Waltz, D 979 - Franz Schubert

Waltz, D 979 - Franz Schubert

One of the most beautiful piano miniatures I think I've ever heard, not just of Schubert but of anyone. So much humanity and feeling packed into one slow waltz, hardly recognisable as a dance in origin apart from its regular structure of two eight-bar sections repeated. Despite its brevity, this piece surely ranks alongside the impromptus and 'Moments Musicaux' and shows just how far Schubert outgrew his Classical-period roots and anticipated full-blown Romanticism in music.

The Deutsch number, assuming the chronology to be accurate, suggests that this must be one of the last things Schubert wrote. However, wikipedia lists Ds 966 - 992 as 'undated works'. Could this nevertheless be one of his last pieces, written after the last piano sonatas and the string quintet, the music of a man knowingly on the brink of death? Or just an inspired moment from earlier in life, after disappointment in love or after realising that he had an illness that would cut his life short? It hardly matters - the music is all we need know.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• schubert
• franz
• waltz
• 979
• minature
• poetic
• miniature
• trees

[aussiechickdiana]

It IS beautiful but sad...

Nevertheless, as you say, it is the music that is important, and we now have...diana