Schunert Impromptus

Everything that Schubert wrote seemed to have melody as its starting point. His piano music, so different from that of Beethoven, pulsates with this innate lyricism. The two sets of impromptus, not fiendishly difficult to play, require a pianist who can make the piano sing. Such a pianist is Krystian Zimerman. Indeed, his use of rubato and minute tempo fluctuations might seem excessive to some, especially in D 899 No 1, but I find them well-judged. Noting also Zimerman's velvet touch, and the warm DGG acoustic as recorded in 1991, I count this CD a total success.

Schubert - Piano Sonatas, Impromptus - Andras Schiff (2011) {9CD Set Decca 478 3018 rec 1990-1995}
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© 1990-95, 2011 Decca Music | 478 3018
Classical / Romantic / Piano

When András Schiff completed the recording of all of Schubert's piano sonatas in the 1990s, Decca released a box set containing all of the individual discs from the series. For this 2011 reissue, Decca goes one step further and includes Schiff's recordings of the Impromptus, the Moments musicaux, and several other shorter works. Schubert's music, along with that of Bach and Mozart, is one of the cornerstones upon which Schiff built his reputation as a thoughtful and intelligent performer. Anyone looking for a complete set of the Schubert sonatas could do much worse than to choose this one by one of the foremost Schubert interpreters of his generation.

The programme for Alexandre Tharaud's first album of Schubert comprises the four Impromptus D 899 (op 90), the six Moments musicaux and, in Tharaud's own transcription for piano, four excerpts from the stage music for Rosamunde. When Tharaud performed the Impromptus at London's Wigmore Hall in 2014, The Guardian wrote: "He got to the heart of the beauties and abysses of this music."

In the latest chapter in Sir Andras Schiff’s ongoing documentation of Franz Schubert’s music, the great pianist plays the Four Impromptus D 899, and compositions from 1828, the last year of Schubert’s too brief life: the Three Pieces D 946 (“impromptus in all but name” notes Misha Donat in the CD booklet), the C minor Sonata D 958 and the A major Sonata D 959.