Schubert: Four Impromptus, Op.90 [Alon Goldstein]

No.1, C minor 00:00
No.2, E-flat major 08:25
No.3, G-flat major 13:15
No.4, A-flat major 18:38

The recital program consists of three parts; the first part is arrangement of short pieces of Bach, having a dialogue with Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn. The second part is the center of the recital, the whole set of Schubert Impromptus Op.90. The last part is short pieces from different countries; Debussy, Albeniz, Bernstein, and Chopin, each expresses a different stage in my journey.


Part 1 — Silence
Music begins with silence. At times it doesn’t have a beginning altogether, it continues what has already been there before. The opening set symbolizes that. It prepares us to … sound.

Part 2 — The “Bubble”
In playing Schubert’s music one enters a different dimension of time. His music exists in its own “bubble”. It is a bubble that does not relate to today’s world, it is a fantasy world. There we can find a serene brook. It talks! Also a beautiful maiden, who unfortunately loves not you, but the hunter. A naughty fish is jumping out of the water, and the deceptively seductive dark Erlkönig is waiting for the right moment. It is a world that wherever you turn and wonder you will feel a stranger, just like that old man standing outside in the snow, turning the handle in his music box.

Part 3 — Wandering
Going out of my “bubble”. Visiting extraordinarily different places and characters. Each character is extremely distinct — French, Spanish, American, and Polish. The French, a tone poem of colour. The Spanish, using different flavors through perpetual motion. American Jazz with Grotesque rhythms, and Polish revolutionary side and struggle. Here are opportunities to wander through different, profound expressive languages in brief exposure to… time.


UMKC Conservatory
March 2023