Impromptu in C major (1865–73)

Chabrier’s Impromptu is one of the most astonishing of 19th-century French piano pieces. Admired for its originality when it was first performed by Saint-Saëns at the Société Nationale in 1877, it was actually written twelve years earlier – according, that is, to the ageing and ailing composer in a letter dated 1893. While it seems highly unlikely that Chabrier could have written such a harmonically, stylistically and pianistically sophisticed piece in 1865, there is a possibility that it was thoroughly rewritten before it was first published, with its dedication “à Madame Édouard Manet,” in 1873

Anyway, the Impromptu is a tribute not only to Mme Manet, an accomplished pianist, but also to her husband, who shared his good friend Chabrier’s interest in Spain and who also found inspiration for his art there. Although the composer was not to visit the country until 1882 – ­he came back from that trip with the material for his explosive orchestral rhapsody España – he had already absorbed the Spanish musical idiom so thoroughly that in the Impromptu he anticipates the next generation of French composers in his poetic, even impressionistic treatment of it. Beginning with a characteristically brilliant flourish high in the right hand and a robust rhythmic figure in the left, Chabrier introduces his first Spanish theme in subtle syncopations and dreamy harmonies. The Schumannesque material associated with it is stylistically incongruous perhaps but then there is another Spanish theme, this one contrastingly vigorous and dancing all over the keyboard. After an obliquely approached and more salon-style but no less melodious middle section, the main themes are recalled and rounded off with a resourcefully coloured coda.

Chabrier’s Impromptu is one of the most astonishing of 19th-century French piano pieces. Admired for its originality when it was first performed by Saint-Saëns at the Société Nationale in 1877, it was at least four years old by then – it had been published in 1873 – and according to the composer it was eight years older even than that. While Chabrier’s highly authoritative biographer, Roger Delage, accepts the date of 1865, it is surely too sophisticated in its harmonies and its piano writing for such an early stage in the composer’s development. Perhaps the answer is that the Impromptu published by Hartmann in 1873, with a dedication to Madame Édouard Manet, is a thoroughly revised version of a piece written several years earlier.

Anyway, the Impromptu is a tribute not only to Mme Manet, an accomplished pianist, but also to her husband, who shared his friend Chabrier’s interest in Spain and who also found inspiration for his art there. Although the composer was not to visit the country until 1882 – ­he came back from that trip with the material for his explosive orchestral rhapsody España – he had already absorbed the Spanish musical idiom so thoroughly that in the Impromptu he anticipates the next generation of French composers in his poetic, even impressionistic treatment of it. Begining with a characteristically brilliant flourish high in the right hand and a robust rhythmic figure in the left, Chabrier introduces his first Spanish theme in subtle syncopations and dreamy harmonies. The Schumannesque material associated with it is stylistically incongruous perhaps but then there is another Spanish theme, this one contrastingly vigorous and dancing all over the keyboard. An obliquely approached and not so Spanish but no less melodious middle section is repeated before the the main themes are recalled and rounded off with a resourcefully coloured coda.