Well, I was flippin through the same tired stuff at the local library when, huh?, there it was. Great, I thought, now we can finally hear the Great Missing Link! More on performance later; I just want to give you my impressions of the music, since I have not warmed to Schubert particularly (sacre bleu!), and eeeveryone says this is the greatest piece of music ever written.
So, I'm walking to the car and thinking about how you all will "judge" my listening. Yea, mind you, I'm NOT thinking about the music, haha. Anyhow, from everything I've read about the "heavenly length" and all this otherwoldly placidity and melodic blah blah and, you know, all the tired words everyone uses to describe this piece. Well, you know I didn't really "get" D.887, and "y'all" said that D.956 was in a different world altogether than any Schubert, or anything else for that matter, so, I figured...
well, THIS is what I figured,... that D.956 was gonna be
Bruckner's 10th Symphony for String Quintet (cue fanfare). I had totally pictured the slow mvmt. in my head as some glacial, placid lake music that lasted for 25mins. I was actually surprised when I looked and the piece was only 55mins, haha!
So, the first mvmt begins...
ok, within a couple of minutes I'm thinking, Wait a minute, those guys totally lied, this is just more Schuuubert!!! I hear the same "drama",... hey, this is Romantic Music!
ok, so now I've got my "hate" on
, but,... then,... it,...js... keeps,...going,... and going,... with idea after idea, like a giant,...hmmm,...
Pastoral Symphony,
that's it!
And, so, there's still all this aching, yearning, typically Romantic minor key Schubert angst. I'm starting to think "Berg minus Berlioz", or "(Wolf + Berg) - Berlioz", or something like that The longer the first mvmt goes on, the more organic the whole thing starts to feel, Sibelian. Do I hear Dvorak's "Gramdma Moses" tapestry-like musing? Even though I'm not "taking" to it right away, I start to think it will win me over by the end of the mvmt. Already Iknow I will like it better when I listen to it again.
Now, the second mvmt, the one that I thought was going to be Arvo Part, haha, no, seriously, I thought it would be some kind of Brucknerian type thing, and, at first I found myself cursing everyone's descriptive capabilities (if someone would have just said, "proto-Wolf/Berg,perfectly balanced contemplative/eruptive", I would would have been like, ok). Honestly, it seems that in the time it took me to type the last two paragraphs, the slow mvmt is over. Is
that "heavenly length"? I think the slow mvmt could easily have been 10mins more
. Seriously, i'm going to have to listen to this slow mvmt a lot, because I had so thoroughly pre-judged it. It's a totally different animal than I had thought. Anyhow, more later on the slow mvmt.
So far the Scherzo has made the biggest impact on me. The strange festiveness reminds me of LvB's Op.135's corresponding mvmt. And the mysterious central episode makes the whole piece for me. I feel like I'm hearing a little bit of Pettersson here, haha. I also seem to hear the final fulfillment of the experimental Haydn mineut, such as 33/3, 76/2, 54/2, and maybe especially 20/4 (I don't know, I might have Haydn on the brain, haha).
The fourth mvmt does start of in Haydn/Bethoven upbeat bum-bum mode, and then, we're back in Enchanted Forest-land, with scurrying animals and singing birds. I almost feel like I'm hearing Debussy?... or John Williams?... is that a parallel minor I hear?
Well, as the piece begins it's final conclusion, I look back on the previous 50mins and say, Wow!, that was quite an experience. Not quite a journey, not quite a depiction,... but definitely a story. This piece seems to define
PastoralDrammaticRomantic. It sounds like what i wish Dvorak sounded like. It sounds like Beethoven's truly last last work, had he had a late-late-late phase (I think so, because, consider, Op.135 does have an "autumnal" sound, no?, even though it brims with energy?).
Yes, so I agree, this piece does sort of stand out. It just didn't hit my ears as any String Quartet ever has. It's like my ears and my brain call "tell" that there's something "extra" going on here. This piece certainly has Symphonic Proportions and Vision. Hmm, I'm going to say that this has been a profound experience. Excellent!
Oh, so the vessels of this virgin listening were the Emerson and Rostropovich on DG (1992). Though I'd never heard the music, I can still tell that there are "other" ways of pulling this thing off. Honestly I can say that I have no criticism of the playing whatsoever. My personal taste would be for MORE MORE MORE of everything: more passion, more restraint, more just total totality of totalism. In other words, can this really be the bible performance? Even with my uncritical ear I can hear how this piece could probably be a completely different thing in other hands. I'm curious (I didn't re-read the Thread before I posted, but I will: the Hagen sound interesting (as usual)).
So, my Bottom Line is that schubert's Quintet is the "Bookend", the "Capstone", the "Lion King", the "Crown" of the Classico-Romantic Era. It is "like" as if Beethoven had entered one last, late phase and produced one giant swab of everythingness, and then expired.
Now I can see why it took 50 years to get to Busoni and Wolf and Scheonberg. Interesting.
I am now listening to Onslow's 1850 Quintet (remember, Schubert's wasn't introduced until around then), also for two cellos. Two cellos definitely lends a very noble, four square, almost Spanish flavor for me (though none of the music says so). Anyhow, so, this was my introduction to D.956. It puts a lottt of stuff in perspective, and, I'm really glad my preconceived notions were totally messed with. Quite a learning experience. Great!
