Sunday Classics: String-quartet encores, Part 3 -- Schubert and the spell of musical compulsion

The Amadeus Quartet (Norbert Brainin and Siegmund Nissel, violins; Peter Schidlof, viola; Martin Lovett, cello) plays Schubert's Quartettsatz at Aldeburgh, 1977.

by Ken

As I mentioned at the end of last night's all-Russian Part 2 of our three-part series devoted to string-quartet encore-type pieces (following Friday night's international-repertory Part 1), I have one more piece to present. It's the near-exclusive, even obsessive subject of today's post.

I don't think I'm imagining that there was, once upon a time, an RCA LP of string-quartet encores by the Guarneri Quartet which included the single movement that bears the lofty designation of Schubert's Quartet No. 12, clearly intended as the first movement of a quartet that Schubert for reasons known only to him chose not to pursue. It's more commonly known by the German designation Quartettsatz, which simply means "quartet movement." My (currently unsubstantiated) recollection is that it was via this mysterious Guarneri LP, of which I haven't found a trace, including even my presumed own copy (could I have disposed of it simply because I wasn't much of a fan of the Guarneri?), that I began listening compulsively to the piece, over and over (and over).


In this clip you can view the score for the Quartettsatz while listening to the (unidentified) performance.


FOR MORE ON MUSICAL COMPULSIONS, AND A
LOT MORE OF THE QUARTETTSATZ, CLICK HERE.

#