Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
String Quintet in C major (1828)
Schubert’s String Quintet in C major was his last work for chamber ensemble, completed in the late summer of 1828, a scant two months before his death. The Quintet was modeled on analogous works by Mozart and Beethoven, but with a key difference in instrumentation: instead of an ensemble of two violins, two violas, and one cello, Schubert opted for a quintet comprised of two violins, one viola, and two cellos. The resulting musical texture is remarkably rich: the first cello often soars above the viola while the second cello remains the sonorous anchor of the ensemble.
The opening measures of the first movement – which go from the tonic, C major, to a dominant seventh chord and back to the tonic again – outline the overall harmonic character of the movement, which moves through a bewildering number of key areas before finally coming to rest (again) in C major. Two of the movement’s main motives can be described generally: a turn figure (first heard in the fourth measure) and a dotted rhythm that is basically interchangeable with a triplet fanfare gesture. Nearly all of the ensuing melodic and harmonic material of the movement derives from these two generic ideas.
The slow second movement, which begins and ends in the key of E major and includes a lengthy excursion in the middle in F minor, is closely related to the slow movement of Schubert’s great B-flat major piano sonata (which was, in fact, composed in the two months between the completion of this Quintet and Schubert’s death). In some ways, its nocturnal mood foreshadows later movements by Mahler and Bartok, though, stylistically, the music is unmistakably by Schubert, opening with a dotted rhythm (carried over from the first movement) in the first violin accompanying a slowly unfolding melody in the lower strings. The turbulent middle section provides a violently dramatic contrast that is marked by an impassioned duet between first violin and first cello.
The Scherzo is filled with rustic character and color, laden with drones and the rhythms (real or imagined) of folk music. The first third covers a huge range, both instrumentally and harmonically, moving from C major to E-flat to B major and, eventually, back to C. In between, Schubert introduces some surprising and wonderfully colorful dissonances that heighten the magic and energy of the movement. The middle section is of a wholly different character: slow, haunting, and subdued, recalling the dotted rhythms of the opening movement.
The finale is filled with jaunty, folk-ish rhythms and is, perhaps, the most explicitly Beethoven-influenced movement of the Quintet. The turn figure and triplet fanfare rhythm of the opening movement return here in force, though, overall, this movement’s employs both in more subtle ways than the opening one does. Towards the end, the tempo increases by degrees, as though the music is being consumed by frenzy, leading to a coda that dramatically sums up the Quintet’s harmonic character.
Though completed in 1828, the Quintet was not performed until 1850, when it was premiered in Vienna by an ensemble that included the violinist Josef Hellmesberger, who had been born only two weeks before Schubert’s death.
© Jonathan Blumhofer
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