Franz Schubert spent a good part of spring 1817 and most of the following summer composing piano sonatas. The first of these 1817 sonatas, the Piano Sonata in A minor, D. 537, written during March and published some 35 years later as Opus 164, is also in fact the first work of its kind that Schubert managed to finish; each of the previous three piano sonatas is incomplete or fragmentary. Schubert had just turned 19 when he wrote the piece, and already he had achieved things previously unimagined in the world of German song; but success as a composer of instrumental music would elude him for some time to come. D. 537 reveals both those facets of genius that would enable him to eventually make his own mark on concert music, and those obstacles that, as a young composer, he at times found insurmountable.

Schubert's two earliest surviving piano sonatas each lacks a finale; in D. 537 Schubert does provide a finale, but it is somewhat unsure of its footing, and in retrospect it seems reasonable to ascribe the unfinished status of the first two sonatas to the fact that Schubert had not yet come to grips with the material needed to bring a piano sonata to a satisfying close. The first movement, on the other hand, follows the track of progress that we already note between the opening movements of the Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2—the First Sonata opens with a movement of quite uncertain achievement, while the Second, written about a half-year after the First, shows marked improvement.

This Fourth Sonata dates from a year-and-a-half later, and the improvement is understandably even more pronounced. Banished from this Allegro ma non troppo are the imitations of Mozart and early Beethoven that fill much those two pieces' opening movements, and in their place is a rich lyric vein all Schubert's own. The swaying opening theme, one of the gentlest "fortes" anywhere, and the swirling, buttermilk second subject are both especially pleasing. Throughout the movement Schubert uses repetition—sometimes in long-unfolding sequences—to good effect, as when, before the development, a pulsating passage of slowly descending figures taken from the second theme winds its way down to triple-piano, only to burst forth with a sudden and passionate fortissimo. The recapitulation starts in D minor rather than A minor—something not at all uncommon in Schubert's music.

The Allegretto quasi Andantino in E major that follows is highly sectionalized, with many internal repeats marked; its principal melody has a certain Haydnesque quality to it.

The finale (Allegro vivace) is a kind of sonata-allegro movement without development. Schubert's use of so many grand pauses is bold, but at times a little disconcerting—it takes a wonderful pianist to pull them all off. A pair of plastic melodies have a delightful bounce to their steps, and are a wonderful change from the dry, uncouth scales that open the movement.

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