Schubert: Dances for Piano, Vol. I - Jacques Abram

Dances for the piano occupied Schubert throughout his compositional life; they are to be found among his earliest as well as his most mature works. Although he regarded these dances as functional music and also as a means of earning some money through publication they served at the same time as a sort of musical diary, reflecting varying moods and providing a chance to try out in miniature ideas which later found their way into his more extended compositions.

The diaries and letters of Schubert's friends are full of references to these dances, which Schubert would improvise at the piano for dancing at informal gatherings. Later, at his leisure, he would write them down, making changes and improvements as he felt necessary. One waltz, in fact, was preserved through oral tradition for over a hundred years in one family. Maurice J. E. Brown, in his biography of Schubert, tells the story: during World War II, Richard Strauss met the great-granddaughter of one of Schubert's friends, a Frau Mautner-Markhof. She played for Strauss the melody of a waltz tune which Schubert had improvised at her great-grandparents' wedding, a tune which pleased the bride so much that she had taught it to her three sons, who in turn had taught it to their children. It was not until this meeting, in 1943, when Strauss wrote out he melody as it was played for him, that this little waltz by Schubert was finally preserved on paper.