Schubert Quatuors et Quintettes Vol 3

Jan Vermeulen is playing Schubert sonatas
on an original historical Viennese fortepiano
of 1826 by Nanette Streicher

The Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition presents all Schubert’s Lieder, over 700 songs, grouped according to the poets who inspired him. Thanks to Bärenreiter’s Neue Schubert-Ausgabe, which uses primary sources, the performers have been able to benefit from the most recent research of the editorial team. The third volume devoted to settings of poems by Goethe includes the best known song of all, Erlkönig. These songs for male voice range from 1814 to the 1820s, some in Goethe’s preferred strophic form, others through-composed.

While entirely consistent with the previous two volumes in a series of recordings of Schubert's quartets, the Mandelring Quartet's third installment is entirely inconsistent with almost every previous recording of Schubert's quartets. In this 2006 coupling of the late G major Quartet with the early G minor Quartet, the Mandelring displays the same qualities that distinguished its previous recordings: strength, drive, and overwhelming intensity. The opening Allegro molto moderato of the G major Quartet has more power in its attacks, more edge in its sonorities, and more vigor in its rhythms than even the Alban Berg's forceful account, while the following Andante un poco mosso has more raw excitement than any previous version.

Schubert’s musical ideas at this time sometimes bear a family resemblance to themes by Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven, but nevertheless his own style was already precociously developed. One would not mistake his Fifth Symphony of 1816 for the work of any other composer, though its difference in character from the Fourth Symphony is equally striking. Here, omitting clarinets, trumpets or timpani, Schubert uses a reduced orchestration in comparison with his previous symphonies.