Franz Schubert
Octet F major D 803 for Clarinet (B flat/C), Bassoon, Horn (F/C), 2 Violins, Viola, Violoncello, Double Bass
The model for this composition was Beethoven’s Septet op. 20, whose Divertimento character and six-part layout were adopted by Schubert, although he merely expanded the instrumentation by adding a second violin. In a letter he numbered his octet amongst the chamber music works with which he desired to blaze a “path to the great symphony”. It can no longer be ascertained whether the composition was commissioned by Count Ferdinand Troyer, who had a musical salon in Vienna and played the clarinet. We only know that Schubert composed the work at the beginning of 1824, taking only a few weeks to do so and that it was shortly performed at Troyer’s afterwards. Today it is one of the most popular larger chamber music works.
About the Composer
Franz Schubert
He is not only the inaugurator of the art song and its most important composer in the nineteenth century, but he also realized a compositional concept in his instrumental works that opposed Viennese Classicism. Underlying the “heavenly length” of his works is a configuration of time that does not function according to the principle of motivic development, but addresses the notion of lingering; modifications occur mostly not in continuous unfolding, but through sudden eruptions. His ornate songs contradict the ideal of simplicity in the Lied aesthetics of his time, and provide the basis for the art song of the nineteenth century, regarded as they were as exemplary by subsequent generations of composers; they are defined by complex harmonies, an integration of the idioms of instrumental music, semantic models, and a new relationship between text and music in which the poem as a whole is interpreted through the composition, rather than just through word painting. His immense oeuvre in spite of his brief life comprises 600 songs, including his two famous song cycles; seven complete and several unfinished symphonies (including the “Unfinished” in B minor); other orchestral works; numerous pieces of chamber music; fourteen complete and several unfinished piano sonatas as well as other piano pieces; dances for piano and four-hand works; six masses and other sacred compositions; numerous pieces for choir or vocal ensemble, especially for male voices. Although he also contributed to every genre of music theater and his friends predicted a career for him in opera, only two of his ten finished operas were performed during his lifetime, as was the incidental music to “Rosamunde.”
About the Authors
Peter Jost (Editor)
Dr. Peter Jost, born in 1960 in Diefflen/Saar, read musicology, German and comparative studies at Saarland University in Saarbrücken. He did his PhD in 1988 with a thesis on Robert Schumann’s Waldszenen.
From November 1991 to April 2009 he was a research associate at the Richard Wagner Complete Edition in Munich, and since May 2009 has been an editor at G. Henle Publishers. His Urtext editions comprise predominantly French music of the 19th and 20th centuries, including works by Lalo, Saint-Saëns and Ravel.
Product Safety Informations (GPSR)
G. Henle Verlag
Here you can find the information about the manufacturer of the product.G. Henle Verlag e.K.
Forstenrieder Allee 122
81476 München
Germany
info@henle.de
www.henle.com
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