DESCRIPTION:
A great example of Lupu's playing -- inward, radiant, bewitching. There are few pianists who can let music spool itself out of its own accord, but Lupu is one of these bewildering types. His playing characterised throughout by careful attention to the score, great tenderness, incredible legatissimo playing, and crystalline textures. Not sure if I've heard pianissimos as stunning as his: see the scales beginning at 26:54, for instance, or the earlier passage beginning at 01:56 (and 07:00).

00:00 -- No.1 in F minor. Schubert's Op.142 set of impromptus is much more substantial than the earlier Op.90 set, and is often compared to a four-movement sonata. It's not hard to see why: this very first impromptu is in sonata-rondo form, A1–B1–A2–B2–A3 (you can kind of see this as a sonata form w/o a development section), and is quite expansive and tragic in character.
10:04 -- No.2 in A-flat major. A lovely little(-ish) thing in minuet form: even though it's apparently foursquare in form, it's *really* hard to interpret well, especially given it's modulatory structure (the middle section climaxes in A major, having moved through D-flat major and C# minor to get there).
17:33 -- No.3 in B-flat major. The highlight of the set. The variations follow the pattern developed by Beethoven – each variation generally introduces increasing subdivision and ornamentation, and there's a modulation prior to a return to the tonic for the final variation. Lupu's playing is especially striking here, with each variation perfectly outlined and vividly characterised.
29:14 -- No.4 in F minor. This impromptu features some of the most striking keyboard writing Schubert ever produced, with pronounced hemiola effects (two 3/8 bars often sound like three 2/8 bars), pronounced and extended dissonances, and modulations to keys very far from the tonic (A-flat minor, C-flat major, and A major). And there's a stark little beast of a coda to top it all off.