Or even if you've got only 5 or 6 of the above, here's the first
not quite 19 bars of what can happen if you fill in those gaps
[. . . and so on]
Chamber Players of Canada. CBC Records, recorded in Fallowfield, Ont., June 2002 [we'll have full credits when we hear the full movement]
by Ken
Sorry about the protracted silence. It's been rough, and you don't want to know. We were about to enter an "intermezzo" phase in our lookback at four Brahms slow movements, as we maneuvered our way toward the first landmark of Brahms's creative career, the Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5, one of whose curious features is an "extra" slow movement -- labeled, of all things, Intermezzo -- nestled between its third and fifth movements.
The question has been how to proceed, how to proceed. It's been a project of considerable turmoil, involving all manner of addition, bits of subtraction, a fair amount of multiplication, and a confounding agglomeration of diversion and digression. The mass as it stands, clearly way beyond the bounds of a single post, will probably wind up as at least three post, including at least one that will be virtually Brahms-free. But figuring out just how to accomplish the division and distribution, and to fill in the resulting gaps . . . well, it hasn't been easy, especially with the dispiriting questions "Who cares?" and "What does it matter?" sounding in the background.
SO INSTEAD, LET'S FOCUS ON A MUSICAL MOMENT,
OR MOVEMENT, THAT GAVE ME A MOMENTARY OF LIFT
It starts with the musical introduction we heard above, a not-quite-two-minute expanse that comprises, as noted, not quite 19 bars, bar 19 being -- as we'll hear -- at one and the same time the conclusion of the work's Adagio introduction and the opening of the Allegro first movement proper.
SCHUBERT: Octet for Winds and Strings in F, D. 803:
i. Adagio -- Allegro
Chamber Players of Canada: Kimball Sykes, clarinet; Christopher Millard, bassoon; James Sommerville, horn; Andrew Dawes and Jonathan Crow, violins; Guylaine Lemaire, viola; Julian Armour, cello; Murielle Bruneau, double bass. CBC Records, recorded in St. Patrick's Church (Église St. Patrick), Fallowfield, Ont., June 14-15, 2002
LET'S AT LEAST HEAR THE WHOLE OF THE OCTET
I still have to tell the little story of how the Schubert Octet impinged on me, which I'm afraid isn't that much of a story, really. I'd noticed, in one of the batches of CDs of assorted provenance waiting at some phantom point in the future to be integrated in the main shelf system a recording of the Octet plucked out of a CD bargain bin at some now-forgotten point in time -- the price tag says it set me back $1.99. I doubt that it was a recent purchase, and I doubted that I'd ever listened to it.
However, I know, or can easily enough imagine, why I bought it. The Octet is such an extraordinary, one-of-a-kind creation that there's no way I would have passed up a $1.99 CD (with even a filler: the 12-minute-plus movement that constitutes the Schubert String Trio, D. 471), even when played by players as unknown to me as the Chamber Players of Canada. (Or, if you prefer, Les Chambristes du Canada.) Be honest, did you know that there's such a thing as the Chamber Players of Canada?
Once I'd renoticed that CD, and pretty well decided that I didn't think I'd ever listened to it, it kind of lodged in an odd-shaped memory nook in my brain, so that when there came a time when I was trying to think of something to listen to in that particular moment, it spoke up. I put it on, and was promptly seduced by that amazing Adagio introduction we heard at the top of the post -- followed, of course, by the rest of the movement, and then the following full-blown -- and yet remarkably sunny -- Adagio, and the sequence of Scherzo and Menuetto bracketing the other basic kind of general-purpose slow movement, an Andante-with-variations, and another slow introduction that segues into an up-tempo finale.
It is, really, the world of the serenade or divertimento, as we're reminded by perhaps its closest precursor, Beethoven's once-inordinately-popular (and still frequently played) Septet, which is identical in instrumentation to the Schubert Octet except that Beethoven did without a second violin and whose six-movement configuration is identical to Schubert's. And what a charming and companionable work the Septet is.
Well, Schubert's Octet is enormously charming and companionable too, but somewhere along the line Schubert seems to have gotten lost in genre space, or stripped a whole bunch of genre gears, because what he created is mostly 10-minute-plus movements, and while those movements hardly challenge listeners the way his greatest chamber works do -- think of the last three string quartets, the two piano trios, and especially the C major String Quintet -- they certainly leap the bounds of the "entertainment" genre where Beethoven's Septet remained content to reside. (The genre-confounding leap that comes to mind is Mozart's Gran Partita Serenade for wind soloists, K. 361. The other looming masterpiece among Schubert's chamberworks, the Trout Quintet, actually has a fair amount in common with the Octet.)
And there the thing stands, alone, running to over an hour, making it the longest work in the normally encountered chamber repertory, as every commentator on the Octet is sure to note, and every commentator is likely to point to the music's immediate approachability. And yet what a powerful hold on the listener's imagination the Octet exerts!
MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST LISTEN TO THE THING
I don't remember much about the previous SC Schubert Octet post, which seems to have happened in 2011, judging from the upload dates of the audio clips. (I shudder to think of the search process that would be required to try to dredge it up.) But those clips weren't as conducive to easy exhumation as I expected, and a number of the clips we'll be hearing were made for this occasion.
Including the two movements we're hearing from the Chamber Players of Canada performance, which, now that I've listened to it a number of times (it was handy having it sitting in that CD player), I think it's terrific -- not as overtly emotive as most performances, but sleek and poised and played with considerable beauty and breathability.
Here are some thoughts worth bearing in mind as we listen to the Octet, from the CBC Records booklet, written by Julian Armour [right], the cellist of the Chamber Players of Canada performance:
One can imagine Schubert's frustration that the Octet was only performed once in public during his lifetime. Even the clarinettist who commissioned it never played it again, although he lived another 25 years. Schubert knew he had written something worthy of attention and offered it to at least two publishers, but without any luck. It was not published until 1853, and even then the publisher chose to omit two movements. An edition complete with all six movements would have to wait until 1875, almost 50 years after Schubert's death.
The Octet is one of the most immediately appealing and structurally unambiguous works in the chamber music repertoire. Very little needs to be said about the music itself other than to comment that its unreservedly cheerful mood reflects the composer's temporary respite from the syphilis that was eventually to kill him. The Octet's sunny optimism, beautiful melodies, and virtuoso passagework make it a delight from beginning to end. The only dark clouds in the entire work are found in the short introduction to the last movement, and then all returns to normal. Every instrument gets a chance to shine. . . .
[For the continuation of Julian Armour's thoughts, see the note preceding the fourth movement.]
SCHUBERT: Octet for Winds and Strings in F, D. 803
i. Adagio -- Allegro
The idea of preceding an allegro movement with an extended slow introduction was hardly original to Schubert -- all the great Classical composers (not to mention the non-great ones) did it, and achieved memorable results. But for Schubert, the greatest of the song-inspired composers, the form was made to order, and in the Octet he used the heck out of it in both the first and last movements.
Chamber Players of Canada: Kimball Sykes, clarinet; Christopher Millard, bassoon; James Sommerville, horn; Andrew Dawes and Jonathan Crow, violins; Guylaine Lemaire, viola; Julian Armour, cello; Murielle Bruneau, double bass. CBC Records, recorded in St. Patrick's Church (Église St. Patrick), Fallowfield, Ont., June 14-15, 2002
Members of the New York Woodwind Quintet (David Glazer, clarinet; Arthur Weisberg, bassoon; John Barrows, horn); Fine Arts Quartet (Leonard Sorkin and Abram Loft, violins; Irving Ilmer, viola; George Sopkin, cello); Harold Siegel, double bass. ConcertDisc-Boston Skyline, recorded at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, c1961
[UPDATE: About the timing difference, the Canadians take the long exposition repeat in the Allegro, while four decades earlier the Americans didn't, and really didn't need to -- maybe once through is enough when you produce the kind of glow generated by those long-term happy collaborators the New York Woodwind Quintet and the Fine Arts Quartet.
[Do you begin to get the feeling that musicians love playing the Schubert Octet? And do you begin to hear why?]
ii. Adagio
As I noted earlier, this is a full-blown Adagio, but a sunny one -- not something one encounters often.
Chamber Players of Canada: Kimball Sykes, clarinet; Christopher Millard, bassoon; James Sommerville, horn; Andrew Dawes and Jonathan Crow, violins; Guylaine Lemaire, viola; Julian Armour, cello; Murielle Bruneau, double bass. CBC Records, recorded in St. Patrick's Church (Église St. Patrick), Fallowfield, Ont., June 14-15, 2002
Michael Collins, clarinet; Robin O'Neill, bassoon; Richard Watkins, horn; 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 -- Trio
There's a split personality in the Octet between the urbane and the rustic, and it comes to the fore in these middle movements, especially the rollicking Scherzo and charming Menuetto -- for a real ear-opener, compare our "official" performances with the "bonus" Aston Magna ones below. And in our "official" performances of the Scherzo, note the two teams' different answers to the question of how vivace the tempo Allegro vivace is.
Melos Ensemble of London: Gervase de Peyer, clarinet; William Waterhouse, bassoon; Neill Sanders, horn; Emanuel Hurwitz and Ivor McMahon, violins; Cecil Aronowitz, viola; Terence Weil, cello; Adrian Beers, double bass. EMI, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 1, December 1967
Michael Collins, clarinet; Robin O'Neill, bassoon; Richard Watkins, horn; 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
[UPDATE: It took two tries, but this time we've got Michael Collins and Friends' Scherzo in place.]
iv. Andante with variations
To return to Julian Armour's CD booklet note:
. . . Nowhere is Schubert's escape from reality more evident than in the theme of the fourth movement, taken from a duet from his failed 1816 Singspiel, Die Freunde von Salamanka. Unabashedly romantic, the pastoral setting of this simple duet idealizes the unlimited powers of imaginary love. "Whoever finds love is relieved of every pain and of all cares . . .
Melos Ensemble of London: Gervase de Peyer, clarinet; William Waterhouse, bassoon; Neill Sanders, horn; Emanuel Hurwitz and Ivor McMahon, violins; Cecil Aronowitz, viola; Terence Weil, cello; Adrian Beers, double bass. EMI, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 1, December 1967
Eduard Brunner, clarinet; Klaus Thunemann, bassoon; Radovan Vlatković, horn; Gidon Kremer and Isabelle van Keulen, violins; Tabea Zimmermann, viola; David Geringas, cello; Alois Posch, double bass. DG, recorded in the Bibliothekssaal, Polling (Upper Bavaria), Germany, April 1987
v. Menuetto: Allegro -- Trio
Again, if you really want to hear the rustic spirit I alluded to earlier, check out the Aston Magna performance below of the Menuetto.
Music Group of London: Keith Puddy, clarinet; Roger Birnstingl, bassoon; Alan Civil, horn; Hugh Bean and Perry Hart, violins; Christopher Wellington, viola; Eileen Croxford, cello; Keith Marjoram, double bass. ASV, recorded 1980
Members of the New York Woodwind Quintet (David Glazer, clarinet; Arthur Weisberg, bassoon; John Barrows, horn); Fine Arts Quartet (Leonard Sorkin and Abram Loft, violins; Irving Ilmer, viola; George Sopkin, cello); Harold Siegel, double bass. ConcertDisc-Boston Skyline, recorded at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, c1961
vi. Andante -- Allegro
The finale's almost symphonic slow introduction draws us into a landscape of violent outbursts, which strangely seem to lose their vehemence until they dissolve into about as listener-friendly a romp to the finish line as the music world, allowing for a return of the thundering opening material, affords us -- even more so in the audaciously held-back Kremer and Friends performance, which renders the jolliness of the Allegro as less perky (a more traditional take that's well represented by the Music Group of London performance) than, I don't know, cuddly. You could argue that their main movement tempo is more Allegretto (or even Moderato) than Allegro, but I kind of love it!
Music Group of London: Keith Puddy, clarinet; Roger Birnstingl, bassoon; Alan Civil, horn; Hugh Bean and Perry Hart, violins; Christopher Wellington, viola; Eileen Croxford, cello; Keith Marjoram, double bass. ASV, recorded 1980
Eduard Brunner, clarinet; Klaus Thunemann, bassoon; Radovan Vlatković, horn; Gidon Kremer and Isabelle van Keulen, violins; Tabea Zimmermann, viola; David Geringas, cello; Alois Posch, double bass. DG, recorded in the Bibliothekssaal, Polling (Upper Bavaria), Germany, April 1987
BONUS: A more "period"-type rendering of the middle-movement sequence of the Scherzo and Menuetto bracketing the Andante with variations
iii. Scherzo: Allegro vivace -- Trio
iv. Andante with variations
v. Menuetto: Allegro -- Trio
Music from Aston Magna: Eric Hoeprich, clarinet; Dennis Godburn, bassoon; Lowell Greer, natural horn; Daniel Stepner and Linda Quan, violins; David Miller, viola; Myron Lutzke, cello; Michael Willens, double bass. Harmonia Mundi USA, recorded in Olin Auditorium, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, July 1991
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