Schubert's sets of Impromptus - 4 works or one?

[LeMartinPecheur]

Listening to Paul Lewis play D899 tonight it suddenly struck me how it's permissible to play an odd Impromptu on its own, perhaps as an encore, but you never (OK, I never ) hear anyone play a really mixed collection drawing on both sets, as you might with Debussy Preludes or Images, Chopin Studies, Preludes or Waltzes, etc etc.

It's as if there's a feeling that each of Schubert's sets of 4 is somehow considered to be One Big Work, even though it has always (I think) been permissible to play one out of context (much as R3 now plays detached movements of any multi-movement work).

Personally I'm very happy to hear the Schuberts as a set but would have no qualms at all about a pianist playing them in a different order or making a random selection from both books. Yet nobody seems to do that. Would it somehow be a sin against the holy ghost?

Any views??

[Roehre]

Though not conceived as a kind of disguised sonatas, I would go for a single or some Impromptus from one set or a complete set, but not mixing them (i.e. playing parts from both sets immediately following each other).

The first series D.899 wasn't published as a set (only nos.1+2 were published together), the 2nd D.935 was.
This points to a way of performing in which D.935 IMO shouldn't be mixed with 899.

To play parts of 899 separately or together is IMO therefore more a decision to be made by the performer than splitting up 935.

There is however no key structure between the pieces within either set which is that important that this should preclude partial performances of either set. Mixing them however might cause keys following each other which Schubert might not have approved.

[aeolium]

There is however no key structure between the pieces within either set which is that important that this should preclude partial performances of either set.

Though three of the four D935 impromptus are either in F minor or its relative major. I agree that the set does not really sound like a sonata but I would much prefer to hear all four of the pieces together rather than single impromptus.

[Peter Katin]

Listening to Paul Lewis play D899 tonight it suddenly struck me how it's permissible to play an odd Impromptu on its own, perhaps as an encore, but you never (OK, I never ) hear anyone play a really mixed collection drawing on both sets, as you might with Debussy Preludes or Images, Chopin Studies, Preludes or Waltzes, etc etc.

It's as if there's a feeling that each of Schubert's sets of 4 is somehow considered to be One Big Work, even though it has always (I think) been permissible to play one out of context (much as R3 now plays detached movements of any multi-movement work).

Personally I'm very happy to hear the Schuberts as a set but would have no qualms at all about a pianist playing them in a different order or making a random selection from both books. Yet nobody seems to do that. Would it somehow be a sin against the holy ghost?

Any views??

I can't see what's wrong with mixing them - anyway, I do.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I only ever perform them singly. Had Schubert wanted them performed together, he would have called them sonatas, and written them in appropriate keys.

Are Beethoven's first 3 piano sonatas 3 works or 1?

[Roehre]

Had Schubert wanted them performed together, he would have called them sonatas, and written them in appropriate keys.

A bit tricky argument, Alpensinfonie, as the title Impromptus isn't Schubert's and a couple of his sonatas weren't named sonatas by Schubert himself either....
The "key-factor" is obviously a main factor whether these pieces are or aren't meant to be sonatas (or whatever, if not so).

[johnb]

Perhaps someone would like to comment on Paul Lewis's actual performance.

I wasn't totally convinced by the first half of the recital (somehow I often get that feeling with Paul Lewis but the fualt is probably mine). However, I was totally won over by his performance of the sonata (D894) in the second half which I thought really very fine.

[Bryn]

Indeed Roehre (and happy birthday, by the way). Schubert's 'sonatas' are a bit of a minefield in terms of categorisation. It tends to depend on who is playing some of them when it comes to which movements are included or left out, for instance, or indeed whether or not a grouping of pieces he left are labelled as a sonata or not.

[antongould]

I prefer to listen to the 4 Mr. Lewis played,very well I thought, as a set.