Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Rondo in D Major for Piano Four-Hands, D. 608
Franz SCHUBERT
Born January 31, 1797, Vienna
Died November 19, 1828, Vienna

Schubert’s path toward becoming a composer was not a straight one, and one of the most painful detours came in the fall of 1817, when he was 20. After a year of living by himself and trying to support himself as a composer, Schubert had to admit defeat and move back in with his family, and his 21^st birthday found him working as an assistant in his father’s elementary school. He was miserable, conceding later that it appeared as if he would become “nothing but a thwarted composer.” The unhappy young man took consolation in his friends and those evenings when they could get together to perform music.

One of these friends, Josef von Gahy, was a court official in Vienna who played the piano very well, and he occasionally accompanied singers as they presented Schubert’s songs. Now von Gahy and Schubert began to play music for piano-four hands together, with Schubert taking the upper line. So much did the young composer enjoy this that he composed the Rondo in D Major for the two of them to play together. The manuscript is inscribed “Notre amitié est invariable” (“Our friendship is unchanging”), but this appears not to be in Schubert’s hand. Schubert and von Gahy performed the Rondo before their circle of friends, but it was not published until 1835, seven years after the composer’s death at age 31.

The brief Rondo is gracious music, perfectly suited to music-making among friends. The waltz-like main theme is announced at the beginning by the first (upper) piano, but soon passes between the two players; Schubert marks it dolce, and that spirit continues throughout. The fact of having two players seated at the same keyboard pushes the part of the first piano up into the instrument’s high register, where it frequently rings with a pleasing bell-like sonority. Along the way are episodes in F major and G major, but the graceful spirit of the opening tune is never far off, and at the end–once again marked dolce–it returns to drive the music to its firm close.

Four Impromptus, D. 935
No. 1 in F Minor: Allegro moderato
No. 2 in A-flat Major: Allegretto
No. 3 in B-flat Major: Andante
No. 4 in F Minor: Allegro scherzando

Schubert wrote his eight Impromptus for piano during the summer and fall of 1827, probably in response to a request from his publisher for music intended for the growing number of amateur musicians with pianos in their homes: this music is melodic, attractive, and not so difficult as to take it out of the range of good amateur pianists. The term “impromptu” lacks precise musical meaning. It refers to a short instrumental piece, usually for piano, without specified form; the title suggests music that gives the impression of being improvised on the spot. But the notion that this music is improvised should be speedily discounted–Schubert’s impromptus are very carefully conceived music, set in a variety of forms that include variation, rondo, and minuet.

Some have hailed Schubert as the inventor of the impromptu and the composer who freed piano music from sonata form–they see these pieces as opening the way for the wealth of short piano pieces by composers such as Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and others. Too much has been made of this. A number of composers earlier than Schubert, including Mozart and Beethoven, had written short piano pieces not in sonata form, and several composers before Schubert had used the title Impromptu. Still, Schubert’s impromptus have become the most popular music published under this title–when someone says “impromptu,” we automatically think of Schubert.

This program offers the four impromptus Schubert wrote in December 1827, less than a year before he died; they were not published until 1839. The Impromptu in F Minor is one of Schubert’s longest, and any amateur pianist who takes this music up had better be a good one. Its structure is unusual. A number of Schubert’s impromptus are in ABA form (he will even label the center section “Trio” sometimes), but the Impromptu in F Minor has been compared to a sonata-form movement: it presents two quite elaborate theme-groups, both extended and full of subordinate ideas, and then Schubert brings back both groups, as if recapitulating them–the effect is of a sonata-form movement without a development section. This is generally wistful music, and despite moments of energy the atmosphere is subdued and dark. Schubert marks the opening Allegro moderato, and that moderate pace continues throughout. The opening theme–energized by dotted rhythms and turns–spins off some very active secondary material, full of chordal writing and passages that send the right hand into the piano’s highest range. The second theme group glides darkly along a steady murmur of sixteenth-notes–though this music is very quiet, Schubert marks it appassionato. It is the right hand that has this steady pattern of murmuring sixteenths and the left has the fragmentary theme, which means that the left hand must frequently cross over to play above the right. Schubert brings back both these groups and then concludes quietly with a brief reminiscence of the very beginning.

No. 2 in A-flat Major is a stately minuet whose main theme Schubert marks sempre legato. Its trio section moves to D-flat major and drives along an unending sequence of triplets before the return to the opening material. No. 3 in B-flat Major is based on the famous theme that Schubert had first used in his incidental music to the play Rosamunde in 1823. This graceful melody appealed so much to him that he used it in his String Quartet in A Minor (1824) and again in this impromptu, where it serves as the basis for a set of five extended variations. The theme itself may be simple, but these variations are exceptionally difficult. Schubert brings back the theme for a quiet restatement at the end, and this too involves another variation of the famous melody. Schubert specifies that No. 4 in F Minor should be performed Allegro scherzando, and there is an element of play about this lively music, which dances energetically along its 3/8 meter. This is brilliant music, and Schubert rounds it off with an exciting–and very brief–coda.

Quintet in A Major for Piano and Strings, D. 667 “Trout”

Two events in the year 1817 led to the creation of the “Trout” Quintet. The first of these was Schubert’s meeting the famous baritone Michael Vogl, twenty-nine years his senior. Vogl, one of the leading singers of the Vienna Court Opera, recognized the young composer’s genius and became his champion, introducing many of his works, including–ten years later–Die Winterreise. The second event came in August, when Schubert wrote a brief song–Die Forelle (“The Trout”)–that quickly became very popular.

Two years later, in the summer of 1819, Vogl invited Schubert, then 22, to accompany him on a walking trip through Upper Austria to see the country where Vogl had been born. Schubert happily agreed, and the two spent the summer in the town of Steyr, about 90 miles west of Vienna. Schubert was enchanted with the town and countryside, with its mountains, streams, and meadows; to one of his friends in Vienna he wrote to say that the countryside was “unbelievably beautiful.” He was enthusiastically received by the local townspeople, and one of them–a wealthy merchant and amateur cellist named Sylvester Paumgartner–asked Schubert for a piece of music that he and his friends might play. He made two stipulations: that Schubert write for the players on hand and that the piece be based on Schubert’s song Die Forelle, of which Paumgartner was very fond.

And so in a lovely setting in the summer of 1819, Schubert wrote what has become one of the best-loved of all chamber works: the “Trout” Quintet. It is a quintet for piano and strings, but because he was writing for the available musicians Schubert dropped the second violin and added a string bass. The bass part is not particularly demanding, but the cello part is full of wonderful writing, some of it apparently too difficult for Paumgartner, who struggled with his part at the quintet’s first performance that summer.

The “Trout” Quintet is one of those rare pieces of completely “happy” music–one feels that Schubert’s joy in the Austrian countryside has made its way into every measure of this music. It also gives the impression of having been written at great speed. Not because of anything glib or superficial in the music, but because it feels spontaneous, as if this music poured easily from Schubert’s pen. The Allegro vivace opens with a fanfare-like arpeggio from the piano that recurs throughout the sonata-form movement. The violin has the first theme, while the piano introduces the gently-dotted second subject of a movement characterized by some unusual harmonic modulations. The Andante is built on three distinct theme groups, the first and third belonging to the piano. The second theme–played by viola and cello duet–is one of those gorgeous Schubert melodies that seem an endless flow of haunting song. The Scherzo, in standard scherzo-and-trio form, rips along with much energy and high spirits, while the Andantino is a set of five variations on Die Forelle, which has given the quintet its nickname. Strings alone play the melody of the song, the piano entering at the first variation. The variations are straightforward, and Schubert closes the movement with a brief Allegretto section, which is really a sixth variation. The good-spirited Allegro giusto races along happily on two principal themes, both of them played initially by the strings. There is no true development in this movement–only a fairly literal recapitulation–and one of the sunniest works in the repertory sails happily to its close.