Hyperion Records

The three pieces of D946 were composed in May 1828 and were the last piano works Schubert wrote before embarking on his final group of three sonatas. Schubert’s autograph lacks the final touches he gave his music when preparing it for publication; nor do we know if he intended the pieces to form a coherent group, along the lines of the two sets of Impromptus. At any rate, Brahms, who first edited them for publication in 1868, gave them the neutral title of Drei Klavierstücke.

The first piece, in E flat minor, is breathlessly agitated, though its B major middle section unfolds a broad melody that stands in violent contrast. Schubert initially designed the piece as a five-part form, including a second slow episode. Although he eventually deleted this second episode, it is fully worked-out and clearly legible in the autograph, and it has been included in the present recording. The resulting five-part structure is one that is also found in the second panel of the triptych.; this second piece has a main section in the style of a barcarolle, and two fine episodes in the minor, the second of which brings with it a change of metre (though not of pulse). The set ends with an Allegro in Schubert’s jubilant C major style. Here, too, there is a central episode in a contrasting metre. Its tempo relationship with the outer sections is less clear, though Schubert no doubt wanted this chorale-like passage to form a moment of calm between the flamboyant material that surrounds it.

from notes by Misha Donat © 1996