Four impromptus Chopin wrote during his lifetime. The most famous by far is No. 4, with which Julian Fontana – Chopin's friend, colleague, and factotum – took two liberties: he called it Fantasie Impromptu and published it posthumously, disregarding the will of the Polish master, who at the time did not consider it worthy of publication. Let us note, by the way, that it bears the No. 4 precisely because of its posthumous publication, but it was the first that Chopin tackled, almost recently arrived in Paris in 1834, initiating with it the series of four.
Chopin would write three more in the following years, which would soon be published, dedicated to some countess, except the second, which simply does not bear a dedication. Curiously, none of them will come even remotely close to the later popularity of the Fantasia Impromptu. However, they are as perfectly accomplished pieces as it. (Let us speculate that Julian Fontana will have thought the same of it but in reverse). Especially Impromptus No 3, which, in the opinion of scholars, is the most perfect piece of the four.
Improvisations?
Etymologically, yes. The term was of recent appearance, not before 1817, in the works of Kalkbrenner, or Schubert. They are improvisations, at first, but then painstakingly worked out, although, as the musicologist and pianist Alfred Cortot rightly pointed out, "the music must seem to be born from the performer's hands". Ultimately, then, in an impromptu, the performer must "improvise" if not the notes, then the emotional content.
Their form is simple. They respond to the A-B-A scheme, a central theme flanked by two similar episodes, perhaps twins if it were not for the essential coda in the repetition.
Impromptu No 3, in G-flat major, opus 51
It is the last one he wrote, of course. It was composed in 1842 and published in February of the following year, with a dedication to Countess Esterházy, a pupil of the master, one of the many highborn pupils that George Sand used to call his "magnificent countesses."
Although without any concession to gratuitous virtuosity, the first section is marked vivace giusto, lively and light but without rubatos. In the opinion of scholars, this is music "shaken with confessions, filled with impulses and intoxicating ecstasy." Double notes characterize the right hand's eagerness in the second section.
The brilliant performance is by the American pianist Kate Liu, born in Singapore in 1994.
