short piano piece written on 26 April 1827 by Franz Schubert (1797-1828). It is approximately 5 minutes in length.
The immediate occasion for the composition was the departure of SchubertâÂÂs friend Ferdinand Walcher for a post in Venice; Schubert copied the piece into WalcherâÂÂs album at the latterâÂÂs farewell party. Nevertheless, Blair Johnson points out that it is âÂÂtemptingâ to read into the piece the momentous event that had occurred in SchubertâÂÂs life only a month earlier: the death of Beethoven on March 26. Schubert had met his great predecessor only once, but Beethoven, in bed with his final illness, praised the Schubert lieder he had seen and raved about them to all his visitors, most likely thereby singlehandedly raising SchubertâÂÂs musical reputation in Vienna. Schubert had been one of the torchbearers at BeethovenâÂÂs funeral. Johnson continues, âÂÂit may well be that Beethoven was in SchubertâÂÂs thoughts when he sat down to pen the Allegretto in C minor D 915.â He goes on to suggest that even the key of C minor is significant, as this key was special to Beethoven. Suzanne Yanko echoes these sentiments: âÂÂThe influence of Beethoven was evident in this composition.âÂÂ
The piece has a simple A-B-A structure, in keys of C minor â A-flat major â C minor. Johnson call it a âÂÂperfectly balanced ternary pieceâ and continues: âÂÂthe 6/8 meter arpeggiation of the main theme is the sort of thing that Beethoven might indeed have spun.â David Truslove describes: âÂÂMomentum in the outer panels is twice interrupted by the arrival of two disquieting chords, while sighing gestures bring untroubled warmth to the movementâÂÂs chordal centerpiece in a glowing A flat major.â Johnson describes the middle section as âÂÂsounding something like a broken up choraleâÂÂ; he finds that this âÂÂrich pianissimoâ middle section seems to anticipate the music of Schumann and Brahms, both of whom thought highly of Schubert.