Schubert began it in Vienna in January 1828, the last year of his life, and finished it in March. His friend Eduard von Bauernfeld noted that Schubert and Franz Lachner played it on 9 May 1828. Diabelli published it in March 1829, a few months after Schubert’s death. The printed edition carries a dedication to his former pupil Karoline Esterházy, though it isn’t in his manuscript.
It runs as four connected sections without a break, a shape it shares with his Wanderer Fantasy. The opening tune, with its dotted rhythms, has a Hungarian lilt. A stormy Largo and a lively scherzo, both in F-sharp minor, follow, and then the opening returns and turns into a fugue on the second theme. The fugue breaks off, and after a short silence the opening tune returns briefly before a quiet end.