Schubert Talking to God

It’s a work that stunned me the first time I heard it, and it doesn’t cease surprising me now, forty years later.

And Joel Krosnick couldn’t introduce better the Cello Quintet of Franz Schubert. He’s utterly right—this composer known for his songs wrote an intensely lyrical quintet. But it’s not exclusively so—he also writes passages that are wonderfully instrument; even if you could sing them, they’d still sound unnatural.

And Krosnick is right, too, about the special sound of this grouping of instruments—how the first cello switches between being a middle voice, a more sonorous viola, to a bass voice. And when the two cellos team up on their bottom string, they make a wonderful growl.

And it’s indisputable—the second theme of the first movement is almost unique both for it’s loveliness and for the treatment that Schubert gives. And boy, does Schubert take his time with this movement—as he does with all of his first movements from this period late in his life.

The second movement? It may be the most beautiful, most wistful piece of music ever composed. How good is it? Well, the pianist Arthur Rubenstein wanted it played at his funeral. And the transition from the “storm scene,” as Krosnick calls it, back to the original scene is utterly haunting.

And the second movement is all about the second violin, the viola, the first cello. They’re playing these long lines—you feel almost that you’re under water, moving in some other medium than air. Unfortunately, the second cello and the first violin too often play—as I feel is the case here—too loud. It’s distracting.

Let’s face it—there are a lot of compositions with strong first movements, but by the fourth? You get the feeling that the composer has run out of creative gas—and is gliding home on the fumes of convention.

But Schubert never lets up—the third movement is a lively scherzo with a poignant middle section. And again, the sound is incredible. This has the weight of an orchestra combined with the individuality and flexibility of chamber music. Oh, and by the way—notice how efficiently Schubert transitions from the slow middle section back into the manic repeat section.

And the fourth music is just as good—it’s a rollicking movement that again has a second theme that’s a knockout. And then, just when it can’t get better—Schubert introduces a fugue and then we’re back to that great second theme.

Schubert, as Krosnick says, probably never heard this music played. And though he sent it off to a publisher, the publisher sent it back, asking for more songs, instead. So it sat on a shelf for some 25 years; then the piece, originally composed just 2 months before Schubert’s death in 1828, was finally published.

It took the world a while to get it—it’s quite possibly the greatest piece of chamber music ever written.

There’s a point where comparisons, or rankings, just can’t be made. There’s no way to compare the B Minor Mass with the late quartets with the Cello Quintet. There is something, however, that is eerie about this work—something that the other works don’t have.

It may be that we know the story, but this work, like the Mozart Requiem, seems to foreshadow Schubert’s death. I like Krosnick’s description of the second movement: Schubert is talking to God. But I remember what a teacher of mine said about the entire work: “I think Schubert knew he was dying, I think he knew he was going to heaven. I know he knew what that was like!”