| Six Impromptus | |
| Type: | Piano solos |
| Image Upright: | .9 |
| Border: | Yes |
| Opus: | 5 |
| Publisher: | Lindgren (1894) |
| Duration: | 14.5 mins |
The Six Impromptus (in German: German: Sechs Impromptus), Op. 5, is a collection of compositions for piano written in 1893 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.
The First Impromptu is in G minor. Marked Moderato, it has a duration of about two minutes.
The Second Impromptu is also in G minor. Marked LentoVivace, it has a duration of about two minutes.
The Third Impromptu is in A minor. Marked Moderato (alla marcia), it has a duration of about three minutes.
The Fourth Impromptu is in E minor. Marked Andantino, it has a duration of about two minutes.
The Fifth Impromptu is in B minor. Marked Vivace, it has a duration of about 3.5 minutes, The Sixth Impromptu, on the other hand, is in E major; marked Comodo, it lasts about two minutes. In 1893, Sibelius reused themes from Nights of Jealousy (Swedish: Svartsjukans nätter, JS 125)—an 1893 melodrama for narrator, vocalise soprano, and piano trio to poems by J. L. Runeberg–for Nos. 5–6 of the Six Impromptus. In 1894, he combined the fifth and sixth impromptus into an arrangement for string orchestra and titled the new piece Impromptu.
Robert Layton dismisses the Six Impromptus as "for the most part ... feeble and uninventive".
The Finnish pianist Erik T. Tawaststjerna made the first studio recording of the complete Six Impromptus in 1979 for BIS; of these, Nos. 3–4 were world premieres. The remaining four pieces had been recorded earlier, with premieres as follows: No. 1–2 by the Swedish pianist on His Master's Voice (1956); No. 6 by the German pianist Horst Minkofski-Garrigues for Telefunken-Decca for (MG 4468, 1968); and No. 5 by the Japanese pianist Izumi Tateno on EMI (1971). The sortable table below lists, in addition to the aforementioned Tawaststjerna traversal, other commercially available recordings of the complete Six Impromptus:
| Pianist | Runtimes | Recording venue | Label | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| scope="col" | |||||||||||||
| 1 | 1:46 | 2:03 | 2:49 | 2:11 | 3:25 | 2:12 | 14:51 | 1979 | , Nacka | BIS | |||
| 2 | 1:50 | 1:58 | 2:08 | 2:34 | 3:31 | 2:56 | 14:59 | 1992 | Christ's Hospital, Horsham | Olympia | |||
| 3 | 1:40 | 1:44 | 3:08 | 2:42 | 3:49 | 1:45 | 14:48 | 1995 | Naxos | ||||
| 4 | 1:49 | 1:44 | 2:51 | 2:14 | 3:59 | 2:10 | 14:47 | 1995 | Ainola | Canyon Classics | |||
| 5 | (1) | 2:50 | 1:57 | 3:01 | 2:27 | 3:24 | 3:11 | 16:50 | 1996 | YLE M2 Studio, Helsinki | Finlandia | ||
| 6 | 2:19 | 1:38 | 2:12 | 2:13 | 3:08 | 7:00 | 18:35 | 1997 | St Martin's Church, East Woodhay | Naxos | |||
| 7 | 1:53 | 1:51 | 2:33 | 2:07 | 3:36 | 6:02 | 18:22 | 2003 | Nybrokajen 11, Stockholm | BIS | |||
| 8 | 3:00 | 2:05 | 3:59 | 2:27 | 3:39 | 2:28 | 17:38 | 2014 | , Berlin | Cappriccio | |||
| 9 | (2) | 2:29 | 1:50 | 2:29 | 2:17 | 3:17 | 2:49 | 15:11 | 2015 | Sello Hall, Espoo | Piano Classics | ||
| 10 | 2:20 | 1:51 | 2:34 | 2:29 | 3:26 | 3:50 | 16:30 | 2015 | [{{em|Unknown}}], Helsinki | Sony Classical | |||
| 11 | 2:11 | 2:02 | 2:24 | 1:45 | 4:03 | 5:05 | 17:30 | 2017 | Sidney Sussex College Chapel | Resonus Classics | |||
| 12 | 2:07 | 1:51 | 2:49 | 2:09 | 3:48 | 6:24 | 19:19 | 2019 | Studio 2, Swedish Radio | Sterling | |||
| 13 | |||||||||||||
| 14 | Quartz |
sv:Fabian Dahlström
. Jean Sibelius: Thematisch-bibliographisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke. Jean Sibelius: A Thematic Bibliographic Index of His Works. 2003. Breitkopf & Härtel. Wiesbaden. de. 3-7651-0333-0.