Adagietto | Franz Schubert - Impromptu D.899, Opus 90 - No. 1 | Maria João Pires @Adagietto | Uploaded January 2013 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Franz Schubert - Impromptu for piano in C minor, D. 899/1 (Op. 90/1) | Maria João Pires
Recording: Haarlem, Concertgebouw, Lisbon, Palácio de Queluz, 1996

4 Impromptus D.935, Op. posth. 142:
Impromptu D.935, Nº 1 youtu.be/44OtKHKwQw8
Impromptu D.935, Nº 2 youtu.be/WQ0A3DG09eA
Impromptu D.935, Nº 3 youtu.be/ecYEOth-Oyw
Impromptu D.935, Nº 4 youtu.be/WL7uGd4k66M

4 Impromptus D.899, Opus 90:
Impromptu D.899, Nº 1 youtu.be/A2EyHtQ8J-g
Impromptu D.899, Nº 2 youtu.be/GQOQ57G9mf0
Impromptu D.899, Nº 3 youtu.be/DxRrMLnJq2M
Impromptu D.899, Nº 4 youtu.be/sIn6hM7t0Vw

Complete Impromptus: youtu.be/5yVZu05WZ9o

Complete Playlist: 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.

Schubert's first set of four Impromptus were composed in 1827 between the two halves of Winterreise and something of those songs' darkness and tragedy can be found in the piano pieces as well. The first Impromptu, Op. 90, No. 1, (D. 899.1) in C minor is in ternary form with a harsh and march-like theme in the outer sections in C minor alternating with a warmer and more flowing theme in A flat major in the central section. Schubert expands the work's ternary structure with a large-scale development after the central section and he enlarges the harmonic scheme with modulations to keys as distant as the flat dominant major and the flat supertonic minor. Through this structural expansion and harmonic nuances, Schubert intensifies the C minor Impromptu's emotional content almost to the point of being unbearable. The work's long coda's alternation between the tonic major and minor closes in the major, but it is a major so compromised by the minor that the final cadence seems more resigned than consoled.