Schubert: String Quintet in C Major, D. 956; Quartettsatz, D. 703

Featuring

Edward Dusinberre
Károly Schranz
Geraldine Walther
Ralph Henry Kirshbaum
András Fejér
Takács Quartet

Franz Schubert

Did you know?

1/7

Compositional Technique

Schubert's String Quintet adds a second cello, unlike Mozart's quintets which add a second viola, to exploit the warm sound of combined cellos, a technique also used by Boccherini.

Critical Reception

The 'Quartettsatz' D703 was first published in 1870, over 40 years after Schubert's death, and its fragmentary slow movement appeared in print in 1897, with the editorial board (including Brahms) valuing it similarly to the 'Unfinished Symphony'.

Instruments

Ralph Kirshbaum, the guest cellist on this recording, plays a rare Montagnana cello that once belonged to the 19th-century virtuoso Piatti.

Composition History

Schubert's String Quintet, described as 'perhaps the most hauntingly beautiful of all Schubert's chamber works', remained forgotten until 1850 when the Hellmesberger Quartet championed it, three years before its publication.

Performer Biography

The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by four students, and two of the original members, Károly Schranz and András Fejér, remain in the current ensemble.

Composition History

Schubert's 'Quartettsatz' D703, a string quartet movement, was left unfinished after only 40 bars of a slow movement were composed, possibly due to his dissatisfaction with its unorthodox form.

Composer Biography

Schubert died at the age of 31, six weeks after writing to a publisher about his new compositions, including the String Quintet, none of which he saw in print during his lifetime.