Schubert - Complete Impromptus, D.899, Op.90 & D.935, Op. posth. 142 | Maria João Pires

Franz Schubert - 4 Impromptus D.899, Op.90 & 4 Impromptus D.935, Op. posth. 142, 1827. Maria João Pires, piano.
Recording: Haarlem, Concertgebouw, Lisbon, Palácio de Queluz, 1996

00:00 | 4 Impromptus D.899, Op.90:
00:00 Impromptu No. 1 in C minor. Allegro molto moderato
11:05 Impromptu No. 2 in E flat major. Allegro
15:51 Impromptu No. 3 in G flat major. Andante
21:41 Impromptu No. 4 in A flat major. Allegretto

29:50 | 4 Impromptus D.935, Op. posth. 142:
29:50 Impromptu No. 1 in F minor. Allegro moderato
42:16 Impromptu No. 2 in A flat major. Allegretto
50:17 Impromptu No. 3 in B flat major. Theme. Andante - Variations
1:03:23 Impromptu No. 4 in F minor. Allegro scherzando

Complete Impromptus: http://youtu.be/5yVZu05WZ9o

Complete Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yVZu05WZ9o&index=9&list=PLF2ayhcb2yRWwjYotdsUNDiWyZbP79ZdA

"The Universal power of the greatest music - and some of the greatest music is Schubert's - comes from a prodigius coincidence: such music fits like a glove into the secret codes with which the body transmits its signals to the brain, and because body codes and music codes are the same, the brain treats the messages of such music as if they were coming from the heart, not the ear. Great music appropriates the transmission and enters the brain as both sound and pure feeling. And what is pure feeling? It is the reading of the very states of a living organism with which nature can compose any and all emotions, from the longing for the unattainable or the anguish of departure, to the resignation of the winter journey, the excitement that precedes adventure, the everpostponed visit to an otherwordly place. When the appropriation happens, the mind of the fortunate listener believes it is eavesdropping on the inner life of its being, connected to the source of existence and far, very far, from the mundane origin of the experience."
António R. Damásio, Neurocientist

Schubert did not himself invent the title "Impromptu"; the Bohemian composer Jan Vorisek had published the first set of works called Impromptus in 1822 in Vienna, works which Schubert certainly knew. Written in the lighter and less demanding style popular at the time, Vorisek's Impromptus proved both popular and, in their simple ternary structure and less virtuosic piano writing, capable of imitation.

It really isn't fair that such weighty compositions as the four pieces contained in Franz Schubert's Op. 90 (D. 899) were given the rather inappropriate title "Impromptus" by their publisher when the first two went to press in late 1827; it wasn't until 1857 that Op. 90, Nos. 3 and 4 appeared in print. These are not just pieces of higher-grade musical meat than the average short piano piece of the 1820s. These are pieces of considerable length, three of them even spanning more than 200 bars, each a well thought-out expression of pianism that creates no sense of improvisation. The four Impromptus, D. 899 were probably composed at least in part during the composer's stay in Dornbach in the summer of 1827; they seem all to have been put to paper by the time Schubert arrived in Graz in September.

Schubert may, in fact, have had something much larger in mind when he composed D. 935: Robert Schumann suggested that the key sequence of the four pieces (Nos. 1 and 4 in F minor, and Nos. 2 and 3 in A flat and B flat, respectively) formed a sonata in all but name. There is a markedly greater degree of overall unity among these Impromptus than we find in the more disparate first series, D. 899, and Schumann's observation is further strengthened by the unmistakable motivic associations between Nos. 1 and 4 - a quality often associated with the opening and closing movements of a sonata. However, it is easy for this line of thought to become strained, and, whatever Schubert's intentions may have been, the urgent, driving rhythms and decorative melodic style found in these four pieces aligns them with the first popular examples of the Impromptu genre, written in Hungary during the 1820s.

When applied to these works of Franz Schubert, the term Impromptu is doubly misleading. None of Schubert's works in the genre (there are two sets, D. 899, and D. 935, both written in the year 1827) suggest the salonesque, extemporaneous quality that the term connotes; quite to the contrary, these are tightly knit, structurally cohesive works, often of great lyric intensity. Nor should the term be taken -- again, as is often the case -- to represent any diminution of scale; the longest of Schubert's examples lasts well over ten minutes! It is not surprising then to realize that the title, "Impromptu," was assigned to these works by Schubert's Viennese Publisher, Haslinger, and not the composer himself.

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