Piano Sonata No. 20 in A major, D. 959

Completed in September 1828, the second of Schubert's last three sonatas; he died two months later. The second movement is the work's centre — a numbed barcarolle that suddenly collapses into a violent recitative at the edge of tonality, then returns to the opening as if nothing had happened. The finale's theme is lifted from his own earlier A minor sonata, D. 537.