Schubert – Ungarische Melodie / Klavierstücke D946 / Impromptus Op. 90

Discogs

French pianist Brigitte Engerer was born in (then French) Tunisia in 1952. Although her first public concert was at age 9, her real break came in 1980 when she was chosen by Von Karajan to play with the Berlin Philharmonic. She subsequently played for the big names in classical music at the time, and also featured in some movies. I personally didn’t know her, but the performance on this record touched me. A pity it is not on Spotify, maybe you can find it on YouTube.

The pieces that touched me most were the Impromptus on the B-side. Schubert wrote two series of them, and this is the second. Confusingly, the Klavierstücke on the A-side are also sometimes called Impromptus, and in a way they are. However, structurally they are more like what was also called Moments musicaux. This has to do with how Schubert treats the thematic material, but I’ll leave that stuff to the musicologists.

Add a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *