Octet in F Major

Schubert’s Octet is among the most sunny and untroubled works of his maturity. Composed in spring 1824 and lasting about an hour, this genial but substantial work stands in stark contrast to the anguish and tragedy of the two string quartets he composed at the same time, the Rosamunde and Death and the Maiden. The Octet was commissioned by a royal servant and amateur clarinettist, who requested a companion piece for Beethoven’s 1800 Septet, mirroring that work’s six-movement layout and adding only a second violin to its scoring of clarinet, horn, bassoon and strings with double bass. Also included, as in the Septet, were slow introductions to the first and last movements, the latter providing the only moment when uncertainty clouds the ’s unruffled outlook. The clarinet and violin share much of the melodic material in the chattering opening “Allegro” and the elegant, lyrical “Adagio”. Two dance movements—an inimitably Viennese “Scherzo” and a more stately “Menuetto”—flank a set of variations on a love duet rescued from one of Schubert’s string of operatic failures, Die Freunde von Salamanka (1815), in which all the instruments take their turn in the spotlight. The drama of the finale’s introduction, with its allusions to the Trio of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, makes its louring presence felt just once more, briefly interrupting the buoyant “Allegro” as it draws to its exuberant close.