Franz Schubert ‘Octet in F’ Op 166

This is Schubert’s largest-scale chamber music work. It is roughly contemporaneous with his “Rosamunde” and “Death and the Maiden” string quartets. Count Ferdinand Troyer commissioned a work similar to Beethoven’s popular Septet, op. 20, of 1800.

Schubert wrote the Octet in February 1824. (“Schubert, like Mozart, was one of the fastest writers in musical history: a composer who could conceive a whole work in his head and immediately write it down” [Harold Schonberg].) He enlarged Beethoven’s ensemble by adding a violin. Like Beethoven, he structured the piece as a six-movement work. As Beethoven had written his Septet in preparation for his First Symphony, Schubert viewed the Octet as “pav[ing] the way towards a grand symphony” –what ultimately became his Symphony No. 9 of 1828.

Jacqui Miles, Claire Parkin violin
Adam Clarke viola
Emma Chamberlain cello
Chris Seddon double bass

Barbara Stuart clarinet
Helen Newing horn
Simon Payne bassoon