Despite his tragic death when he was 31, Schubert left us an incredibly rich music legacy. His creativity in the last months of his life produced spectacular music works. One of these was the "Three Piano Pieces".
The first movement reveals an agitated and restless mood, developed through a breathless and recurring melody and turbulent theme. It may feel like you are chasing a difficult, almost impossible achievement, and you are out of breath, almost having reached your physical and mental limits. But then, a beautiful part comes, something like a reward for your strenuous efforts, expressed through one of the most tender, serene and uplifting melodies. And finally, the third music theme comes to express a kind of painful acceptance of a tragic situation.
The music expresses Schubert's complicated emotional state in the last year before his death where his anguish probably alternated with hope and acceptance. One of the most difficult things to explain is that these pieces had been largely ignored by musicians during the greatest part of the 20th century. It is only recently that they are being increasingly considered as among the greatest music pieces of the piano repertoire. Kathleek Dale, a composer, pianist and musicologist, had described Schubert's last compositions as each being a "poem in sound". Inspired by Dale's words, we would suggest as a title of this music " Three poems in sound".