Impromptu in A-flat major, D. 899 No. 4, by Schubert
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How to learn Impromptu in A-flat major, D. 899 No. 4
- Hear it through at Slow (70 bpm). Open it in the reader, choose Slow, and follow the page with your eyes without playing. As it plays, count 3 to the bar.
- Learn the right hand of bars 1 to 8 on its own, in A♭ major. Say the note names out loud the first time through, then play it three times without stopping.
- Find the chords under it: A♭m, E♭, E♭7 and G♭7. Play each one as a block in your left hand and say its name, so you know what the harmony is before the left hand has to move.
- Learn the left hand of the same bars on its own. Keep it quiet and even: it is the floor the tune stands on.
- Put hands together at Slow, 70 bpm. Bars 1 to 8 only. Stop after every wrong note and play that bar again before moving on.
- Move up to Steady (105 bpm) once Slow feels easy three times in a row. Then learn the next 8 bars the same way: right hand, left hand, together.
- Play the whole piece (about 6 minutes) from the start, at whatever speed keeps it going. A steady run with a few slips beats a fast one that stops.
About this piece
The last of Schubert's first set of four Impromptus, written in 1827, the year before he died; only the first two were printed in his lifetime and this one waited until 1857. Cascades of falling arpeggios begin in A-flat minor and slowly brighten into major, and a passionate middle section in C-sharp minor sings in the left hand.
How to play it
The cascades are light and fast, but the chords that answer them carry the melody, so give those a warmer sound. In the middle section bring out the left-hand tune and keep the right-hand repeated chords quiet and steady.
Reading it, and printing it
The score opens in Artform's reader, which shows the music as engraved notation and plays it back so you can hear the line before you try it. You can slow the tempo down, loop a passage that is not working yet, and print the page when you would rather have paper on the stand.
The file itself is MusicXML, which MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale and Dorico all open, so the notes are yours to keep whatever you read them in.
Edition: Mutopia Project #1552, in the public domain. Converted to MusicXML by Artform and checked note for note against the original.
More free Schubert sheet music
Who Schubert was
Austrian composer who wrote as if he knew he had no time to waste, producing over six hundred songs, nine symphonies, and a mountain of chamber and piano music in a career that ended at thirty-one. He worked mostly outside the public eye, supported by a devoted circle of friends who held evenings, later called Schubertiades, just to hear whatever he'd written that week. He wrote the song "Erlkönig," one of his most famous, at just seventeen. In his final year, dying of an illness likely worsened by syphilis, he produced some of his most searching work, the last piano sonatas and the String Quintet, music written by a young man who somehow already sounded like someone looking back on a long l…
Learn the music behind it
Reading a piece and understanding it are different skills. If you want the harmony under this one, the chord trainer teaches chords the way songs use them, and the scale pages cover the fingering for every key, including A♭ major.