3 Klavierstücke

The exact circumstances surrounding Schubert's composition of 11 exquisite piano miniatures toward the end of his life remain shrouded in mystery. Several were left untitled, while others were headed simply Klavierstück (“piano piece”). The first eight (D. 899 and D. 935) were eventually grouped together in two sets of four and given the attractive salon title of Impromptu, but the remaining three went unacknowledged until 1868, when they appeared in print as Drei Klavierstücke, edited anonymously by Schubert devotee Johannes Brahms. In his authoritative catalogue (1951, rev. 1978), Otto Erich Deutsch accorded them the collective number D. 946. The opening piece, based in an angst-fuelled E-flat minor, exists in two versions: the original rondo form ABACA and Schubert’s revised ABA structure. This is followed by a tender, barcarolle-like “Allegretto” in E-flat, whose elysian contentment is twice interrupted by minor-key outbursts with an emphatic rhythmic thrust. The startling contrasts that characterise the first two pieces spill over into the third, which offsets a lively, rhythmically syncopated C major against a plaintive central section in the remote key of D-flat.