This book has special significance, in being Martin Chusid’s last such offering on Schubert before its author’s death in 2014. It sets the seal gracefully and impressively on his long and distinguished record as a Schubert scholar. Like, I’m sure, many others embarking on Schubert studies in the last few decades of the twentieth century, I quickly became conscious of Chusid’s commanding presence in the field, beginning with his influential article on Schubert’s unifying processes in the instrumental works.Footnote ¹ His work on Schubert’s chamber music, starting with his dissertation at Berkeley in 1961,Footnote ² left a lasting legacy of fine scholarship, most notably in the volumes he edited for the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe [NSA].Footnote ³ Other highlights included his contribution on the chamber music to the Cambridge Companion to Schubert,Footnote ⁴ his edition of the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony in the Norton Critical Scores series,Footnote ⁵ and his work on Schubert’s Schwanengesang.Footnote ⁶ He was generous with his encouragement to other scholars. I personally will cherish the memory of meeting him for the first time at the conference on Schubert’s late style,Footnote ⁷ which he attended together with his wife: it was a pleasure to see their evident enjoyment of that event.

The subject of Schubert’s dances has been somewhat neglected, as Chusid observed in January 2012, beginning his book with the declaration that ‘although Schubert composed approximately 500 individual dances, and over 200 of them were published during the course of his lifetime, they have occasioned surprisingly little serious study’ (p. vii). The resources to which he had recourse in preparing his own study of the subject included, principally, Peter Clive’s Schubert and his World: A Biographical Dictionary,Footnote ⁸ O.E. Deutsch’s two great Schubert compilations, the memoirs by his friends and the documentary biography, as well as the Bärenreiter edition of the Deutsch thematic catalogue,Footnote ⁹ and Walburga Litschauer and Walter Deutsch’s Schubert und das Tanzvergnügen.Footnote ¹⁰ Litschauer provided the highly informative introductory chapter to the present volume (‘Dance Culture in the Biedermeier Era’, pp. xi–xxxiv), sketching the social, cultural and political context of dancing in the Vienna of Schubert’s time. Those readers for whom Chusid’s detailed musical commentary may not be entirely apposite may well find this section of the book the most accessible. The ‘Glossary of Terms Used in This Volume’ provided among the end-matter (pp. 243–6), including such basic concepts as ‘binary form’, ‘cadence’, ‘dissonance’ and ‘dominant’, seems to envision a readership that includes the non-musically trained.

However, some musical literacy was clearly also envisaged. In his preface Chusid suggested that ‘in order to follow the discussions of the music the reader should have access to one or more … editions’ (p. viii), recommending particularly the NSA, ed. Litschauer, and the Henle edition by Paul Mies. This requirement, which not all readers may be able to meet, is perhaps one explanation for the paucity of music examples: the few that are included don’t seem to appear in a list anywhere. The main part of the book consists of Chusid’s commentary on the contents of Schubert’s dance sets, arranged in seven chapters according to genre, publication status and chronology. Among the book’s slightly distracting features is the discrepancy between some of the chapter titles as listed in the contents, and how they appear subsequently as chapter headings within the volume.Footnote ¹¹ Among the advantages of the chapter arrangement is the clear focus on the music, discussed in what may be an unprecedented amount of detail, and constituting a rich source of material on individual dances and collections of dances under the relevant sub-headings, together with information on genres and sources.

Two substantial chapters treat ‘Dances of the Waltz Family’: others cover such categories as the minuets, polonaises, and dances for piano duet. These last (Chapter VI) belong among Schubert’s music connected with the Esterházy family at their summer residence in Zseliz. In his preface Chusid reminded us (p. vii) that ‘Schubert, who was described by friends as clumsy, never danced’, and that he played predominantly in private homes; and also that some of his dances were composed ‘for players, rather than dancers’ (for example, minuets for his family); the first of his two sets of polonaises for piano duet, D. 599 of 1818 were intended for performance by his pupils Karoline and Marie Esterházy at Zseliz.

It might be hoped that – not least under the influence of this book and Chusid’s advocacy – Schubert’s waltzes and other dances, so highly popular with his contemporaries, could feature more regularly in the performance culture of our own time. At the very least, this music has great potential for encores: Chusid observes that the Trio in E (D. 610) of 1818, ‘to the old-fashioned minuet’ inscribed ‘by Franz Schubert for his beloved brother’, which Chusid considers was most probably intended for Ferdinand, reveals a ‘skilled, gifted and maturing composer’ and would make ‘a delightful recital encore’ (pp. 27–8). It should not be thought, however, that Chusid’s study is merely a mine of useful programme-note material, though that certainly is one of its potential functions. It represents a demonstration of methods for analysing this repertoire, showing how it is possible to pay serious attention to works whose role was originally linked with ephemeral entertainment and social enjoyment. Chusid’s approach could well serve as models for comparable initiatives in other areas of repertoire. (Leopold Mozart’s words of encouragement to the young Wolfgang Amadeus not to ignore the lighter genres: ‘What is slight can still be great’, come to mind here.)Footnote ¹²

Nor should it be thought that the provision of large amounts of statistical information concerning the dances betokens a mere assembling of data: besides such basic elements as keys and section-lengths, these include some more arcane calculations, for instance the ‘chromatic average’, a concept introduced by Chusid for comparative purposes.Footnote ¹³ In the extensive prose commentary that complements these statistical compilations, Chusid’s knowledge of Schubert’s dances and the culture surrounding them enabled him to assess features of dance-type, form, phrase-structure, treatment of key, and texture in particularly meaningful fashion, identifying trends and perceiving the qualities of those pieces that offer unique examples of their particular kind in various respects.

The commentary is enriched by numerous strands of thought: evident among these is the ability Chusid developed for tracing connections between individual items, relating them both to their immediate surroundings and more broadly to others across the dance repertoire, and indeed further afield to examples from other genres cultivated by Schubert. He was able to draw direct parallels between the dances and the Lieder, as in the following observations on the last of the 12 Deutsche (Ländler), D. 790 of 1823:

Also enriching is Chusid’s provision of contextual insights, related to topical content, that are inflected by his close acquaintance with Schubert’s entire dance output, as when he observes of Op. 50 no. 29 (D. 779), the waltz in E-flat major: ‘The last of six pieces in E flat in Op. 50, No. 29, is one of two Schubert dances in Op. 50 that suggest an instrument popular in the Alpine region, the zither … this instrument lends itself more to harmony than to melody or rhythm; and Schubert’s dances influenced by the zither tend to avoid an obvious soprano melody and distinctive, dance-like rhythmic features’ (p. 138).

For Chusid, Schubert’s choice and treatment of keys in his dances was of particular importance. Thus he drew attention to Schubert’s dances in ‘mixed keys’, which he characterized as tending to be ‘among his most interesting’ (p. 139); he also explored the significance to Schubert of particular keys, as with G major, seen in its traditional topical associations as a pastoral key, in ‘some fifty songs in G by Schubert’ (p. 141), and considered together with its comparable treatment in tandem with the ‘Alpine’ character found in several of Schubert’s dances in G major, such as Op. 67, nos 5, 8 and 14. Following up the Alpine imagery, Chusid noted specifically that the ‘passages in thirds and sixths’ in Op. 67 nos 2, 7, 13 and 15 may be seen as ‘recalling the improvised accompaniments to melodies by musical, if untrained, Alpine singers or musicians’ (p. 141). And he referred to the ‘yodel-like leap’ in the anacrusis to Op. 67 no. 2, the Ländler in D major, an idea that ‘recurs repeatedly’ in this piece (p. 143).

Apropos their popular status in the hierarchy of genres we might note that Schubert’s Op. 67, 16 Ländler and 2 Ecossaises, was published by Diabelli as Wiener Damen-Ländler (i.e. for ladies), while the two volumes of waltzes, Op. 50 were published, also by Diabelli, under the title 34 valses sentimentales (1825). The discussion in Chapter VII on the posthumously published dances includes the observation that rather as Schubert’s last songs were compiled posthumously by Tobias Haslinger under the title Schwanengesang, so Diabelli compiled the posthumous collection of 20 waltzes Op. 127 (D. 146), with trios to 11 of them, and ‘for commercial reasons’ quite incorrectly in this case claimed these as Schubert’s ‘last waltzes’ (p. 179). Chusid explores more generally the various publishers’ possible roles in deciding the interior arrangement as well as the titles of the dance collections. He follows Margaret Notley’s cue (in her chapter on ‘Schubert’s Social Music’ for the Cambridge Companion)Footnote ¹⁴ to consider dance opuses as rounded works; Chusid wondered how far the design of Schubert’s ‘tonally rounded’ sets was influenced by the publishers and whether they in fact rearranged them thus (p. 184).

Finally, following the main series of chapters focusing on the essentially ephemeral genre of dance music, its longer-term resonance over time is evoked, with an Epilogue considering ‘Schumann, Liszt and Brahms on Schubert and His Dances’ (pp. 231–42). And deftly bringing the line of influence nearer to the present time, Chusid closed with an inspired choice of quotation from Peter Gammond: ‘Stravinsky … a lover of miniatures, played [Schubert’s dances] endlessly and admired their grace and ingenuity’ (p. 242).Footnote ¹⁵

In terms of design and house style, other ways of presenting the material of the book might have been worth considering. Perhaps there’s a fashion for the increased use of capitals, but to my eyes the capitalization of numerous ‘small words’ here is a recurrent distraction. Chusid’s helpful and revealing analytical diagrams are left unnumbered (captioned as to their contents but without the customary ‘Figure 1’etc.); nor is there in the preliminary pages a list of these for reference, which might have suggested itself as a useful feature had they been numbered. The three components making up the ‘indices’ at the back (pp. 258–62) are indexes of names, ‘Vocal Music’ and ‘Instrumental Music Other Than Dances’. The ‘List of Schubert’s Dances’ also contained in the end-matter gives their titles and dates. But nowhere among these lists as far as I can see are page numbers given referring to the discussion in the chapters of the various published opuses and other sets of dances by Schubert.

Scholarship of this quality deserved equivalent finesse from the publishers. It should not have been allowed to appear with a ‘Bibiliography’ [sic] featuring ‘The New Groves Dictionary’ (p. 252). These and other such infelicities seem to suggest the need for greater control over copy-editing and proof-reading. Is it impossible to hope that a revised edition might follow? If it did, ideally perhaps the layout might be reconsidered also, in some of the respects I’ve mentioned here. Nevertheless, these problems don’t prevent Chusid’s love of his subject and the depth of his knowledge from showing throughout the volume. His ‘swansong’ will surely long remain the authoritative source to consult for information and inspiration on the many fascinating aspects of Schubert’s dances.