Saturday 28 March 2009

253. Franz Schubert - String Quintet in C Major (1828)



















Recording

Title: The Hollywood String Quartet: Testament
Performers: The Hollywood String Quartet, Kurt Reher
Year: 1951
Length: 45 minutes

Review

We come to Schubert's last chamber work, a quintet which has lived on through time not only due to its quality but by being the last chamber work of the master of chamber music: Schubert.

In this way plenty of interpretations extraneous to the music have been made, trying to gauge Schubert's attitude before death, but that is material for other people, let's just talk about the music, as it is worthy without need for anything else.

This is yet another great chamber work by Schubert, the great highlight being the slow movement, a beautiful work of quiet desperation, so yet another Schubert essential to add to your classic music library.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Schubert's string quintet was inspired by Mozart's third string quintet and Beethoven's Quintet op. 29, written in the same key, as well as similar quintets by George Onslow. The instrumentation is reminiscent of Onslow, who used a double bass in some of his quintets. The opening theme of Schubert's work has retained many of the characteristics of the Mozart quintet's opening theme, such as decorative turns, irregular phrase lengths, and rising staccato arpeggios (the latter appear only in Schubert's recapitulation).

See it all on youtube, first part:




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