This set brings together all of Schubert's most important piano works other than the Sonatas. The 'Wanderer' Fantasy is the composer's most overtly virtuosic work and was one of the first to bring him fame. Its structure, based on the transformation of a single them, had a seminal influence on the Romantic movement and, in particular, Liszt.

The two sets of Impromptus, along with the six Moments Musicaux and the Drei Klavierstücke, are consummate examples of Schubert's skill as a miniaturist and yet their breadth of vision is such that Schumann regarded the second set of Impromptus as a 'Sonata in disguise'.