GMG Listening Group - Schubert's String Quintet in C major - June 22-28, 2011

[Brahmsian]

I've taken the liberty.

[DavidW]

Hey what do you know, one of the greatest chamber works ever written!

[Brahmsian]

Hey what do you know, one of the greatest chamber works ever written!

I agree, David.  However, many have yet to grown fond of this piece, and I'm hoping this 'Music Appreciation' selection will help with this.

Hello George, join the party dude!   

[Brian]

Hey what do you know, I've never heard it!

[karlhenning]

Party on!

[zamyrabyrd]

Now, that's my kind of party!!!
(What are we drinking?)

ZB

[Brahmsian]

Now, that's my kind of party!!!
(What are we drinking?)

ZB

BYOB! 

Coffee or tea.  Or any Red wine.  Or scotch, or Canadian Whisky. 

[springrite]

Hey what do you know, one of the greatest chamber works ever written!

That is what everyone tells me, but I have yet to be taken by it. I will follow this thread with interest (and will take a CD of this work on my business trip starting the day after tomorrow).

PS:  I have the Alban Berg Quartet with Schiff on EMI.

[karlhenning]

Paul's on board!

[DavidW]

I have that recording as well Paul, also Rostropovich/Melos Quartet which is excellent.  I've also heard Juilliard/Greenhouse.  All three are excellent, and my favorite is Rostropovich/Melos.

[Brahmsian]

I have Rostropovich/Emerson SQ.  Fantastic recording. 

[zamyrabyrd]

I just had a once through listen with the score and the first question that popped into my mind was - why 5 instruments instead of 4? Schubert wrote 15 string quartets and 2 string trios, so this work is the odd man out. Written in 1828, it was not played in full until many years after his death, in 1850, and finally published in 1853. (This was more or less the fate of the 9th symphony, also a late work from about 1825, that stayed in a drawer until Schumann discovered it and had it performed in 1838.)

A little research turned up that this instrumentation may have been modelled on string quintets by Boccherini but more so by Onslow, a prodigious and much appreciated composer of chamber music at that time of whom we hear little to nothing these days. Instead of having the extra cello double or complement the viola as Boccherini did frequently, Schubert follows more Onslow's example, who also used the double bass in his chamber music.

Maybe the reason to have an extra bass instrument was to support the heavier scoring of the upper lines. The
higher cello, as it were, does complement the lower bass line, either unison (rare) or an octave higher, or joins the viola sometimes a third below or completes its rhythmic figures. Interesting though is when the higher cello joins the first violin. This happens towards the end of the first movement and is in evidence in the tumultous section of the adagio where it plays an octave lower than the first violin, an unusual sound concept.

ZB

[Brahmsian]

A little research turned up that this instrumentation may have been modelled on string quintets by Boccherini but more so by Onslow, a prodigious and much appreciated composer of chamber music at that time of whom we hear little to nothing these days. Instead of having the extra cello double or complement the viola as Boccherini did frequently, Schubert follows more Onslow's example, who also used the double bass in his chamber music.

I've always preferred string quintets with an extra cello, and would have liked it if Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner had followed that path.  I'm not surprised to hear that Schubert perhaps was influenced by Onslow, a composer that definitely deserves more credit, exposure and more recordings.  He is fantastic in chamber music.

What I love most about Schubert's string quintet is:  a)  The tumultuous section in the Adagio movement.  b) The serene, sublime section in the otherwise energetic, frantic Scherzo movement.  I love the contrasts in these two movements.   

[DavidW]

It seems typical of Schubert, he is so experimental!  He also used the double bass in the trout quintet and then there his famous sonata for the arpeggione... weird!   According to wiki he actually tried many experiments which resulted in mostly fragments when he couldn't make the music work or the instrumentation work the way he wanted.

Supposedly the key modulation in the second movement is strange or unorthodox, but I don't understand it, can anyone explain it?

Perhaps most familiarly, his adventurousness manifests itself as a notably original sense of modulation, as in the second movement of the String Quintet, where he modulates from C major, through E major, to reach the tonic key of C♯ major.

[Brian]

Supposedly the key modulation in the second movement is strange or unorthodox, but I don't understand it, can anyone explain it?

No, but I can fail to explain it in an interesting way. Schubert's hallmark appears to have been unorthodox key modulations that you don't notice as unorthodox because he makes them feel so natural and normal that, without a score or theory classes, you might not recognize it as weird. I know there are several other Schubert works where my brain is saying, "Oh, it's going to go from E minor to E flat major [made-up example], that's interesting," but then it sounds... thoroughly unsurprising.

Incidentally, I have heard this string quintet before, but only once, live - with the Pavel Haas Quartet and a cellist friend. Needless to say, the PHQ were outstanding...

[DavidW]

I see what you mean!  The whole thing feels natural, if I had not read about those key modulations I would not have known that something wild was going on!

Another thing I had read was that Schubert instead of constantly building tension comes to periods of rests in the middle of movements.  Oh and here we have the trills are chromatically altered (http://www.cello.org/Newsletter/Articles/schubjn.htm).  This seems to me to be starting to build a body of evidence... supporting... well here are two questions:

(1) objectively is this piece romantic or classical?
(2) subjectively do you feel this piece is romantic or classical?  In answering this question, please explain what romanticism and/or classical means to you.

[zamyrabyrd]

I see what you mean!  The whole thing feels natural, if I had not read about those key modulations I would not have known that something wild was going on!
Another thing I had read was that Schubert instead of constantly building tension comes to periods of rests in the middle of movements.  Oh and here we have the trills are chromatically altered (http://www.cello.org/Newsletter/Articles/schubjn.htm). 

Very good article, and he makes a convincing case for the flatted 2nd (Neapolitan) being an important harmonic element here, as in the Appassionata Sonata. So the relation between the E major of the 2nd movement and the F minor is the flatted 2nd in action. Here it is not as obvious as in the Beethoven sonata, but present nevertheless. In the overall key of C major, Db itself is an important area in the development of the 1st movement and the trio of the 3rd.

The ending though, the unison in all instruments - Db to C - clenches it for me. And that is after similar chromatic alterations in the last movement, the ambiguity of major and minor.
I'll get to your other questions later.

ZB

[Brahmsian]

(1) objectively is this piece romantic or classical?
(2) subjectively do you feel this piece is romantic or classical?  In answering this question, please explain what romanticism and/or classical means to you.

Romantic, on both questions, for me, David.  I feel all of "late Schubert" is oozing moocho Romanticism.  The fact that it stirs me deep inside, also leads me to believe it must be Romanticism.  Of course, none of this is objectively provable from my end.   

[Brahmsian]

My party has started!!

Schubert

String Quintet in C major, D956

Emerson String Quartet
Rostropovich - cello
DG

[Marc]

Hey what do you know, one of the greatest chamber works ever written!

I know.