Allegro ma non troppo

Adagio

Scherzo. Presto

Allegretto

‘Heavenly length’ was a term coined by Schumann to describe Schubert’s ‘Great’ C major Symphony, but it seems even more apt for the C major String Quintet that Schubert finished in 1828, two months before his death. His only string quintet, for string quartet with an extra cello – an instrumental combination pioneered by Luigi Boccherini, while Mozart (and Beethoven) preferred a second viola.

Schubert never heard the work played during his lifetime. He sent it to the publisher Probst in Leipzig on 2 October 1828, announcing proudly that he had ‘at last finished a Quintet for two violins, viola and two cellos’. But the reply was disheartening, suggesting that he’d have a better chance of success with some more songs or popular piano pieces. The first performance did not take place until 17 November 1850 when it was given in the small hall of the Musikverein in Vienna by a quintet led by Joseph Hellmesberger, and the Viennese firm of Spina eventually published the work in 1853. Reactions at the time were mixed, but the young Brahms fell under the spell of the music, and the original version of his Piano Quintet Op.34 – before it was extensively reworked for piano and strings –was scored for the same instrumentation as Schubert’s quintet, with two cellos (unlike Brahms’s later string quintets, which use the two-viola combination).

In a programme note on the String Quintet for an Aldeburgh Festival performance in 1955, Benjamin Britten wrote about some of the qualities he found most remarkable in the work: ‘Listening to it, as the beauties unfold one after another and the mood changes from light to darkness and back again to light, the overwhelming impression is of the wholeness of the music. Schubert’s effortless spontaneity is not only the result of his rapid and ‘instinctive’ writing; it is also the result of his miraculously mature understanding of form.’

The String Quintet opens with a first movement of expansive proportions. For Britten, in a brilliantly perceptive comment, the first few bars represented a kind of microcosm of what was to follow: ‘In the very opening bars of the Allegro ma non troppo, the mood and structure of the whole work can be heard in the serenity of the C major chord and its passionate crescendo towards the tragic diminished seventh and its gradual lessening of the tension.’ What is most memorable about this opening is not so much the thematic interest (though there’s plenty of that) but for the sense of anticipation, of expectancy that the music suggests. The second theme of this movement is one of Schubert’s most sublime inventions, a miracle of lyricism presented by the two cellos. The development starts with a particularly striking modulation into A major – a typically inspired surprise, while the movement ends with tranquil recollections of the second theme, its calm disturbed only by the fortissimo C major chord in the penultimate bar.

The Adagio is in the remote key of E major – transcendent and ethereal in its outer sections. Britten wrote of the slowly changing chords at the opening seeming ‘to hang motionless in the air while … flowing onwards’ as the first violin plays an expressive, slightly hesitant theme. The central section, in F minor, is a startling contrast: after serenity, suddenly the mood is wracked with turmoil – and uneasy hints of that even lurk in the reprise of the opening material, before stillness and peace are finally reached on the last E major chord.

The Scherzo is back in the home key of C major. The music is strongly driven by a kind rustic energy: Schubert makes the most of open strings with a theme that suggests hunting calls. After an

excursion into A flat major, the opening idea returns exultant before giving way to contrasting Trio section in D flat – ghostly and veiled in quality until the thrilling reprise of the Scherzo. The finale is a kind of Gypsy Rondo – with an obvious influence from Hungarian music. It begins in C minor before turning to C major. The second subject is a glorious lyrical theme that is soon decorated with triplet. The Quintet ends with a wilder reprise of the dance tune – and with one of the most memorable gestures in the entire Viennese Classical repertoire – a grinding, dissonant D flat resolving on to C.