It's always fascinating to look at composer autographs, but here I am not interested in the stance of authenticity -- except to note that I was surprised to see how many expression marks, including accents, Schubert wrote into these pieces: I've always assumed they were mainly the work of later editors. The expression marks remind me of comments from Schubert-Kreis reminiscences about Josef von Gahy's "fiery" playing of the dances. Perhaps that style of playing was really in Schubert's mind, too (if not always in his fingers, given the tacit comparison in the description of Gahy's performances).
Not authenticity but rather the opposite, actually -- these autographs strike me as another part of the geography of Schubert's music making. First, he was ill: by early 1823 he was undergoing treatments for syphilis. Second, we note that in 1823 Ash Wednesday fell on 12 February. Imagine Schubert, before that date, rising in the morning to compose as usual. He decides (or follows up on friends' requests) to organize and write fair copies of several dances he played before he withdrew from social engagements, perhaps so that Gahy (or someone else) could play them during the final days of Carneval. Having finished the work, Schubert signs the first page, underestimating the space needed and his family name slants off on the corner. I'll be charitable and assume that the corrupted page edges came later. [this paragraph revised on 3-7-10]
Number 4 in the 17 Deutsche eventually became the last (n20) of the posthumous "Letzte Walzer" D146. What strikes me about this is the marked leftward slant of the handwriting at the left side of the page and how it gradually corrects itself by the right-hand side. This is as close as one can come to "embodying Schubert," to imagining oneself seeing with his eyes as he sits at the work-table, feeling the weight of the body's shift to the left as he fills the wide paper, and relaxing as he does while crossing the page to its right edge.
Here, as a postscript of sorts, is the beginning of n5 in the 17 Deutsche. As the black pencil marks show, this eventually became the trio to n4 above. Although that is plausible, nowhere is there is an indication that Schubert assumed the same.
