Eric Kisch feels that:
>Among the darkest, scariest and most moving pieces ever is the Schubert
>Quintet in c. I think we get a chance to peer into a composer's soul in
>the pit of despair. ... The "lighter" final movement doesn't, to me,
>signal a real victory over darkness. Do others have the same feeling
>about this extraordinary work.
Not exactly. I find the second subject in the first movement intensely
moving because of its beauty but certainly not a scary feeling. There
are other parts of this work and much other Schubert which is sometimes
described as bitter-sweet, which I think is inadequate. Perhaps it's more
a sense of resignation, despair that has somehow been resolved. I get a
similar feeling from the second movement of Mozart's Jupiter symphony.
There's something similar in the the slow movement of Grieg's Holberg Suite
which is more apparent in the version for piano which I prefer to the usual
string version.
Richard Pennycuick
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