The Impromptus

[micrologus]

“I realize now that my life in Graz was far too pleasant, and I am finding it very hard to settle down in Vienna again.” So Franz Schubert wrote in September 1827, to Frau Marie Leopoldine Pachler of his recent stay at her home in the provincial capital. He referred to his brief weeks there as “the happiest days I have known for a long time” and planned to return
to Graz in autumn the following year. But illness that shortly claimed his crowded life kept him in Vienna.

When Schubert did settle down that October of 1827, it was to work, in the glow of his restful Graz visit, on a group of compositions in flat keys remote from the C Major he favored: the E-flat Piano Trio, Opus 100; the Moments Musicaux Opus 94 and two sets of Four Impromptus Opus 90 (D. 899) and 142 (D. 935) chief among these.

Like Moments Musicaux, the Impromptus are primarily lyrical statements of an extemporaneous type. Unlike the Moments, however, the Impromptus are extended essays that grow out on initial impulses – generally rhythmic gestures presented in the opening bar. The first four – in C minor, E-flat, G-flat and A-flat – explore ABA form and contain some amazing key relationships. In No. 2 in E-flat, the triplets toy with B minor until finally that key is asserted for the entirety of the middle section. In No. 3, G-flat beckons to distant C Major bar after bar; when C Major does arrive, eight measures from the end, it is for only a bar and a half.

The Impromptus of Opus 142 are more impassioned and more varied in structure that the earlier models. They are also more unified. Indeed, their keys of F minor, A-flat, B-flat and F minor prompted Schumann to believe Schubert had intended the four to stand as the movements of a sonata.

Though the autographs of Opus 90 are untitled, Schubert himself – and not a publisher – affixed the label “Impromptus” to the second set. The composer mentioned them by that name in a letter to the publisher Schott in February 1828, proposing them for sale along with numerous other works. Schott offered Schubert a sum of 60 florins total for the Impromptus and a vocal quintet. When Schubert answered by asking 60 florins each for the separate works, Schott’s response was silence. Opus 142 was not published until 1839.

Opus 90 fared little better. Haslinger published the first two numbers, without particular success, in 1828. Nos. 3 and 4 waited for print until 1857.

While it is as a melodist that Schubert is remembered, it is as a harmonist that he is most deeply felt; this is nowhere truer that in the Impromptus, where the ambiguity of key and mode is pervasive. By the time Schubert’s music became well-known – decades after his death – he had been outdistanced by other composers. But in his own time, Schubert was a quiet pathfinder.

[micrologus]

Impromptu N° 1 in C minor

http://www.brightcecilia.com/forum/d...20Moderato.mp3


Impromptu N° 2 in E-flat Major

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwIs2N2OL-w"]YouTube - Schubert: Impromptus D 899 Opus 90 N° 2 in E-flat Major[/ame]


Impromptu N° 3 in G-flat Major

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wm2YmrSCNI"]YouTube - Schubert: Impromptus D 899 Opus 90 N° 3 in G-flat Major[/ame]


Impromptu N° 4 in E-flat Major

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOSHNGAJlb4"]YouTube - Schubert: Impromptus 899 Opus 90 N° 4 in A-flat Major[/ame]

[micrologus]

Impromptu N° 1 in F Major

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_NMdcAjRFI"]YouTube - Schubert: Impromptus D 935 Opus 142 N° 1 in F minor[/ame]


Impromptu N° 2 in A-flat Major

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxAFlaWmws4"]YouTube - Schubert: Impromptus D 935 Opus 142 N° 2 in A-flat Major[/ame]


Impromptu N° 3 in C minor

http://www.brightcecilia.com/forum/d...20Moderato.mp3


Impromptu N° 4 in F Major

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UMj0rk4hPU"]YouTube - Schubert Impromptus D 935 Opus 142 nr 4 in F Major[/ame]