Franz Schubert – The Notturno in E flat major, Op 148 D 897 "Adagio"

This substantial but relatively neglected piece has affinities with the slow movements of both the String Quintet in C major D. 956, and the Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat, D 898. Completed in the Autumn of 1827, it is possibly a rejected slow movement of the Piano Trio No. 1. It has the sublime slowness of the string quintet movement (in one recording of the Notturno, by the Beaux Arts Trio, Schubert takes half a minute to leave the opening tonic harmony), together with a similar use of pizzicato at various points, and with the same paradoxical effect: the pizzicato decorations of the main tune seem to enhance the underlying tragedy of the music, rather than lightening it. The main thematic idea has a characteristic common to a number of Schubert’s most celebrated melodic ideas, including the second subjects of both the C major string quintet’s first movement and the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony No. 8’s first movement: that of ‘not going anywhere’, pitch-wise, but seeming to revolve round a single note (the