No lamentation, no dread, but, as in a painting by Friedrich, calm contemplation of nothingness. Which other composer has shown himself capable of thus approaching the void? And of returning thence? For the scherzo (Allegro vivace con delicatezza) does indeed bring us back into the world: where there is creativity, there is still life. Here once again are grace and humanity. The hour will doubtless come quickly, but it has not yet struck. These returns to life are beautiful, but they are exhausting. And, above all, they make thinner than ever the wall that separates one world from the other. Nothing could be more innocent, almost indifferent, than the theme of the final Allegro ma non troppo. But from its unforeseen depths Schubert conjures up once more the most implacable of visions. The utterance of these sonatas, like that of Cassandra, took time to make itself heard: published in 1839, more than ten years after Schubert’s death, they were curiously and opportunely dedicated to the young Robert Schumann. Ignored by the Nineteenth Century, they slowly conquered in the Twentieth, that century of cataclysms, the place which is theirs today.