Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Klavierstück Op. posthumous No. 2 · Impromptu, Op. 90, No. 2
Klavierstück Op. posthumous No. 1 · Impromptu, Op. 90, No. 4
Moment Musicaux, Op. 94, No. 2
Allegro Scherzando, Op. 142, No. 4
Wanderer Fantasy (D 760)
Jura Margulis, piano
The German-American pianist of Russian heritage was
the artistic trigger for fact that Steingraeber took up
the idea of the “sordino pedal” from the late 18th
century and built it into a modern D-232 grand
piano – Jura Margulis recorded the present Schubert
CD with this sound extension. Around the mid-19th
century, this possibility of altering and extending the
sound had largely disappeared from the canon of
various pedal functions – it was retained in Vienna
until the early 20th century, perhaps out of respect
for the renowned Conrad Graf, who equipped all
his grand pianos in the first half of the 19th century
with horizontally adjustable rakes out of felt, naming
the entire mechanism “moderator”. Erard used deerleather
rakes for a similar function in his grand pianos,
calling the sound effect “celeste”. Composers call this
function “sordino” because the sound modification is
related to the mutes of the string instruments.