I remember taking the
sublime slow movement of this wonderful
Quintet - one of Schubert’s last utterances
- to illustrate the composer’s fondness
for enharmonic double entendres,
or, to put it another way, modulations
using chord ‘puns’. The movement is
made up of a soporific E major
outer section, and a tempestuous F minor
middle section. In an inspired coda,
Schubert - in a divine ‘hole in one’
- moves from the stillness of E major
to the torment of F minor, and
back again, all in a couple of bars!
The result; a moment of sheer magic,
from which tension is achingly raised
and released, using the absolute minimum
of resources. The listener’s emotions
- mystery… uncertainty… confusion… pain…
release… reassurance… peace… - are stretched
to capacity.
This is truly great
music. Small wonder that the favourite
one-and-only CD selected by professional
performing musician guests on Radio
4’s Desert Island Discs over
the last goodness-knows-how-many years
is, by some margin, this slow movement.
It is musician’s music - music to accompany
you to your final resting place!
Actually, what I remember
most about my lecture - on the synonymity
of the dominant seventh and the augmented
sixth, if you must know - was the boredom
expressed by uninterested students,
my enthusiasm notwithstanding! And these
were music students! They were
unimpressed by Schubert’s ‘heavenly
length’ (Schumann’s words about the
Ninth Symphony, you remember) and denounced
it, respectfully, as ‘boring’. It was
as if a dream Christmas present, or
an inheritance, had been returned to
its donor, marked ‘unwanted’!
As my mother used to
say, "it just goes to show!"
Show what? That great music isn’t everyone’s
cup of tea? That music can mean different
things to different people? That we
need to prepare ourselves for ‘responsible’
listening? That we need to be suitably
receptive to music whose moods don’t,
right now, reflect our own? All of these
things, I guess! But, above all, I found
myself mourning for these young people
who, through sheer impatience, as I
saw it, were depriving themselves of
one of the most fulfilling experiences
‘serious’ music has to offer the attentive
‘serious’ listener. But then, I told
myself, they have that life-changing
moment of discovery ahead of them. What
rewards await them, in later life! So,
like a parent who only wants the best
for his children, my regret turned to
pleasure: in fact, my F minor melted
into E major!
I could wax just as
lyrical about the rest of the piece.
The divinely beautiful first movement,
with its Brucknerian timescale and extraordinarily
melancholic lyricism. Or the trio of
the scherzo, with its dramatic (and
oh-so-uncomfortable) juxtaposition of
moods. This really is quintessential
late Schubert!
This preamble serves
merely to make the point to any unsuspecting
reader that this music simply MUST find
a place on your CD shelves. Not necessarily
this slightly gritty, rather casual,
and not perfectly polished reading by
the Guarneris, and friend. Though you’ll
not be disappointed, unless you’ve already
heard one of the many good alternatives
the well-endowed catalogue has to offer.
At budget price, there are lots of performances
that radiate the beauty and the warmth
of this music more compellingly than
this, without being expressively over-indulgent.
Try the Ensemble Villa Musica on Naxos
8.55038, or the augmented Brandis
Quartet on Brilliant Classics 99599-3
- a Nimbus recording, part of a set
including the late string quartets.
Or, if I’ve persuaded you that this
is music worth spending money on, I
suggest you lash out on the Lindsays
on ASV CDDCA537, or the Petersen
Quartet on Capriccio 10 788.
All four of my listed
alternatives take a more expansive view
- not necessarily a good thing, you
may say? And they’re all more subtly
recorded, and digital.
Peter J Lawson
Guarneri Quartet, with *Leonard Rose (cello) 
