OSM Chamber Soloists FRANZ SCHUBERT Octet in F major, D. 803

For the OSM Chamber Soloists, recording Franz Schubert’s Octet in F major, D. 803, was the logical next step after Beethoven’s Septet in E-flat major, Op. 20. Indeed, many have remarked on the similarities between the two works, composed 25 years apart. Both use similar forces, with Schubert merely adding a second violin to Beethoven’s ensemble of violin, viola, cello, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, and horn; both have six movements connected by identical key relationships; and both feature a generally optimistic character. Given these resemblances and the Septet’s renown in early 19th-century Vienna – a popularity that even Beethoven himself found irritating – some musicologists have mused that Beethoven’s model was imposed upon Schubert by Count Ferdinand Troyer, a clarinettist who commissioned the work in February 1824.

In early 1824, Franz Schubert’s world began to change. The death of Ignaz Sonnleithner’s wife – in whose home many of the young composer’s works were premiered for a select group of music lovers – marked the end of a concert series that had started in 1816. Many of Schubert’s friends were leaving Vienna, either temporarily or for good, and (as Schubert wrote to his friend Schober) their younger replacements in Schubert’s reading circle were more interested in talking about “riding and fencing, and horses and dogs” than in literary themes, outnumbering those with more artistic sensibilities. In this rather solitary period, Schubert lost himself in work. As noted by the young artist Moritz von Schwind, an acquaintance of Schubert’s since 1821 whose friendship became closer during this time, “Schubert has for a time been working on an octet with the greatest enthusiasm. If you go and see him during the day he says ‘Hello. How are you? Well?’ and carries on writing, whereupon you leave.” And indeed, it would appear that the Octet was composed quite quickly, since it had been completed by March 1. (Florence Brassard)