Franz Schubert: Piano Trios D.929 and D.897

The tragically short-lived composer Franz Schubert left behind a remarkable body of work in so compressed a span, including eight symphonies and the amazing unfinished ninth, lieder or songs of significant number and import, and a great many works for small ensembles.

This Naxos release from the late 1980s is a masterful recording by the Stuttgart Piano Trio, comprised of violinist Rainer Kusmaul, cellist Claus Kannglesser, and pianist Monika Leonhard, of two of the master's piano trios, the E-flat and the Nocturne.

The former is a stunning evocation of the form, spanning over 45 minutes through four movements.  It displays beautiful melodicism, exquisite harmonies, powerful dynamics and superb playing.  Composed in late 1827 for a friend's engagement and performed early the next year and then publicly in March, the trio is one of the few works the composer heard played during his brief life.

One observer notes that second movement of this piece was used in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and that the auteur noted that the trio "has just the right restrained balance between the tragic and the romantic.  This could be said probably of much of Schubert's music as he bridged the eras of, say, Beethoven and Liszt.

The Nocturne was evidently a discarded draft of the andante second movement that Kubrick used and, even as an outtake of sorts, it is still a gorgeous piece of music.  There is much dramatic interplay, quiet passages of deep emotion, virtuosic flutterings of notes on the piano that are noteworthy, and an overall synchronicity of the three instruments that make this single movement a fascinating complement to the massive and memorable E Flat Major trio.

Franz Schubert: Trout Piano Quintet/String Quartet in A Minor

In addition to immediately being drawn to the music of the great Franz Schubert back when discovering him in 1990, this listener was particularly attuned to the work of the Austrian master in 2008 for a variety of reasons.

Schubert only lived thirty-one years, but was similar to Mozart and his contemporary Mendelssohn in being a prodigy and prolific.  This Durkin Hayes-released album by the British Royal Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble, recorded early in 1994, presents two of the composer's best-known chamber works.

The gorgeous, stately and highly emotive melodies of the Piano Quintet in A Major, known as the "Trout", was completed in 1819 when Schubert was 22, but was not published until 1829, the year after his death.  In addition to the time-honored beauty of the melodies and harmonic richness of the score, there is the matter of the unusual instrumentation and structure.  The name derives from the piece's connection to a lied (song) called "The Trout" that the composer used in the fourth movement.

Normally, works like this match the piano to the standard string quartet of two violins, viola and cello, but Schubert removed one of the violins and inserted a double bass instead, which provided a deeper, richer bottom end that worked particularly well with the slower, more somber aspects.  Moreover, the composer  wrote the piece in five movements, instead of the usual four.  This allowed him to develop more variations on themes and, because of the wealth of wonderful motivic material found in the piece, the expanded movement structure gives the listener that much more to enjoy.

The "Rosamunde" string quartet, in A Minor, is another masterpiece with a series of gorgeous melodies that have endured.  Achingly beautiful and simple, the theme is followed by a section with a strong sense of drama and tension, one anchored in a deep wellspring of emotion.

The composer had his upbringing in a musical family that performed chamber music at home and he began writing fine string quartets at a young age (not unlike Rossini).  Of the numbered set of fifteen quartets attributed to Schubert, the A minor is the thirteenth and often called the "Rosamunde."  It was completed in the first months of 1824 and was not as popular in later years as his epic "Death and the Maiden" which was completed at the same time.  Yet, it was the only of his quartets published in his lifetime.

The name "Rosamunde" came from the fact that part of the piece was extracted from a song included in Schubert's incidental music for a play of that name and included in the slow second movement.  In terms of his amazing knack for highly lyrical themes, sense of powerful dynamics and complex textures, Schubert, in the "Rosamunde", creates a masterpiece that, coupled with "Death and the Maiden" set a high standard for the string quartet form.

Franz Schubert: Die Grossen Symphonien

In 1990, when explorations into various types and forms of music were made by YHB, the world of "classical" was one of those investigated.  Immediately, one of the favored composers emerged:  Franz Schubert (1797-1828), a native of Vienna, who, in a remarkably short period, put forth an enormous amount of great music that was underappreciated in his lifetime, though now he is recognized as truly one of the great composers in history.

Schubert worked in a dizzying array of musical forms in short order:  in about a decade between roughly 1820 and 1830 he wrote nine symphonies, over 600 lieder or songs with vocals, operas, religious works, solo piano, and chamber music.  In fact, Schubert's work with lieder and the fact that his melodic gifts were so pronounced led many critics and others to conclude that he lacked the weight and gravity of such masters as Beethoven or Bach.  Notably, though, Schubert's work might actually be favorably viewed as heir to the work of Mozart, who also had a preternatural gift for melodic invention.

While he is probably best known for his chamber music, including such renowned works as the "Trout Quintet" and "Death and the Maiden," as well as for the lieder, Schubert also created masterpieces in the realm of symphonies, including his "The Great" Symphony in C-Major, or his Ninth, and the Unfinished Symphony, or the Eighth (these and the Seventh were not numbered until decades after the composer's death.)

Today's entry focuses on a somewhat obscure recording of Schubert's Fifth, Eighth and Ninth symphonies along with a few shorter pieces, including the famous devotional chamber work, "Ave Maria."  The 2-CD package was recorded by the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra and the Slovak Chamber Orchestra, produced by a company in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava, and reissued by a German firm. 

As is with the case with so much of classical recordings, the fact that the orchestras are not considered "top tier" does not at all mean that the playing or recording quality are inferior (at least not to amateur ears such as those belonging to YHB.)  This is great music by a master composer rendered in a beautiful way by high quality orchestras. 

Notably, this package was purchased, along with several others in the series, at, of all places, the Tuesday Morning store several years ago and many hours have been spent thoroughly enjoyed listening to the CDs.  There are certainly dozens, maybe hundreds, of recordings of these major works of Schubert available on a variety of major and so-called "discount" labels.   Most of us, though, would hardly know the difference relative to the performance quality.

In any case, Franz Schubert is among the greatest of composers and certainly at the highest level of what is often referred to as the "early Romantic" period, on par with such luminaries as Mendelssohn, Rossini and Paganini, among others.  While to some, Schubert might not seem as powerful, deep or profound as Beethoven, but for remarkable quality in a sheer variety of a prolific nature, he is one of the most remarkable composers the "classical" world has ever known.