Schubert's Impromptu in C minor, Op. 90 No. 1 — the first of a set of four. It begins on a single note: both hands strike one G, with no harmony and nothing else. The whole eight and a half minutes grows out of that one note. The four were written in 1827; Beethoven had died that March, and Schubert followed in November of the next year. It is the longest of the four. The full piano score is on screen, note by note.
In 1827 he wrote four; the publisher printed two
In 1827 Schubert was thirty. Beethoven died in Vienna that March, and Schubert was one of the pallbearers — they lived in the same city and had barely any contact.
That same year he wrote four impromptus. The Viennese publisher Haslinger printed the first two at the end of it as Opus 90; the third and fourth waited until 1857, twenty-nine years after Schubert's death.
Schubert did not choose the word "impromptu." The publisher added it. At the time the word named a piano piece that sounded jotted down — which sold. This one is not small: eight and a half minutes, longer than many sonata movements, and nothing about it is casual.
The year after writing these four, in November 1828, Schubert died at thirty-one. That final year was the densest of his life: the last three piano sonatas, the string quintet, another four impromptus, and a complete song cycle. He probably knew there was not much time.
Everything grows from one note, and one sentence takes three roads
It begins on one note. Both hands strike a G together — no harmony, no accompaniment, one note left hanging in the air.
Then the melody enters, very quietly, like someone walking in the distance: a dotted, repeating, unhurried rhythm. That line is the only material in the piece.
Over the next eight minutes the same sentence is said three times and more, each time different. The first is light, spoken to oneself. Later the bass joins and the phrase turns heavy and pressing. Later still the key brightens and the same sentence becomes tender, as if something good had been remembered.
In the middle a long stretch of triplets runs in the left hand with the melody floating above — the most flowing part of the piece, and the easiest to drift into.
When it turns to the major, the music loosens, but not for long. In the last bars the lonely figure from the opening returns and both hands settle in the bass. It does not give you a bright ending.
Eight and a half minutes asks for some patience, but this piece is never loud for its own sake.
204 bars in which one theme takes four identities
204 bars, 4/4, C minor, 4,054 sounding notes.
Bar 1 is that single G, both hands in unison. The melody enters at bar 2 and runs to bar 24 in thin texture throughout.
From bar 25 the bass joins and the same line becomes heavier and fuller; through to bar 41 this is the first real accumulation in the piece.
From bar 75 the score calls for una corda and the volume drops away — the quietest stretch of the piece, and where the left-hand triplets begin.
From bar 111 comes the most agitated writing: the bass travels furthest and the dynamic markings are densest.
At bar 152 the key signature changes — three flats become none and the music turns to C major. For the first time the same melody sounds warm, and it stays that way to bar 182.
From bar 183 it returns to C minor, the thin opening figure comes back, and the last two bars settle in the bass.
There are 72 dynamic markings and 60 hairpins — for music with only one theme, those markings are how it changes identity.
The difficulty is having something to say for eight and a half minutes
The notes are not hard; technically this is the least demanding of the four. What is hard is length and sameness.
First, structure. There is only one theme, and if every return is played the same way, eight and a half minutes gets very long. Decide first what each statement is — talking to yourself, being pressed, being warm — and let dynamics and touch follow from that.
Second, the opening note. There is no harmony to hide behind and the sound itself is everything. Too light and it seems unprepared; too heavy and it spends the space that comes after.
Third, the triplet section. The left hand must run evenly and very quietly with the melody floating above — the gap between the hands has to be wider than it feels.
Fourth, the soft pedal. Bar 75 asks for una corda and bar 164 for tre corde; that is not decoration but the colour design of the passage.
The tempo is 96 to the quarter — the heading Allegro molto moderato sits between an andante and a moderato. The finished video runs eight minutes thirty-three.
We rate this 4 out of 5.
The third of the same set, and the work of his final year
The third of the same set, the Impromptu in G-flat, is on this channel — the best known of the four, and one of the two that waited until 1857 to be printed. The second runs in continuous fast figuration and is the one students play most; the fourth is in A-flat, with broken chords falling from the top of the keyboard.
There is a second set of four impromptus, D. 935, also from that year.
