A pianist and composer's view of one measure of Schubert. Laurie Conrad is a pianist and composer living in Ithaca, NY. Her new cd of "Visions For Flute and Harp" will be soon be available at: www.figarobooks.com

Transfixed ...  Where does this tenderness come from, this beauty ...  is it because Schubert restates so gently the E flat in the bass, or that the A flat holds from the measure before?

Is it the fragile left hand melody who sings so very quietly?

This one little measure out of so many, these few little notes out of perhaps a thousand notes in these twelve pages ...  why do they say so much and so tenderly ...  every composer since the beginning of music has used these same notes - is it that they are arranged so nicely, perhaps in secret harmony with the Divine?  do they reflect the beauty of a crystal lattice or perhaps even how the universe is hung and balanced in the Mind of God?  Twelve notes, plus one held from the previous measure ... This measure goes by so quickly, few might even really hear it, except other pianists who will practice and cherish these few notes hundreds or more times ...

People are like this little measure, we see them in the street but do we really know their beauty, their Hearts or ours ...  They are lost in a thousand other images and impressions, streets and conversations and thoughts ...  if we could but stop them as I can stop this Impromptu and look into their Soul ...