Tak cs String Quartet: String Quintet D956 – COMPACT DISCS

The matchless Takacs Quartet return to Schubert. Their first disc on Hyperion – his Death and the Maiden and Rosamunde quartets – received unprecedentedly lavish critical acclaim, acknowledging a new modern benchmark for these works. Now they turn to perhaps the most hauntingly beautiful of all Schubert’s chamber works, the String Quintet – completed six weeks before the composer’s death. Schubert included a second cello in the texture, creating a sumptuously warm sound, a cradling intimacy. Here the Takacs players are joined by cellist Ralph Kirshbaum. Also recorded here is the Quartettsatz: A fragment – of the highest quality – of a quartet in C minor abandoned by the composer.