Ensemble of soloists from the Berliner Philharmoniker

Dvořák’s String Quintet in G Major, Op. 77 published in 1888, was actually a revised version of an 1875 work and dates from the composer’s early period. The fact that chamber music was the genre in which the composer first gave a vivid demonstration of his independence and skill comes as no surprise. Dvořák himself played the viola reasonably well and felt comfortable and at ease composing for stringed instruments. The instrumental structure of this work allows us to form an opinion on the composer’s intentions in advance: while Mozart had used two violas in his quintets and Schubert two cellos, Dvořák took the somewhat unusual step of adding the double bass. In so doing, he had the full range of stringed instruments at his disposal. The sumptuous sound palette of the work embodies characteristic features of Bohemian music to utter perfection, with its beautiful and memorable melodies, sharp harmonies and energetic rhythms.

Nadezhda Kulygina

Franz Schubert received a commission for the quintet Die Forelle (The Trout) from the wealthy amateur cellist Sylvester Paumgartner, to whom, it would appear, we are also indebted for two surprising features of this masterpiece. It appears that it was the client who insisted on the form of the quintet, unusual for a classical work (piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass), and that the fourth section be variations on a melody from Schubert’s Lied Die Forelle.
The Quintet was composed in autumn 1819 in an extremely short space of time. Schubert was travelling in Upper Austria together with his friend, the baritone Michael Vogl. For Schubert this was an unsettled time of professional disorder: his hopes of becoming a success and having a serious career in music failed one after the next. The Quintet, like many of Schubert’s chamber works, was the fruit of his “being widely known in narrow circles” of friends and admirers. Nevertheless, the music of all five sections of the Quintet (Allegro vivace, Andante, Scherzo, Theme and Variations and Finale) is almost serene. The famous Lied Die Forelle to Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart’s poem that forms the basis of the fourth section had been composed two years earlier, and Schubert was still continuing to refashion it in his search for perfection.

Anna Bulycheva