does anyone know how the pedelling in this prece is ment to work

http://www.sheetmusicarchive.net/compositions_b/schb90_3.pdf

thanks

Zac

The score for which you provided a link simply indicates that the pedal should be used throughout this piece; exactly how you use it will depend to some degree on the sonority and sustain of the piano you are playing. Basically, you should change the pedal when the harmony changes. The accompaniment figuration should always be kept to a gentle murmur in the background, but there should never be a blurring or overlapping of the harmonies.

If you don't have a recording of this Impromptu to listen to, you can listen to the recording I made of it on "Member Recordings" forum that I posted in March of 2007. It may not be a perfect recording of it, but I was reasonably pleased with it at the time. It's now down towards the bottom of the first page.

Regards,

I've played this piece often, but I've never noticed the double alla breve sign before. I've never noticed it in any music before. Does this mean that Schubert is suggesting one beat to the measure? That's really a very long beat, or else the piece is really moving along much faster than most of us play it.

Tomasino

Tomasino :

I've never quite understood the double alla breve in the time signature of this piece, although all editions I have of this carry that time signature. Only ABRSM makes mention of the fact that the first edition of Nos 3 and 4 of this Opus (Carl Haslinger, Vienna, 1857) carried a single alla breve marking as well as the key signature of G major "... presumably to avoid alarming prospective purchasers." I can't conceive of this piece in "one-to-a-bar," and am quite happy to "ignore" the implications of the double alla breve.

Regards,

No, it's just an old way of writing 4/2 time: four beats to the bar.