Schubert Divertissement à l'hongroise g-moll D 818 - III. Allegretto (Klavierduo Holma)

Franz Schubert - Divertissement a I'hongroise D. 818

When listening to the Divertissement a I'hongroise in G minor D. 818 one is immediately struck -and moved by its quintessentially Schubertian sense of fate.
Strictly speaking, the term divertissement means 'distraction' or 'amusement'. But Schubert here abandons all harmless folksiness. In the middle of the work, if not at its very centre, is a march in C minor, while the vast finale begins, as it were, with a dance-like step: the musical idea is there, yet almost impossible to grasp.
Within its extended scope, Schubert is fearless in exploring remote tonalities, regaling his listener with compact episodes, allusions to Hungarian instruments and a Hungarian sense of existence so familiar to him as a composer. The music seems to draw on the very 'sound' and visionary idea of 'Hungary'. Yet nowhere does it trumpet its virtues with blatant gypsy bravura.