Franz Schubert

[Dancing Divertimentian]

More power to you, Sara, but not to be ornery, just sayin'; it is far easier for me to remember Opus, Köchel, Hob. & Deutsche numbers than it is to remember "String Quartet #14" or "Sonata #12". I know that sounds strange, I guess it's just the way my memory works. And clearly, it is the antithesis of the way your memory works!

Nope! Not strange at all. Without those "D" numbers and "K" numbers and such it'd be chaos for me, too!

[Gurn Blanston]

Nope! Not strange at all. Without those "D" numbers and "K" numbers and such it'd be chaos for me, too!

Ah, splendid! I don't feel so alone out here now. When people are talking Beethoven sonatas and mention Sonata #15, for example, I'm just a total blank! But if they say Opus 28 instead, I don't even have to think about it.



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Now playing:
Hamburg Soloists / Emil Klein - Hob 03 03 Divertimento in D for Strings Op 1 #3 3rd mvmt - Adagio

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Ah, splendid! I don't feel so alone out here now. When people are talking Beethoven sonatas and mention Sonata #15, for example, I'm just a total blank! But if they say Opus 28 instead, I don't even have to think about it.

Lol. Yep, me too! Interestingly I had assumed that our way was more the norm out there than going by work numbers. I guess it isn't!

Or is it...?

[kishnevi]

Ah, splendid! I don't feel so alone out here now. When people are talking Beethoven sonatas and mention Sonata #15, for example, I'm just a total blank! But if they say Opus 28 instead, I don't even have to think about it.



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Now playing:
Hamburg Soloists / Emil Klein - Hob 03 03 Divertimento in D for Strings Op 1 #3 3rd mvmt - Adagio

Ah, but does that apply across the board.  Do you know what Beethoven Opp.55,  67 and 125 are, without going to look it up?  And even if you do recognize them off the top of your head, I bet you you don't usually refer to them by their opus numbers.

[Gurn Blanston]

Ah, but does that apply across the board.  Do you know what Beethoven Opp.55,  67 and 125 are, without going to look it up?  And even if you do recognize them off the top of your head, I bet you you don't usually refer to them by their opus numbers.

No, don't bet, you would lose your money, and badly! That IS the way I do it, at least to myself. It's true that with the symphonies I am far more likely to use the number when discussing it with someone else, but to myself, it is always the opus number. Have to be consistent!



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Now playing:
L'Orchestre de la Suisse-Romande \ Ansermet - Op 125 Symphony #9 in d 1st mvmt - Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso

[Lethevich]

It definitely depends on the case. Major works by Schubert and Beethoven are easy to quote by Deutsch or Opus number because certain numbers have entered into classical mythology - such figures as Op.109, D.958-60, etc. Earlier works by Schubert being named by D. number alone would require looking up, for me at least, to work out whether a mentioned "D.537" is an earlier work in the medium, or had he already written a dozen (as he had by D.625)? The numbers are close and easy to confuse

With Haydn's quartets anyone trying to consecutively number such an already perfect system of Opus collections would only succeed in confusing people, but in a less "compartmentalised" set of publishings such as Beethoven's quartets, consecutive numbering is more useful - especially when the chronology and stylistic development is so clear.

[Lethevich]

Let's talk music and not technicalities!

Isn't the andante movement of the D.810 quartet astonishing? That noble, surging, tragic theme which crops up in the middle lifts the work to such heights that the last two movements cannot really equal.

What do you all think of his final D.887 quartet? I cannot find quite the levels of personality of the previous two in it, although there are fewer recordings, I suppose, so maybe I just haven't listened often enough.

Edit: I am playing it now, and I think I know why it doesn't stick in the memory. It is full of quite startling "effects", and has a sense of otherness - it lacks some of the direct emotional engagement of the previous two. Not that this is a bad thing.

[Luke]

Let's talk music and not technicalities!

Isn't the andante movement of the D.810 quartet astonishing? That noble, surging, tragic theme which crops up in the middle lifts the work to such heights that the last two movements cannot really equal.

What do you all think of his final D.887 quartet? I cannot find quite the levels of personality of the previous two in it, although there are fewer recordings, I suppose, so maybe I just haven't listened often enough.

Edit: I am playing it now, and I think I know why it doesn't stick in the memory. It is full of quite startling "effects", and has a sense of otherness - it lacks some of the direct emotional engagement of the previous two. Not that this is a bad thing.

To me, it is Schubert's finest piece. A stark judgement, but one I've felt for years. To me, every note sticks in the memory. I don't find it emotionally disengaged,  not at all. In fact I find it much more direct than the previous two. There's no hiding behind self-quotation or variation form or the friendly familarities one adores in say the A minor quartet - just this enormously new, frighteningly raw world, full of shocking new sounds, with some of the finest, tenderest material Schubert ever devised put up against many raw, new types of writing which blow me away with their communicative power. The liner notes to one CD I have of the piece called the slow movement 'shockingly beautiful; or some such thing, and that idea stuck with me - that this piece, in a way which is almost modern (think Silvestrov), plays with beauty, appals us with the onslaughts it heaps upon its innocence, and simply stuns and frightens us with the raw power of such exposed, achingly beautiful lines. It's a thoroughly revolutionary work, the Romantic counterpart to the Classicizing revolutions going on in Beethoven's last quartets, to which it is, IMO, equal (and the other two aren't on that level, for my money). The revolutions are formal and textural above all,

Formally, there is most obviously the construction of the argument less around themes than around a simple harmonic movement - the idea of the stark major-minor juxtaposition which is the motive of the first movement and which is present in the others too, coming to the surfce again in the last. IN the first movment that slow process of bleeding, creeping change from sharply dotted rhythms tragically falling into the minor into , at the recap, smoothly, sweetly articulated slips into a consolatory major. The roots of Mahler 6 are here... I prefer them here, raw, unflinchingly direct. The idea returns in the finale, the major-minor juxtapositions slipping past as quickly as in, say, Busoni. This finale, I used to think, let the piece down, like some other Schubert finales. Not a bit of it - it is a breathless, fatalistic, desperate and haunted dance, and its length and extreme, wiry textures are really point. And as for the central movements - the hushed, processionals of the slow movement are simply sublime; the harsh, dogged, unbending two note motive which dominates the centre of the movement, resolutely sticking to its notes no matter what keys the music slips to around it, is another feature which is strikingly modern, instantly communicative.

Texturally, this quartet stretches the bounds, it is orchestral in scale and scope. Within bars, Schibert is calling for a tremolo, such an atypical device in chamber music until decades later, but perfecrly idiomatic in orchestral writing. It's almost a statement of intent! And indeed, as we move on, there are cruel exposed lies, for the first violin above all, which are really orchestral writing, not quartet writing; the same could be said of much of the finale....and yet, and yet, it works, it creates this edgy, wiry sound that keeps the tension screwed to the maximum.   

BTW, with this talk of the orchestral writing in this quartet in mind, there is a string orchestra transcription, very lovingly done, wonderfully crafted, thought-provking - it's on ECM, Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata.

[Luke]

it is late. I apologise for my tediously limited vocabulary in the previous post. Too tired now to go back and find synonyms for 'raw' and 'new', two words I vastly overused! So you'll have to insert them yourselves!

[DavidW]

Ah, but does that apply across the board.  Do you know what Beethoven Opp.55,  67 and 125 are, without going to look it up?  And even if you do recognize them off the top of your head, I bet you you don't usually refer to them by their opus numbers.

For some reason for symphonies and concertos I go by their internal #, like symphony #3.  But when it comes to chamber and piano I prefer Op # or catalogue #.

[Brahmsian]

I hate the stupid, pointless Opus numbers for Schubert.  They mean zippy-di-doo-dah.  Gotta use the D.XXX numbering system for him.   

[Lethevich]

@Luke: thanks! Once it finished, I felt more of a cohesiveness from it than the previous two. No.14 in particular is heavily weighted to the front two movements (nothing unusual for Schubert), and No.13 despite being gorgeous is more formally standard than both the following two. That additional sense of even balance and consequently great overall weight does lend an orchestral feel to the work. I will beg, borrow or steal that disc depending on how I can find it. I thought I might already have a copy, but it's of an orchestration of the 14th quartet.

@ChamberNut: indeedie, for some composers opus numbers are great, for Schubert they are pretty useless.

[Brahmsian]

Me thinks Schubert was 'ON' his game, when he wrote the 'Andante con moto' of his D810 quartet.   It's like Darryl Sittler's NHL record of 10 points in one game......he was on fire that night.

[Bogey]

Letting this one out of the pen for the Schubie 8th:



I believe this is my favorite 8th recording....do like the Kleiber and Sinopoli, but Dohnányi hits the spot for me.

[Brahmsian]

Letting this one out of the pen for the Schubie 8th:



I believe this is my favorite 8th recording....do like the Kleiber and Sinopoli, but Dohnányi hits the spot for me.

I love Dohnányi and the Cleveland Orchestra's 9th as well, Bill.

[Bogey]

I love Dohnányi and the Cleveland Orchestra's 9th as well, Bill.

Did they do the cycle, Ray?

[Brahmsian]

Did they do the cycle, Ray?

Not sure, Bill.  I have only heard the 8th and 9th (Schubert)

[Bogey]

Not sure, Bill.  I have only heard the 8th and 9th (Schubert)

That is all I can find....I will try to snag a 9th soon.  I wonder if Cleveland did them all with a different conductor?  Szell?

[DavidW]

Letting this one out of the pen for the Schubie 8th:



I believe this is my favorite 8th recording....do like the Kleiber and Sinopoli, but Dohnányi hits the spot for me.

I think I used to have that cd in my collection Bill.  First rate conductor!

[Brahmsian]

Just finishing listening to the 4th and final disc of this fantastic set I picked up yesterday.  Do not hesitate - buy with confidence.  It is downright amazing!     Particularly out of this world performance of the Grand Duo in C major, D 812 (the frenetic energy of the final movement will just blow you away!) and of the Lebenssturme in A minor, D 947

Buy with confidence!   

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