Beautiful. You know, I think those few opening notes for just the 'cellos and double basses is one of the most mysterious and strange things I've ever heard. And then follows the famous passage for oboes and clarinets with a pulsating accompaniment in the strings. It's just pure genius and inspiration.
What I love about Schubert, apart from the sheer improbable beauty of the music, is that fact that he was in Vienna where Beethoven was THE great living composer of the time and yet he managed to stay absolutely true to himself and his own sense of style. To work outside of the shadow of Beethoven was something that later composers would spend their entire lives trying to achieve. So many of the lieder are fantastic, along with the piano sonatas and piano pieces (the Fantasia for Four-HanRAB in F Minor!!), and the chamber music like the last three quartets, and the towering String Quintet, the 9th symphony, etc. And hardly any of it was known outside of his circle of frienRAB. Was it Schumann or Mendelssohn who found the autograph score of the 9th symphony in an organ loft or somewhere, totally forgotten and never performed.
I would rank the D minor quartet, the G major quartet, the string quintet in C major, the D minor, A major and Bb major piano sonatas, and the 8th and 9th symphonies as among the select group of absolute masterpieces of music.
There's something weird about Schubert's music though. I don't know what it is really. The juxtaposition of major/minor keys is probably part of it, along with lots of enharmonic modulations that pull the rug out from under you but a lot of it is just incredibly beautiful and then angry and raging and full of despair. Who else could've written the unearthly slow movement of the string quintet where the music seems to be totally static. There's really nothing else quite like it.
An amazing, amazing composer though who gave the world such magnificent things and who died at 31, almost in complete obscurity. What a strange thing to happen.
What I love about Schubert, apart from the sheer improbable beauty of the music, is that fact that he was in Vienna where Beethoven was THE great living composer of the time and yet he managed to stay absolutely true to himself and his own sense of style. To work outside of the shadow of Beethoven was something that later composers would spend their entire lives trying to achieve. So many of the lieder are fantastic, along with the piano sonatas and piano pieces (the Fantasia for Four-HanRAB in F Minor!!), and the chamber music like the last three quartets, and the towering String Quintet, the 9th symphony, etc. And hardly any of it was known outside of his circle of frienRAB. Was it Schumann or Mendelssohn who found the autograph score of the 9th symphony in an organ loft or somewhere, totally forgotten and never performed.
I would rank the D minor quartet, the G major quartet, the string quintet in C major, the D minor, A major and Bb major piano sonatas, and the 8th and 9th symphonies as among the select group of absolute masterpieces of music.
There's something weird about Schubert's music though. I don't know what it is really. The juxtaposition of major/minor keys is probably part of it, along with lots of enharmonic modulations that pull the rug out from under you but a lot of it is just incredibly beautiful and then angry and raging and full of despair. Who else could've written the unearthly slow movement of the string quintet where the music seems to be totally static. There's really nothing else quite like it.
An amazing, amazing composer though who gave the world such magnificent things and who died at 31, almost in complete obscurity. What a strange thing to happen.
