The Last Years - The Great String Quartets / Piano Trios / String Quintet / Octet

Spanning 6 CDs and featuring many a consummate performance, this release celebrates the genius of Schubert through detailing all of his late chamber music.

The compilation begins with the two piano trios, works of immense virtuosity whose fluent melodies betray the composer's affinity for song.

Moving on to the quartets, we encounter expressive depth, melancholy and drama; while the Quartettsatz movement in C minor displays all the hallmarks of Schubert's late style - including dark lyricism and shifting chromaticism - D810 'Der Tod und das Mädchen' takes the idea of tragedy to a whole new level, its second movement's melody lifted directly from the identically titled song.

The String Quintet follows, a work written just two months before Schubert's death and which replaces the conventional second viola part with that of a cello.

Last, but by no means least, the Octet; composed in 1826, this piece was conceived in a response to a commission by the renowned clarinettist Ferdinand Troyer. It's astonishing to think that Schubert was not taken seriously as a composer of chamber music during his own lifetime.

Brimming with melodic invention and documenting a composer who was at the height of his all‐too‐brief career, these works are superlatively performed by the Amsterdam Trio, Brandis Quartet and Berlin Philharmonic Octet.

"I really admire these heartfelt accounts for their warm expressiveness and sumptuous textures. Perhaps these heart-on-sleeve interpretations from the Brandis Quartet may be just a touch too cloying for some tastes. I certainly fully intend to revisit this set in the future."
(MusicWeb Feb 2005 on the String Quartets)