Crtainly there appears about its graphics something of the ballades in much the same way there appears about the grpahics of the Preludes something of the Etudes, and yet, curiously, there is in its colour and cast, an intangible foretelling of his later Fantasie in F minor.
Chopin himself was not so convinced of the worth of this particular Impromptu, composed in 1838. In a letter to Fontana dated 18 October, 1839 he wrote:
"I have my manuscripts in order, properly annotated. there are six of them with your Polonaises not counting the 7th, and an Impromptu which perhaps is poor. I don't know yet, it's too new (yes!). But I hope it's good."
Perhaps had Chopin considered this piece something more than an Impromptu - not that any of his Impromptus are less satisfying than any of his other works - or something more aligned to the polished veneer of the Ballades, he may not have had such doubts about it, for in being something not quite an impromptu, it becomes something more, and would perhaps have been considered to be of greater consequence musically.
Kullak believed it placed greater demands on the performer, if for anything because the more formal harmonies of proportion and symmetry were discarded. The "sunken bells" of its nocturne-like beginning - a bass James Huneker described as carillon-like, foretells of Debussy's own sea-swung tollings and is possibly less dream-like than Kullak would have it, there being about its ilk something more dimly dramatic, a mysterious screen of scenes from a life more elusive than it was real, but through its originality, more real than a dream.
PHILLIP WILCHER
August 2002
(Article published by Music Teacher Magazine)
