After the D major episode there are two
bars of anonymous modulation--these bars creak on their hinges--
and the first subject reappears in F, then climbs to F sharp,
thence merges into a glittering melodic organ-point, exciting,
brilliant, the whole subsiding into an echo of earlier harmonies.
The final octaves are marked fortissimo which always seems
brutal. Yet its logic lies in the scheme of the composer. Perhaps
he wished to arouse us harshly from his dreamland, as was his
habit while improvising for friends--a glissando would send them
home shivering after an evening of delicious reverie.
Niecks finds this Impromptu lacking the pith of the first. To me
it is of more moment than the other three. It is irregular and
wavering in outline, the moods are wandering and capricious, yet
who dares deny its power, its beauty? In its use of accessory
figures it does not reveal so much ingenuity, but just because
the "figure in the carpet" is not so varied in pattern, its
passion is all the deeper. It is another Ballade, sadder, more
meditative of the tender grace of vanished days.
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