SCHUBERT: COMPLETE IMPROMPTUS, 6 MOMENTS MUSICAUX, SONATA in A MAJOR, D. 644 - JÖRG DEMUS

Franz Schubert piano works Demus liner notes

In some ways life has changed very little in the past 150 years. No one would deny that faster and more comfortable transportation and the varied uses of electricity have made our lives more comfortable than they had been, but basically people still seem to fall in and out of love, and they still express themselves in the arts in a manner not unrelated to that of the past. When they begin their career today's young artists usually experience some of the same vicissitudes as their predecessors. Often times, too, they feel they will never "make it" because they don't have experience, and they don't have experience because . they haven't been given a chance to prove themselves. Somehow, of course, the chances for publications, performances and exhibitions do usually materialize, and the young adult artist takes his first baby­steps -- his professional career has begun. All this is as true today as it was over one hundred years ago. There is, for example, a close parallel between the way Schubert lived during the second decade of the 19th century and the way young composers live today. Schubert's life has been the subject of countless dissertations and studies, but few writers seem to realize that what he lived through in the 1820's, he young composer of today is living through now.