IMPROMPTUS, for violin and piano, is a set of three pieces which take their titles from the performance indications in the music: 1. Rhapsodic, 2. Lyrical, and 3. Quick and Agile. The first well known group of pieces called “impromptus” are those written as Op. 90 and Op. 142 by Franz Schubert, and these pieces are firmly embedded as classics in 19th-century piano literature. The first of my three IMPROMPTUS begins with a sustained octave in the piano, a nod to the first on the set of four in Schubert’s Op. 90. Written for and premiered by violinist Renee Jolles, these three pieces are lyical in nature and have a lightness in form, shifting the musical shape from moment to moment. – note by David Liptak