The fifth of Schubert's six Moments musicaux, Op. 94, No. 5 (D. 780/5) is a hard-driving Allegro vivace in F minor, propelled forward by an unrelenting dactylic rhythm present in nearly every bar. Throughout most of the piece, the dynamic level alternates between forte and fortissimo, with only very occasional moments of quiet for the sake of contrast: note how in the work's last bars, the alternations of fortissimo and piano only make the fortissimo seem all the louder. Unusually for Schubert, this Moment musical rarely modulates and then only briefly.

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Schubert's six Moments musicaux of 1827 were published in two books of three each as Opus 94 (D. 780). The second set starts with an unusual C sharp minor Moderato piece in ternary form. The most unusual thing about the Moderato is that its outer sections are a strange fusion of Baroque two-part invention and nineteenth-century German middle-class dance: the regular sixteenth-note figuration of the right hand is accompanied by a lightly dancing walking bass line in the left hand. The central section of the piece is in the tonic major respelled as D flat major, and it is pure Schubert: a liltingly syncopated chordal melody which returns as the piece's coda brings a smile to the face and a tear to the eye.

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The title Six Moments musicaux (D. 780) was not Schubert's own and is perhaps inappropriate. One might reasonably conclude that these are not really "moments" of music at all, as some of the six pieces last more than five or six minutes. When considering that the original publisher's title was the horrible grammatical calamity Momens musicals, the idea that Schubert might have come up with or even approved the title becomes wholly unbelievable. However, by July 1828, when the 6 Moments musicaux were published, Schubert was in no position to argue such matters—not only was he absolutely destitute, he was also fighting a losing battle for his very life.

The Moments musicaux were composed during 1827 and 1828, the third and last pieces, which were written during 1823 and 1824, excepted. Each is composed in a sectional form and many are dances of some kind. No. 1 in C major is a minuet in the absolute abstract, meaning that, just as with a Chopin waltz, the music transcends all human footwork. The trio section rolls forward on wheels of seamless triplets.

The second Moments musicaux is an Andantino in A flat major, taking the shape of a gentle five-part rondo. The sparkling, dotted, homophonic, sicilienne-like rhythms in the opening music give way to pure melody and accompaniment in the form of regular left-hand arpeggiations in the F sharp minor B sections. The third piece was composed back in 1823. It has something of an Eastern European tang to it, and as a result the publisher originally tacked the label "Air Russe" to it.

There is something of Bach about the fortspinnung-like fourth piece, a Moderato in C sharp minor. It unfolds in the major mode in the middle portion, where any such reference to the minor is lost within a pianissimo dream world of richly textured syncopations that somehow seem to make reference to Johannes Brahms a decade before he was even born.

More purely Schubertian is the Allegro vivace in F minor that follows, an athletic piece of equestrian rhythms. It is composed in as textbook a rounded binary form as one might imagine.

The final piece of D. 780 is an Allegretto in A flat major that returns to the otherworldly minuet variety of the first piece. Schubert plays with listeners' harmonic expectations in the cleverest and most moving of ways. A move to E major during the second half of the minuet-proper (as opposed to the trio section) sounds somehow full of resignation; the modulation back to A flat a few measures later is absolutely heartwarming. During the codetta that precedes the trio section, Schubert teases with hints of A major/E major, but, in a startling move, snaps straight into A flat minor—and since this opening section of music is repeated verbatim after the trio, it is in this bleakest of minor modes that the piece ends.

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Schubert's six Moments musicaux—the unusual title is Schubert's own—are shorter and less technically demanding than the first set of impromptus composed at roughly the same time. The first in C major, Op. 94, No. 1 (D. 780/1), is a minuet with trio in all but name with the outer sections of the moderato movement in C major and the central trio in G major. The tenderness of the opening's melody and its brief and subtle modulations to E minor, however, are far removed from conventional notions of the minuet, and the flowing trio, with triplets outlining a theme of sweetness and light, moves with ineffable grace into and out of the tonic minor, which makes the return of the minuet all the more affecting.

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An Andantino in gentle 9/8, the second of Schubert's Moments musicaux, Op. 94, No. 2 (D. 780.2), from 1827, starts as one of the purest and most serene expressions of contentment in all Schubert. With its chorale-like melody and its predominantly pianissimo dynamics, the Andantino seems to breathe an air of pure tranquillity. While there are hints of trouble in the modulations to the tonic minor, these are resolved in the opening section's final bars of transcendent calm. But then comes the first trio in F sharp minor with its disconsolate melody and its heartbreakingly beautiful modulation back to A flat major, showing that the serenity of A flat has darkness beneath it. And the second trio's stark turn to F sharp minor, forte with strong accents above the melody, make that point even clearer. When the opening A flat major section returns pianissimo, its contentment no longer seems so pure nor so serene—but all the more touching as a result.

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The title Moments musicaux (D. 780) was not Schubert's own, and is perhaps inappropriate. One might reasonably conclude that these are not really "moments" of music at all, for some of the six pieces last more than five or six minutes. When we consider that the original publisher's title was the horrible grammatical calamity "Momens musicals," the idea that Schubert might have come up with or even approved the title becomes wholly unbelievable. However, by July 1828, when the Moments musicaux were published, Schubert was in no position to argue such matters—not only was he absolutely destitute, he was also fighting a losing battle for his very life.

The Moments musicaux were composed during 1827 and 1828, the third and the sixth pieces, which were written during 1823 and 1824, excepted. Each is composed in a sectional form, and many are dances of some kind. No. 1 in C major is a minuet in the absolute abstract, meaning that, just as with a Chopin waltz, the music transcends all human footwork. The trio section rolls forward on wheels of seamless triplets.

The second Moment musical is an Andantino in A flat major, taking the shape of a gentle five-part rondo. The sparkling, dotted, homophonic, sicilienne-like rhythms in the opening music give way to pure melody and accompaniment in the form of regular left-hand arpeggiations in the F sharp minor B sections. The third piece was composed back in 1823. It has something of an Eastern European tang to it, and as a result the publisher originally tacked the label "Air Russe" to it.

There is something of Bach about the fortspinnung-like fourth piece, a Moderato in C sharp minor. It unfolds in the major mode in the middle portion, where any such reference to the minor is lost within a pianissimo dream world of richly textured syncopations that seem somehow to make reference to Johannes Brahms a decade before he was even born.

More purely Schubertian is the Allegro vivace in F minor that follows, an athletic piece of equestrian rhythms. It is composed in as textbook a rounded binary form as one might imagine.

The final piece of D. 780 is an Allegretto in A flat major that returns to the otherworldly minuet variety of the first piece. Schubert plays with our harmonic expectations in the cleverest and most moving of ways. A move to E major during the second half of the minuet-proper (as opposed to the trio section) sounds somehow full of resignation; the modulation back to A flat a few measures later is absolutely heartwarming. During the little codetta that precedes the trio section, Schubert teases us with hints of A major/E major, but, in a startling move, snaps straight into A flat minor—and since this opening section of music is repeated verbatim after the trio, it is in this bleakest of minor modes that the piece ends.

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Although it hardly matters in a technical description, one might easily pick the last of Schubert's six Moments musicaux, Op. 94, No. 6 (D. 780.6), as a favorite of the six. A very spare Allegretto in A flat major, the piece is one of the supreme examples of Schubert's ability to evoke the subtlest nuances of emotion through modulation from one key to another. The opening phrases of the opening section of this ternary piece are, naturally, in the tonic major of A flat. But the second phrase starts in the pianissimo flat submediant of F flat major, then modulates to the sharp dominant major of E major, then back to F flat major to return to the opening phrase. And each of these subtly accomplished harmonic shifts marks an emotional change in the music, making its heartrending poignancy ever more affecting. The hymn-like trio , however, only inflects its basic tonality of D flat major, making it an island of tonal stability in the work. One need not be musically literate to hear these harmonic changes: their effect is felt in every great performance.

This piece was published separately in 1824 under the title Plaintes d'un troubadour (Laments of a Troubadour) and thus preceded the composition of four of the other five Moments musicaux (the third was also published separately in 1823 as Air russe).

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