Franz Schubert - String Quintet in C major, D. 956

- Composer: Franz Peter Schubert (31 January 1797 -- 19 November 1828) - Performers: Végh Quartet & Pablo Casals Sándor Végh (violin) Sándor Zöldy (violin) Georges Janzer (viola) Paul Szabo (cello) Pablo Casals (2nd cello) - Year of recording: 1961 (Live in Prades, France) Quintet for 2 violins, viola & 2 cellos in C major, D. 956 (Op. posth. 163), written in 1828. The work is the only full-fledged string quintet in Schubert’s oeuvre. It consists of four movements: 00:00 - I. Allegro ma non troppo 15:42 - II. Adagio 29:11 - III. Scherzo. Presto 31:45 ---------------Trio. Andante sostenuto 36:14 ---------------Scherzo 38:43 - IV. Allegretto Benjamin Britten once suggested that “the richest and most productive eighteen months in music history“ were “the period in which Franz Schubert wrote Winterreise, the C major symphony, his last three piano sonatas, the C Major String Quintet, as well as a dozen other glorious pieces.“ The String Quintet, D. 956 is certainly one of the pinnacles of the chamber music canon, and is often cited as a significant example of the composer’s legacy: it was composed in the summer of 1828, just two months before his death. Certainly in the period between the death of his idol, Beethoven, and his own passing, the 31-year-old Schubert achieved a breakthrough in large-scale forms the likes of which has not been seen since. But the Quintet strikes one more as young man’s music than as a summary statement; there is a youthful ambition that is not unlike that of Beethoven’s first string quartets. For his scoring, Schubert went against the model of Mozart and Beethoven, who each added a second viola to the conventional string quartet for their quintets; Boccherini provided the only precedent for using two cellos. Schubert uses the second cello to create dense and varied textures: sometimes the cello serves as a second bass instrument under a full quartet, sometimes it’s a bass-rich quartet sans violin, and sometimes there is a rich interplay between instrumental sections. The first two movements have an expansive and deliberate buildup that seems to anticipate the sprawling structures of Anton Bruckner. But in most ways the piece remains quite conventional; it retains the standard four-movement format, and has an energetic scherzo (though a more wistful trio) and a zestful, almost Hungarian finale. Despite the bleak spaces of the slow movement, these movements suggest a youth’s first steps into maturity, and the work as a whole serves as a tantalizing reminder of what might have been, had Schubert been granted more time to create and innovate. I’d recommend a video on YT called ’Schubert Adagio “The Entrance to Heaven“’, where you can listen to Rubinstein’s admiration for this string quintet.