Impromptu in G-flat major

Schubert wrote this in the last year of his life, in G-flat major, a key whose softness is part of the music. The third of the four Impromptus, Op. 90, it is a song without words in the most literal sense. The accompaniment runs without a break from the first bar to the last. Melody and accompaniment lie in the same hand, so the pianist has to be singer and accompanist at once. The tune must sustain and breathe while three quieter notes move underneath it, without the accompaniment swelling up or the melody hardening to compensate.

The middle section drifts through remote harmonies, and the coda turns the theme into something spare and sorrowful that must not be overplayed. Nothing virtuosic stands in the way, only an unbroken line and a balance that never slips. It builds a singing tone as well as anything at this level, and the piano will not hide a thing.

About this edition

Score source · Public Domain