DICTIONARY OF MUSIC - El Atril

462 IMPRESARIO, L' IMPROVISATION
IMPRESARIO, L". The title of the French
adaptation (considerably altered) of Mozart's
' Schauspieldirector, ' by Liion Battu and Ludo-
vic Halevy, produced at the Boutfes Parisiens,
May 20, 1856. This piece is said to have been
mixed up with Cimarosa's ' Impresario in An-
goscie, ' so as to form one piece, by Goethe in 1 7 9
while director of the theatre at Weimar. G.
IMPROMPTU. Originally no doubt the name
for an extempore piece ; but as no piece can be
extempore when written down, the term is used
for pianoforte compositions which have (or aim
at) the character of extempore performances.
The most remarkable are Chopin's, of which
there are 4—opp. 29, 36, 51, and 66 (Fantaisie-
Impromptu in Cj minor). The two sets of pieces
by Schubert known as Impromptus— op. 90,1^08.
1 to i, and op. 142, Nos. 1 to 4, mostly variations—were,
the first certainly and the second
probably, not so entitled by him. The autograph
of the first exists. It has no date, and no title
to either of the pieces, the word ' Impromptu
having been added by the publishers, the Has-
lingers, one of whom also took upon himself to
change the key of the third piece from G\y to G.
The autograph of the second set is at present
unknown. It was to these latter ones that
Schumann devoted one of his most affectionate
papers [Gcsaiiuii. Schriften, iii. 37). He
doubts Schubert's having himself called them
Impromptus, and would have us take the first,
second, and fourth as the successive movements
of a Sonata in F minor. The first does in fact
bear the stamp of a regular 'first movement.'
Schumann himself has Impromptus on a theme of
his wife's, op. 5, and another Impromptu among
his Albumblatter. Neither Beethoven, Weber,
nor Mendelssohn ever used the word. G.
IMPROPERIA, i.e. 'The Reproaches.' A
series of Antiphons and Responses, forming part
of the solemn Service, which, on the morning of
Good Friday, is substituted for the usual daily
mass of the Roman Ritual.
The text of the fmjjroperia, written partly in
Latin, and partly in Greek, is designed to illustrate
the sorrowful remonstrance of our Lord
with His people, concerning their ungrateful
return for the benefits He has bestowed upon
them. The touching words in which these remonstrances
are expressed were originally sung
to well-known Plain -song melodies, preserved
in the GraduaU Eomamim, and still retained
in very general use, both in England and on
the Continent : but, since the Pontificate of
Pope Pius IV. tliey have been invariably
ohaunted, in the Sistine Chapel, to some simple,
but exquisitely beautiful Fcmx bourdons, to
which they were adapted, by Palestrina, in the
year 1560. In depth of feeling, true pathos, and
perfect adapitation of the music to the sense of
the words, these wonderful Improperia have
never been exceeded, even by Palestrina himself.
We may well believe, indeed, that he
alone could have succeeded in drawing, from the
few simple chords which enter into their construction,
the profoundly imjiressive effect they
never fail to produce.
No printed copy of the Iinproperia was issued,
either by Palestrina himself, or the assignees
of his son, Igino. They were first published in
London, by Dr. Burney ; who, on the authority
of a MS. presented to him by the Gavaliere
Santarelli, inserted them, in the year 1771, in
a work entitled La Musica delta Setlimana
Santa, which has now become very scarce.
Alfieri also printed them among his Excerpta,
published, at Rome, in 1840 ; and, in 1863,
Dr. Proske included them in the fourth volume
of his Musica Divina. These three editions
differ from each other very considerably. That
of Proske,
copied from the Altaemps-Otthoboni MS. preserved
in the Vatican Library, may fairly be
assimied to represent tlie work exactly in the
condition in which Palestrina left it : but the
varied readings of Burney (1771),
and of Alfieri (1840),
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are both valuable and interesting, as records of
the abhelliw.enti used in the Pontifical Chapel at
the time of their transcription. Burney 's version
was reproduced, by Choron, among his examples
of the great masters, in 1836 ; and again, in
1840, by Vincent Novello, in Ilohj Week Music,
as used ai the Sistine Chapel at Home. w. s. It.
IMPROVISATION, an equivalent term for
ExTEMroRE Playin'g or Extemporising. Moscheles
has left a curious account of the way in
which Mendelssohn and he used to amuse them-
selves by improvising d quedre mains, a feat
already mentioned in respect to Beethoven and
Wdlil under Exticmpore. 'We often,' says he
(Lifc,\. 274), 'improvise together on his magnificent
Erard, each of us trying to dart as quick as
lightning on the suggestions contained in the
other's harmonies, and to make fresh ones upon