Episode 7 - Franz Schubert
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Program
Franz SCHUBERT
String Quintet in C Major
Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)
Born on the cusp of the nineteenth century, Franz Schubert is one of the most influential composers of the Romantic era. While most of his well-known predecessors and contemporaries spent significant parts of their careers in Vienna, Schubert is the only canonic Viennese composer actually native to the city. Throughout his short lifetime Schubert worked in nearly every genre and made pioneering contributions to orchestral music, chamber music, piano music, and most especially to German lied. He studied violin, piano, organ, voice, and counterpoint from a young age, and while there is no concrete evidence to date his earliest works, it is generally accepted that his first compositions are from 1810, when he was thirteen years old. Chamber music was a vibrant part of the Vienna cityscape, and many composers used the genre as a way to explore and develop their compositional voices. Like many of his contemporaries, Schubert spent his early compositional years exploring the string quartets of Haydn and Mozart, and it is clear that both composers played a large role in developing his early compositional voice. After writing nearly a dozen quartets in the span of five years, he left the genre behind for quite some time and returned to it in the last four years of his life as a fully formed and emotionally complex Romantic composer.
Schubert composed his String Quintet in C Major, D956 in the last few months of his life (September-October 1828) alongside his late piano sonatas. Commonly referred to as his “Cello Quintet,” the piece is undoubtedly the crown jewel of his chamber music output. Schubert was not the first to experiment with the string quintet genre; it was a favorite of eighteenth century composers Luigi Boccherini, who frequently added an extra cello to the quartet configuration, and W.A. Mozart, who favored an extra viola. While in 1828 it would be more typical to add a second viola, Schubert chooses to add an extra cello, showing his penchant for exploring the tenor range and increased textural possibilities. Unlike the string quintets of Boccherini, the two cellos in Schubert’s work have equal prominence. Throughout the quintet Schubert exquisitely displays the dramatic power of duality and how it can capture the beauty and the pain of vulnerable human emotion. He frequently juxtaposes musical and emotional worlds—major and minor, stability and instability, tranquility and commotion, outward emotional cries and introspective sensitive moments—all the while giving his audience a glimpse inside the mind of a man nearing the end of his life. Although the quintet did not receive its premiere until 1850, over twenty years after Schubert’s death, to this day it has remained a prominent fixture in the string chamber music repertoire. In this episode you will hear the string quintet with an added double bass, instead of the typical second cello.
- Christina Dioguardi
Credits
Musicians
Violins: Zenas Hsu and Janny Joo
Viola: Daniel Orsen
Cello: Annie Jacobs-Perkins
Bass: Pete Walsh
Thank Yous
Host: Chris Voss
Principal Videographer: Scott Quade
Assistant Videographer: Chris DeSanty
Recording Engineer: Antonio Oliart Ros
Video Editor: Michael Schondek
Musicologist: Christina Dioguardi
Recording venue: GBH’s Fraser Recording Studio
Bibliography
Brown, Maurice J.E., Eric Sams, and Robert Winter. "Schubert, Franz." Grove Music Online. 2001; Accessed 25 Feb. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.25109