Op. 90 No. 1. A lonely, march-like call, answered by chords, returning in ever darker variations.
The story
The set opens with a single loud G in both hands, then a bare melody, like a solitary voice, answered by soft chords.
Schubert spends almost ten minutes turning that one melody over: in major and minor, under rippling triplets, in a storm and then in calm.
Two things to know
- It is one of the longest pieces in the library.
- Schubert wrote it in the same year as his song cycle Winterreise, a winter journey of loss.
How to play it
Make the single melody line sound lonely at the start, then let the answering chords sound like a choir.