Notes for: August 1, 2017
If any evidence is needed of Schubert’s tremendous achievement and unfulfilled potential, it can be found in the phenomenal output of the final year and a half before his death at the age of 31. Benjamin Britten called it arguably “the richest and most productive 18 months in our music history,” the period during which Franz Schubert wrote Winterreise, the C Major Symphony, the B-Flat and E-Flat Piano Trios, the Four Impromptus Op. 142, the Mass in E-Flat, his last three piano sonatas, and the C Major String Quintet.
Just as astounding was the number of years it took for the recognition and publication of most of these final masterpieces. The String Quintet – by general consensus the greatest of Schubert’s chamber works and one of the most moving pieces in the literature – was not even heard publicly until 1850!
Completed in September, 1828, the C Major Quintet was Schubert’s last instrumental work. Like Mozart, Schubert, after writing a successful series of string quartets, turned to a five-voice format because of the possibilities it offered for greater sonority and richness. However, unlike Mozart, who added a second viola, Schubert added a second cello. This instrumentation enabled him not only to reinforce the bass line but also to send one cello soaring eloquently into its higher register while keeping the bass intact. In some passages, one cello even doubles the first violin an octave lower.
Another striking characteristic of the quintet is its unprecedented freedom from the traditional bonds of key structure. Schubert had a unique gift for changing, or modulating, keys to vary the presentation, treatment and coloration of his themes. This was a device that he developed initially in his lieder to underscore the drama or contrasts in the texts. In the quintet, Schubert carried this continuous shifting of tonal gears to its highest level of originality and imagination. Melodic strains are repeated in three or four different keys, each with a different harmonic seasoning, and modulations occur unexpectedly, even abruptly, but almost always ingeniously. Thus, the openings of the first and fourth movements leave the listener uncertain about the tonality, and the first movement is rarely in one key for more than a few measures at a time.
The opening of the first movement illustrates Schubert’s daring use of contrast in both tonality and instrumental color. The work starts with a C major chord swelling over two measures. The first violin takes the lead and the second cello is silent, tilting the tonal balance upwards. In the third measure, however, ambiguity is introduced when the second violin raises its G up to A and blends in an F sharp, and the viola drops from E to E flat. The first violin carries on the melody against this shifting harmonic background. Eleven measures later the entire strain is repeated, but starting in D major. The first cello now takes the lead, the first violin is silent, and the second cello joins in, tilting the tonal balance downwards.
Even more remarkable is the presentation of the lilting second theme – a duet for the cellos. As the cellos pull away from the five-voiced texture, they prepare us for the theme in the expected dominant key of G major. Instead, they launch the melody in the warmer tonality of E flat, return to C halfway through, and finally end up with a G major cadence. The duet is then repeated in the violins.
Toward the end of the exposition, a third theme – a somber little march – is merged with the second theme, and the two elements combined are the main concern of the long development. In the recapitulation, both the opening strain and the second theme wear still different instrumental dress – the second theme is now a duet for viola and first cello. The overall effect is a unique blending of drama, serenity and pathos.
The second-movement Adagio is surely one of the most moving in all music. The middle strings play a long melody for 28 measures, their message enriched by the expressive figures of the first violin and the pizzicato notes of the second cello. The mood is interrupted by an emotionally charged middle section in F minor; over agitated triplets and anxious syncopation, the violin plays a sorrowful melody of increasing intensity. The first section returns with the middle strings repeating their melody, but the first violin and second cello now play intensified variations of their original parts. Brief figures in the violin are transformed into passages of the utmost poignancy, and the pizzicato notes of the cello take on great dramatic force.
The Scherzo provides some release from the tension of the first two movements – to some listeners, the feverish energy and bounding rhythm suggest a hunt. With the trio, however, the intensity returns. Unlike the folk-dance style that Schubert often used in the trio sections of his scherzos, the meter here shifts to 4/4 and the tempo slows to andante sostenuto. Major and minor modes alternate, and the mood is dark, brooding and resigned. The search for new tone color is heard – the opening phrase is scored for viola and second cello, and this is followed by other instrumental groups in twos and threes.
The finale is lighter in emotional weight than the other movements – indeed, it has the flavor of Hungarian gypsy fiddling. But there is still the persistent playing with tonalities and instrumental colors. With the coda, the tempo gradually picks up, and the quintet concludes at a hectic pace. Until the end, however, there are hints of other tonalities, and even the final unison C is prodded home by a D-flat grace note.
Notes for: July 26, 2022
Schubert’s output always was prodigious, but nothing matches what he wrote in the fall of 1828, when he was mortally ill and just a few weeks from death. In little more than a month, he composed his last three piano sonatas and the monumental String Quintet in C Major. Of the Quintet Jan Swafford wrote, “Everything about this work is extraordinary – its breadth of expression from deepest tragedy to exultant joy to transcendent peace, its freshness of sound, its contrapuntal depth…. By the end of this work as with few others, one feels one has traveled an immense distance – musically, emotionally, and spiritually.”
In this Quintet the fifth instrument is a cello, rather than the viola of Mozart’s and Beethoven’s quintets. The added warmth and richness of texture is evident throughout the Quintet, as Schubert works his magic through familiar devices: tender lyricism, ravishing melodies, unexpected modulations, shifts to unexpected places, and an often-surprising mix of moods. The opening measures of the first-movement Allegro point to much of what will follow. The opening chords, with their harmonic coloring and textural richness, shift back and forth between major and minor modes, which are associated in Schubert’s music with hope and despair. A cello duet – a highlight of the movement – introduces a lyrical second theme, and a march-like third theme enters in yet another key. At an unhurried pace, these ideas are amplified and probed in the development section, where contrapuntal passages alternate with lyrical ones, and in the recapitulation, which ends on two chords that encapsulate the movement’s tensions.
The textures and sonorities of the tender but melancholy Adagio are breathtaking from the beginning, as three of the instruments harmonize around the theme, while the first violin sings high, poignant phrases and the second cello punctuates with a low pizzicato. Good humor is restored by the Scherzo, a vivacious, rhythmically driven country dance. There is a somber, minor-key Trio, but the return of the buoyant Scherzo dispels all gloom. The Allegretto, like the rest of the Quintet, is filled with constantly varied textures that have a small string ensemble producing sounds that seem to come from a much larger group of instruments. With its wonderful themes – one sounding Hungarian, another, Viennese – and its exuberant ending, this last movement is a life-embracing affirmation and a perfect close to a stirring journey.