Isabelle Faust – Schubert: Oktett (2018) [FLAC 24bit/96kHz]

A mysterious beauty: In response to a commission from Count Troyer, who wanted a work closely modelled on Beethoven’s famous Septet op.20, Schubert – despite his fervent admiration for the older composer – resolutely struck out on his own by delivering an . . . Octet. While the enlarged forces opened his path towards symphonic writing, examination of the form and expression reveals a much more accomplished and personal composition than has generally been recognised by commentators. Isabelle Faust and her partners, enthralled by what is an exceptional work in every respect, offer us a new interpretation of it on period instruments.

Clocking in at a full hour, the Octet in F Major is one of the longest works in the chamber music repertoire. Ravaged by disease, Schubert took as his starting point, as expressly stipulated in the commission he received from the Steward of the Archduke Rodolphe, Beethoven’s Septet in E-flat major Op. 20, whose fame greatly chagrined its writer. In Schubert’s Octet there is a certain joie de vivre cut across, as ever with him, by occasional notes of desperation (the call of the horn in the first movement, the elegiac turns of the Adagio).
In order to meet his patron’s very precise specifications, he used the same instrumentation, with the addition of a second violin, and he took on the same order of movements and the same tonal pattern as the Beethovian model. But while Schubert poured his work into this mould so as to please his client, he wrote a very personal work which, by his own account, would lead him towards the great symphonic form which would appear rather later with his Symphony No. 9 in C major. Isabelle Faust and friends make you laugh and cry, moving in perfect unison from one emotion to another, never hesitating to lay this sublime music bare, without any recourse to affected vibrato or excessive expression. A performance that brings us close to the fragility of existence. – François Hudry

Tracklist:
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
1. Octet in F-Major, D. 803: I. Adagio. Allegro
2. Octet in F-Major, D. 803: II. Adagio
3. Octet in F-Major, D. 803: III. Allegro vivace – Trio
4. Octet in F-Major, D. 803: IV. Andante – Var. I-VII
5. Octet in F-Major, D. 803: V. Menuetto. Allegretto – Trio
6. Octet in F-Major, D. 803: VI. Andante molto – Allegro – Andante molto – Allegro molto
7. 5 Minuets, D. 89: No. 3 (transcribed for octet)
8. 5 Minuets, D. 89: No. 5 (transcribed for octet)

Personnel:
Isabelle Faust, Violine
Anne Katherine Schreiber, Violine
Danusha Waskiewicz, Viola
Kristin von der Goltz, Cello
James Munro, Kontrabass
Lorenzo Coppola, Klarinette
Javier Zafra, Bassoon
Teunis van der Zwart, Horn

Download:

mqs.link_IsabelleFaustSchubertktett20182496.part1.rar
mqs.link_IsabelleFaustSchubertktett20182496.part2.rar

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