Recording
Title: Le Voyage Magnifique
Performer: Maria Joao Pires
Year: 1996-96
Length: 71 minutes
Review
Schubert's Impromptus have been for a long time my favourite piano pieces, each sounds so perfectly whole and so modern as well as intricate that it grabs your attention throughout while not sacrificing a certain minimalism. In fact I would only compare them to Beethoven's sonatas in terms of greatness for the piano.
Like much classical music Schubert's Impromptus suffer from over-popularisation, making it harder for the aware listener to approach them with completely fresh ears, if some of that is achieved it is not hard to see them for the amazing pieces that they are.
Another bonus for me is to have a recording by Maria Joao Pires here, the greatest Portuguese pianist of all times which makes by Portuguese bones particularly happy. So I am back in Manchester for a while, finishing packing, I have got an amazing house in Portugal now and I can't wait to be back there settled in... being in the sun with 10 more degrees Celsius than here.
Final Grade
10/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
The Impromptus are often considered companion pieces to the Six Moments musicaux, and they are often recorded and published together.
It has been said that Schubert was deeply influenced in writing these pieces by the Impromptus, Op. 7, of Jan Václav Voříšek (1822) and by the music of Voříšek's teacher Václav Tomášek.
Pires Plays Op.90 no.3:
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