Mozart and Haydn, both very human, express joy, humour and tenderness, as much as sadness, drama and tragedy; Beethoven draws us into a dialogue with the sublime; but Schubert takes us by the hand, he whispers to our innermost being, with its loneliness, its sufferings. His world is sombre, introverted and nostalgic, but sometimes it is brightened by a gentle glow of happiness - but a happiness that has become illusory and inaccessible. Joy in his works is always diffuse, never radiant. We see this in the "Little" Sonata in A major D664, which is often described as a return to a haven of peace, and some people even see in it a certain "joie de vivre". But its sunshine is nevertheless hazy, its smile faint, the happiness it speaks of lost and faraway.
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