Schubert: Six Moments musicaux, D. 780
6 pieces, free to read, hear and print, in the composer's own order.
Open the sheet music librarySchubert's six Moments musicaux were published in Vienna in 1828, the year he died, though some had appeared in albums a few years earlier. They are short character pieces, each a single mood: a call in octaves, a hushed song, a Russian dance, a moto perpetuo in the style of Bach, a galloping march and a slow farewell.
They are here in order. No. 3 in F minor is the famous one and the easiest; No. 4 and No. 5 ask for steady fingers and No. 6 for a singing tone, and every one plays back so you can hear it first.
About the pieces
Moment musical No. 1 in C major, D. 780
The first of Schubert's six Moments musicaux opens with a call in bare octaves, answered by gentle triplets, like a horn heard across a valley. A warm middle section in G major rocks over a steady triplet bass before the opening returns.
Moment musical No. 2 in A-flat major, D. 780
A hushed, slow song in A-flat major, built from soft dotted chords, which twice turns to a darker, flowing melody in F-sharp minor, the second time loud and urgent, before it settles back into calm.
Moment musical No. 3 in F minor, D. 780
The shortest and best known of Schubert's six Moments musicaux, published in 1828, the year he died. It was printed first on its own, as an Air russe, a Russian air, and its tune does have the lilt of a folk dance: a plain melody in the right hand over a left hand that ticks like a little march.
Moment musical No. 4 in C-sharp minor, D. 780
A busy, Bach-like stream of sixteenth notes in C-sharp minor frames a gentle, syncopated Trio in D-flat major, so the piece moves from clockwork energy to a lilting song and back again.
Moment musical No. 5 in F minor, D. 780
A galloping, fiery piece in F minor driven by one insistent long-short-short rhythm in full chords, with loud outbursts, that finally breaks into F major at the very end.
Moment musical No. 6 in A-flat major, D. 780
The last Moment musical is a slow, hymn-like Allegretto in A-flat major, with a surprising turn to E major and a tender Trio in D-flat. It is one of Schubert's most intimate piano pieces.