SCHUBERT OCTET

DECEMBER 14, 2017
Bohemian National Hall

Ying Quartet
Joseph Anderer, horn
William Short, bassoon
Alexander Bedenko, clarinet
Brendan Kane, double bass

Illustrated talk by Misha Donat

PROGRAM

Schubert Octet

No piece by Schubert pays clearer homage to his greatest contemporary, Beethoven, than his Octet, one of his most irresistibly exuberant chamber works. It was commissioned by Count Ferdinand Troyer, amateur clarinetist and chief steward to Beethoven’s pupil and patron Archduke Rudolph of Austria. Troyer wanted a piece modeled on Beethoven’s Septet, Op. 20, and Schubert duly scored his music for an almost identical ensemble. He also mirrored Beethoven’s six-movement scheme, even prefacing each of the outer movements with a slow introduction. And as in the Beethoven, the work’s centerpiece is a set of variations. This being Schubert, the variation theme comes from one of his vocal compositions: a duet in a Singspiel he had composed at the age of eighteen.