Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

Summary

The introduction outlines the musicological context for the book’s engagement with Schubert’s string quartets. It offers a fresh perspective on the issues surrounding the early reception of Schubert’s instrumental music and considers the lingering tendencies of that history in more recent scholarship. It situates Schubert in relation to Carl Dahlhaus’ concept of the Stildualismus of the nineteenth century, and problematises the frequent setting of Schubert and Beethoven as opposites, exposing the disciplinary remnants of Beethoven’s centrality to the formalisation of music theory in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.It also lays the foundation for considering the lyric as a category of form, which the later chapters develop, and defines the concept of ’lyric teleology’ which is foundational to the book’s analytical case studies. Finally, the introduction explains and rationalises the book’s specific areas of focus (string-quartet first movements) and situates the book within existing and emerging debates surrounding nineteenth-century musical form and Schubert’s place within them.