Over two years have elapsed since Andras Schiff gave us his first disc of Schubert miniatures with the second set of Impromptus as its major work (7/90). Now comes a similar miscellany including the first set, again, like its predecessor, closely recorded in the warmly resonant Mozartsaal of Vienna's Konzerthaus. Perhaps I can best describe his approach by saying how completely different it is from that of another distinguished young contender in this field, Krystian Zimerman. When reviewing that artist's DG coupling of both sets, I wrote that he constantly made me think of how these pieces might have sounded if Schubert had given them to the orchestra rather than the piano. From Schiff, they emerge wholly keyboard-inspired—like everything else in the programme. Rather than trying to project the music as if in a large concert-hall, he calls to mind the composer spontaneously introducing it in the relaxed company of personal friends, even perhaps before having fastened it down in every detail on paper. Though in deference to its alla breve time-signature the G flat Impromptu (No. 3) flows more swiftly than we often hear it, in general he prefers leisurely tempos, always in his phrasing allowing time for the melody to sing. There is intensity and strength in plenty at moments of climax. But nothing sounds calculated or inflated.
Listening to the Moments musicaux 'in the dark' you might perhaps even guess the player to be very considerably older than Schiff, so tenderly self-effacing and simple is his manner (and is there sometimes just a slight suggestion of the older generation's way of playing one hand slightly before the other?). But in the spirited No. 5 in F minor there's no doubt whatsoever that we are in the presence of a youthful Hungarian—as is still more evident in the concluding Grazer Galopp, done with splendid rhythmic elan and tonal glint. Like the Six Deutsche Tanze, all lightness and grace, this Galopp is particularly welcome on CD in its original keyboard form instead of as orchestrated by others. The recital begins with a cajoling reminder of Schiff's own land, the Ungarische Melodie close enough to the composer's heart for him to use it again a few weeks later for the concluding Allegretto of his four-handed Divertissement a la Hongroise.'