Moments Musicaux - Impromptus

Abstract

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.

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.

The first of the set is composed in a kind of sonata-rondo form (or, perhaps more accurately in this case, a sonata-allegro form with no development), with a declamatory opening theme to which the gentler, pulsating thoughts of the two "B" sections act as the perfect foil.

The second Impromptu is a comely Allegretto, the first measures of which bear a striking resemblance to those of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 12, Op. 26 in the same key. The similarity is fleeting, however, leaving us to wonder if this ghost from the musical past was summoned by Schubert's conscious or unconscious mind. In the middle section, marked "trio" by the composer (though the movement is neither minuet nor scherzo), there is no melody per se, but rather a shapely arpeggiation in triplets.

The third impromptu of the group is a set of variations on the famous tune that Schubert had already used in both the Rosamunde music and the Quartet in A minor, D. 804. There are five variations in total, the last of which is built of sparkling virtuoso scales that finally give way to a sublime, almost chorale-like coda.

The last impromptu, Allegro scherzando, is nearly 500 measures long. A handful of rubberband-like ritardando/a tempo indications and half a dozen unexpected grand pauses help not only to make the sparkling moto perpetuo more exciting, but also to remind us of the pieces "scherzando" nature.

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No.1 in F-: Allegro moderato

Schubert did not invent the title "Impromptu"; Jan Vorisek, the Bohemian composer living in Vienna, published the first impromptus in 1822, five years before Schubert. Indeed, Schubert did not even think to call his own impromptus by that title; it was the publisher Haslinger who gave the first set of four impromptus from 1827 that name. Schubert did accept it, and when he sent out the second set of four impromptus later in the same year, he numbered them five through eight.

Yet the second set of impromptus, ultimately published eleven years after Schubert's death with the opus number of 142 (D. 935), is a much more substantial set of pieces than the first set. This is especially true of the first of them, the F minor Impromptu, a piece whose scale led Schumann to believe that the second set might more properly be called a sonata. The F minor Impromptu is executed on a much larger and grander size than any of the first set: it is in sonata-rondo form rather than ternary or binary form with an episode inserted near the close that might have nearly unbalanced the whole work had it not been for Schubert's exquisite sense of balance and proportion. The tone of the F minor Impromptu moves between the determined assertiveness of the opening section and the more flowing melody of the central sections. Yet these two sections are unified by the integrity and intensity of Schubert's vision.

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No.2 in Ab: Allegretto

Who knows what Schubert really believed in? Was it God? He certainly wrote enough music for the Austrian Catholic church but, compared with his songs and piano pieces, his church music often sounds perfunctory. Was it love? He certainly wrote enough love songs, but, considering that Schubert died of syphilis, one rather doubts that Schubert's ideal of love was untainted by less sanguine notions. Was it music? Yes, it was probably music: in all Schubert's most hymn-like works, the essential core of his belief seems to lie in the healing power of music.

Certainly, Schubert's hymn-like Allegretto Impromptu, Op. 142, No. 2 (D. 935/1), sings not of faith in God or love but of faith in the consolation of music. This simple-sounding Impromptu in A flat major starts with a theme of deep contentment with a moment of heartbreaking beauty on a chord of the flat supertonic, fortissimo, which slips quietly back to the tonic major pianissimo. It is as quintessentially a Schubert moment as it is a quintessentially musical moment. The central D flat major's trio's gently flowing melody in the left hand under undulating triplets in the right sings of the contentment and serenity beyond those found in God or love, of the peace and calm that Schubert found in his music.

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No.3 in Bb: Andante (Theme and Variations)

Schubert must have loved the melody of the entr'acte from his incidental music to Rosamunde: he used it not only there but also as the slow movement of his A minor String Quartet and as the basis for this set of variations from his second set of Impromptus, Op. 142 (D. 899). As the third piece of the four impromptus, we hear a simple but heartfelt ternary melody in B flat major that moves through five variations. The first places the melody in the fourth and fifth fingers of the right hand above a rippling accompaniment in the other fingers and a gently syncopated left hand. The second variation embellishes the melody with playful twists and turns in the right hand. The third variation turns to the tonic minor, revealing tragic implications in the melody over an involved left-hand accompaniment. The fourth variation retains the key signature of the tonic minor but modulates to its relative major of G flat. The final variation returns the music to B flat major and embeds the melody in sweeping embellishments in the right hand that switch to the left hand halfway through. The piece closes with a ravishing coda marked più lento pianissimo, a simple choral setting of the melody.

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No.4 in F-: Allegro scherzando

Many writers have heard Hungarian influences in the first and the last impromptus in the second set of Schubert's impromptus. Although the Hungarian influences on the first are debatable, the fourth Impromptu does sing in a Hungarian accent. Although both movements are in F minor, the Allegro scherzando Op. 142, No. 4 (D. 935/4), has a melody whose accented grace-note embellishments and harmonic motions certainly echo the minatory music of Hungary, and the rushing passages growing out of trills for the right hand at the end of the opening sections threaten to unseat the music. While both trios begin much more peacefully, the first's A flat major often turns to darker minor keys with more fiery embellishments, and the second's tonic minor seems to exist only to build to the blazing return of the opening melody in F minor.