Schubert Lebensmuth – String Quartets: No. 1 in C minor, D18; No. 15 in G, D887; Lieder Signum Quartett Pentatone PTC 5187 042 77:55 mins
The real value of this release lies in the fine performance of Schubert’s last string quartet, No. 15 in G major, D887. The Signum Quartett’s attention to detail is meticulous throughout their performance, and the players convey the manic force of the slow movement’s visionary middle section with particular intensity. They take the tarantella-like finale at an unusually steady tempo, but it’s one that throws the music’s weight and seriousness into relief. A pity, though, about the heavy ritardando for the last two chords.
Schubert’s earliest string quartet, D18, is a very tentative first step. He was just 13 when he composed it, and his inexperience shows in the rather stiff and orchestrally-inclined writing.
The song arrangements made by the Signum Quartett’s viola player, Xandi van Dijk, are curious. Schubert’s first version of ‘An den Mond’ is a strophic song, with each pair of verses set to the same music. Its variety lies in Goethe’s text, and it inevitably loses in stature when the whole thing is reduced, as here, to a single pair of stanzas lasting no longer than a minute. And the much better known ‘An die Musik’ sounds curiously lugubrious when its vocal line is so understated and the repeated chords of the original accompaniment are so smoothly articulated.
Misha Donat
