Impromptus (Schubert)

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Franz Schubert, painted around 1827 (or until autumn 1828) by Anton Depauly

The Impromptus by Franz Schubert are lyrical piano pieces from the last years of the composer. They are divided into two collections of four pieces each. He composed the first group ( D 899, op. 90) in the summer and autumn of 1827 and added four more pieces in December of the same year (D 935, op. 142). In addition to the Moments musicaux , the character pieces in B-flat keys are among his best-known piano works and were, especially in the past, an integral part of teaching literature and house music. Today they are part of the pianists' concert programs and are played cyclically or individually.

The French term Impromptu (“improvisation”, “instantaneous idea”) for the first four Impromptus D 899 goes back to the Viennese publisher Tobias Haslinger , who only published the first two during Schubert's lifetime.

Background and details

Schubert's piano works for two and four hands can be divided into four sections, which stand side by side on an equal footing: sonatas and fantasies, cycles of piano pieces and social pieces. The last group, associated with the Schubertiaden and similar entertaining events, includes the dances (such as the länders , waltzes , ecossaise and minuet ) and marches .

Jan Václav Voříšek , who studied with Johann Nepomuk Hummel for some time and praised Beethoven, transferred the term "Impromptu" used for operatic paraphrases to his lyrical piano pieces. A collection with six of his impromptus appeared in Vienna in 1822 and presumably also influenced Schubert.

The first two impromptus are among the few piano works that were published during Schubert's lifetime, alongside the Wanderer Fantasie and the Moments Musicaux . The four pieces of the second collection, to which the composer himself gave the title Impromptu , were originally numbered 5–8 and thus intended as a continuation of the first volume. When the publisher published the other six pieces ten years after his death, he changed the time signature and the note values ​​in places and deleted two repetition marks .

The popularity of the pieces, which were soon available in numerous collections and were an integral part of bourgeois music-making, stood in the way of Schubert's reputation as a composer of piano sonatas in which he dealt with the piano works of Ludwig van Beethoven .

To the music

First collection

The first piece in C minor (Allegro molto moderato, 4/4) is reminiscent of a ballad with its folk song-like theme and march-like , dotted rhythm . After a fortissimo octave beat, Schubert first presents it pianissimo without accompaniment and complements it with chords each time it is repeated . In the further dynamically variable course, he continuously varies the accompaniment by shortening its note values ​​( triplets from bar 41, sixteenth notes from bar 125). Schubert uses the harmonic ambivalence of the two-part theme between the C minor of the first section (bars 2 - 8) and the E flat major of the second section (bars 9 - 16) for extensive modulations into other keys . So he leads the theme in bar 41 into the sub-median A flat major , while the left plays a triplet accompaniment or lets it sound in the bass (from bar 60). A lyrical climax is reached in bar 74, where a new theme sounds over a chordal triplet accompaniment, the effect of which is intensified by the imitation in the seventh interval and repeated after dramatic developments from bar 152 in G major. After the condensation in the middle part, there is a calming down, in that the note values ​​are now reversed and the ending in C major is introduced via sixteenth notes and triplets .

Impromptu in E flat major op.90 No. 2

With its fast eighth note triplets, the second Impromptu in E flat major (Allegro, 3/4) has become a particularly preferred piece in classroom literature. The performance designations Allegro, piano and legato indicate that the etude-like character that is often given to the piece is inappropriate. The accentuated and dynamic middle section ( ben marcato ) also seems to anticipate the character of some of Robert Schumann's pieces in its rhythm . Schubert takes the striking theme in the coda again, he can surprise with a forte chord fade in E Flat Minor, which he for the third piece in terzverwandten G flat major leads over.

The third Impromptu (Andante, 4/2 alla breve) in G flat major is a calm song reminiscent of a nocturne , the pianistic appeal of which is to play the melody and accompaniment together with the right hand. If the fifth finger takes over the melody tones, the others create the harp-like arpeggiated accompaniment, which underlines the cantilena with new harmonic turns. Schubert was convinced by Haslinger to transpose the piece to G major . The publisher, concerned about the paragraph, found the original B-flat key too complicated and wanted to make it easier to play.

With its length and drama, the fourth impromptu (Allegretto, 3/4) ties in with the first piece. It is in A flat major and is already surprising in the first cascade of the arpeggios, each extending over two bars, through the A flat minor tone system . From bar 47, a melody played by the left in A flat major is established, which is accompanied by the cascades of the right, shortened to one bar. The extended middle section in C sharp minor is characterized by chromatic anticipations and pathetic upsurges of the theme. It is accompanied by full-grip chords and lifts the piece into an almost late-romantic sphere.

Second collection

The connection between the individual impromptus in an underlying piano sonata, recognized by Robert Schumann, is particularly noticeable in the first, extremely complex piano piece in F minor (Allegro moderato, 4/4), the structure of which is remotely based on the sonata form and the beginning of an improvisation remind. With the pathetic opening chord and the subsequent, rhythmically dotted downward movement of the fortepiano , the first theme shapes the serious character of the entire work. The vocal second theme in A flat major, which begins in bar 44, takes up motifs from the transition group with its repeating triads , which extends to the octave cascade of bars 39-42. After the melody has risen to the soprano, it is also taken over by the left hand, which carries it alone for the third repetition and is now played around figuratively by the right.

The development-like part that begins with bar 69 begins after the characteristic major-minor change in A-flat minor and is one of the highlights of Schubert's piano music: while the right hand creates a carpet of sound through continuously played sixteenth-note arpeggios, the left hand plays a wistful "dialogue" which consists of three to five-tone "questions" in the high voice and answers in the bass and is performed up to bar 114. At the beginning of the recapitulation, the first theme is again in F minor, while the long transition group now leads the second (bar 159) to F major, a transition that is also found in the developmental section repeated from bar 182.

The second piece (Allegretto, 3/4) in A flat major forms an intimate contrast, whose fame is related to its relatively simple playability and the catchy song theme. Schubert repeats the eight-bar theme one octave higher and here already varies the harmonic progression by making the parallel key of F minor sound for a moment over the seventh chord . In the second part, double octaves form a dynamic contrast that extends to fortissimo and lead harmoniously to G flat minor. The trio's continuous chain of triplets in D flat major surprises with its hidden melody, which also contributes to the popularity of the piece.

With the penultimate Impromptu in B flat major , Schubert composed one of his most famous variations . As a theme he chose the (modified) melody of his interlude music for the romantic play Rosamunde , which he had already used for the second movement of his string quartet No. 13 . He leads it through five variations, which with their scales , broken chords and octaves move between playfulness , pathos and virtuosity. The third variation in B flat minor reaches passionate areas of expression with its accompanying full-fingered chords repeating an urgent second motif .

The concluding Impromptu (Allegro scherzando, 3/8) in F minor is the longest piece in the collection with a measure length (525) and thus reaches the size of a sonata finale. With the runs and accents it leaves an extremely moving impression and with its very long coda, the agogic ascents (più presto) and the wild downward run that concludes the piece, it is reminiscent of the end of the Prelude in D minor op.28 No. 24 of Frédéric Chopin .

Questions of form

Robert Schumann (1839)

Schubert composed the Impromptus after he had already dealt with the piano sonata . So they connect to this form, but are only superficially connected to it in terms of their cohesion and structure. During the first and third Impromptu from op. 90 and the head piece of the second set to that contained in the slow movements overture form without carrying out recalls, the remaining pieces often follow dance forms.

It is not easy to summarize them and the Moments musicaux under one generic term. Like the fantasies , they are often measured against the traditional concept of the piano sonata and differences, overlaps and similarities are worked out. While the Moments musicaux can be understood as trifles or small forms, this is not possible without problems for the more extensive Impromptus.

Robert Schumann already saw a connection between the pieces in the second collection (D 935) and wrote in a review written in 1838 for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik that the Impromptu in F minor was “so obviously the first movement of a sonata ... that none at all Doubts can arise ”, while he assessed the third variation piece in B flat major as a foreign body. The extremely popular second piece in A flat major , which is played by many piano students because of its relative simplicity and catchy subject matter, was for him the “2. Movement of the same sonata, in key and character, it closely follows the first. ”Schubert's friends should know“ where the final movements are going ”and whether he had completed the sonata. Finally, the last impromptu can be seen "as a finale, but if the key is for it, the volatility in the whole system almost speaks against it."

Alfred Einstein supported this view and believed that Schubert had brought out the sonata movements as individual pieces for financial reasons. After the "Three Piano Pieces D 946" (Allegro assai, Allegretto and Allegro) were published in 1868 and the fragments D 916B / C only in 1978, the proximity of the Impromptus to the sonata can also be documented in terms of genre. While the tonal language of the first two pieces is reminiscent of that of Moments musicaux , the third refers to the fragments in terms of composition and key plan. The paper findings suggest that Schubert wrote the drafts of the first two impromptus (D 899 and D 935) and the unfinished pieces in the summer of 1827. In April of this year, the Sonata in G major D 894 was published as a series of four piano pieces ( Fantasie , Andante , Menuetto and Allegretto ) and not as a coherent work.

literature

  • Andreas Krause: piano piece cycles 1826–1828. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, pp. 427-430.

Web links

Commons : Impromptus (Schubert)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas Krause: The piano music, piano piece cycles 1826–1828. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 427.
  2. ↑ Andreas Krause: The piano music, genres and style types. In: Walther Dürr , Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 381.
  3. ^ Hermann Grabner : Large Forms of Instrumental Music. In: General music theory. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2011, p. 260.
  4. ↑ Andreas Krause: piano piece cycles 1826–1828. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 380.
  5. ^ Walburga Litschauer: Dances and marches for piano. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 436.
  6. ↑ Andreas Krause: piano piece cycles 1826–1828. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 428.
  7. ^ Alfred Brendel : Schubert's Piano Sonatas 1822–1828. In: Thinking About Music. Piper, Munich 1984, p. 90.
  8. ^ Andreas Krause: The early piano sonatas. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 387.
    Andreas Krause: piano piece cycles 1826–1828. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 427.
  9. ^ Franz Schubert, 4 Impromptus D 935. In: Christoph Rueger (Ed.): Harenberg piano music guide. 600 works from the baroque to the present day. Meyers, Mannheim 2004, ISBN 3-411-76101-6 , p. 767.
  10. ^ Otto Schumann: Franz Schubert. In: Handbook of Piano Music. Heinrichshofen´s Verlag, Wilhelmshaven 1979, p. 317.
  11. ↑ s. the commentary by Alfred Cortot in his édition de travail des Stückes (Édition Salabert, Paris).
  12. ↑ Andreas Krause: piano piece cycles 1826–1828. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 429.
  13. ^ Günther Batel: Masterpieces of piano music. Franz Schubert, Fourier Verlag, Wiesbaden 1977, p. 258.
  14. ^ So Franz Schubert, 4 Impromptus D 935. In: Christoph Rueger (Ed.): Harenberg Piano Music Guide. 600 works from the baroque to the present day. Meyers, Mannheim 2004, p. 767.
  15. ^ So Otto Schumann: Franz Schubert. In: Handbook of Piano Music. Heinrichshofen´s Verlag, Wilhelmshaven 1979, p. 319.
  16. ↑ Andreas Krause: piano piece cycles 1826–1828. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 429.
  17. ↑ Andreas Krause: piano piece cycles 1826–1828. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 429.
  18. ↑ Andreas Krause: piano piece cycles 1826–1828. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 381.
  19. ↑ Andreas Krause: piano piece cycles 1826–1828. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 427.
  20. ↑ Quoted from: Andreas Krause: piano piece cycles 1826–1828. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 427.
  21. ↑ Quoted from: Franz Schubert, 4 Impromptus D 935. In: Christoph Rueger (Hrsg.): Harenberg Piano Music Guide. 600 works from the baroque to the present day. Meyers, Mannheim 2004, p. 767.
  22. ^ Franz Schubert, 4 Impromptus D 935. In: Christoph Rueger (Ed.): Harenberg piano music guide. 600 works from the baroque to the present day. Meyers, Mannheim 2004, p. 767.
  23. ↑ Andreas Krause: piano piece cycles 1826–1828. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 427.
  24. ↑ Andreas Krause: piano piece cycles 1826–1828. In: Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (eds.): Schubert manual. Metzler, Stuttgart 2010, p. 428.