[6/26/2011] Schubert's Octet may stretch our endurance but also stretches our delights (continued)

If you're listening in stereo, you'll hear the Music Group of London strings (including violin soloist Hugh Bean) on the left and the winds (Keith Puddy, clarinet; Alan Civil, horn; Roger Birnstingl, bassoon) on the right, creating a lovely antiphonal effect in this deliciously affectionate performance of the Menuetto of Schubert's Octet from their 1980 ASV recording, from which we hear a bit more below.


SCHUBERT: Octet for Winds and Strings in F, D. 803

i. Adagio; Allegro

Schubert starts this great big shaggy dog of a piece with what I assume is some beautiful misdirection: a brooding, harmonically wandering introduction that sets expectations for something different from the lovely, friendly movement it segues into. Already we're clearly beyond the scale of any serenade or divertimento I know of (with the possible exception of Mozart's wind serenades, notably the Gran Partita, K. 361), and certainly beyond the emotional range of the Beethoven Septet.

I thought we'd start our journey through the Octet by returning to our friends the Melos Ensemble, whom we've been hearing in the previews.

Melos Ensemble: Gervase de Peyer, clarinet; Neill Sanders, horn; William Waterhouse, bassoon; Emanuel Hurwitz and Ivor McMahon, violins; Cecil Aronowitz, viola; Terence Weil, cello; Adrian Beers, double bass. EMI, recorded December 1967

ii. Adagio

If Schubert was trying to keep some control over the expressive range of the Octet, an Adagio like this would surely have proved too great a temptation. And he didn't resist very hard.

Michael Collins, clarinet; Richard Watkins, horn; Robin O'Neill, bassoon; Isabelle van Keulen and Peter Brunt, violins; Diemut Poppen, viola; Frans Helmerson, cello; Mary Scully, double bass. BBC Music, recorded live in Wigmore Hall, London, Nov. 16, 1998

iii. Scherzo: Allegro vivace
iv. Theme and Variations: Andante
v. Menuetto: Allegro

I'm not attempting to pass the third through fifth movements off as some kind of "supermovement," but I thought we might group them for two reasons: first, we've already heard them (the Scherzo and Minuet that bracket the Andante in Friday's preview, the Andante itself in Saturday's preview), and second, it's in this group that the Octet goes kind of nuts formally. If we listen to just the first three movements, they feel pretty famliiar in terms of the four-movement form we encounter regularly in classical symphonies and string quartets and the like: an allegro in sonata form (complete with soulful slow introduction), a beautiful, poetic slow movement, and a bubbly scherzo.

But at movement four things start to go nuts -- what do we have but another slow movement? It's also of a very familiar kind, a theme and variations, but in a work where we've already had a lovely Adagio? And then, if we're not confused enough, we get a Menuetto, having already had a Scherzo. Hey, Franz, isn't it supposed to be one or the other?

Since we've already heard this music played pretty spiffily on modern instruments by the Melos Ensemble, I thought today for this movement-bloc we would go "original instruments." I have wearyingly little interest in the fetish for accuracy-ish-ness as a substitute for music, but here I think the Aston Magna players do a pretty irresistible job, with an especially joyful Scherzo and Minuet.

Music from Aston Magna: Erich Oeprich, clarinet; Lowell Greer, horn; Dennis Godburn, bassoon; Daniel Stepner and Linda Quan, violns; David Miller, viola; Myron Lutzke, cello; Michael Willens, double bass. Harmonia Mundi, recorded 1991

vi. Andante molto; Allegro

By now I think we know Schubert is playing with us when he announces the finale with a 2½-minute introduction that's all trembling and dramatic foreboding. Sure enough it gives way finally to one of the composer's most confidently buoyant and untroubled creations. (And again, the clear left-right stereo separation of the strings and winds in ASV's recording seems to me to create a wonderful antiphonal effect as well as spotlighting how Schubert uses his instrumental groups.)

Music Group of London: Keith Puddy, clarinet; Alan Civil, horn; Roger Birnstingl, bassoon; Hugh Bean and Perry Hart, violins; Christopher Wellington, viola; Eileen Croxford, cello; Keith Marjoram, double bass. ASV, recorded 1980


THE PLAN FOR NEXT WEEK: BACK TO WAGNER'S
SIEGFRIED IDYLL, WITH A TWIST, AS PROMISED


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