Composed only a few months before Schubert’s death, the String Quintet in C major is often considered one of the supreme achievements of chamber music. As his final major instrumental work, it unfolds with a sense of breadth, spiritual depth, and emotional intensity that already seems to look beyond this world.
In the setting of the Collégiale Notre-Dame, the quintet takes on a special resonance: the exchange among the strings acquires an almost liturgical character, and the presence of the second cello lends the ensemble a warm, deep, enveloping sonority.
The first movement, expansive and full of contrasts, moves from whispered calm to heroic surges, like a struggle between shadow and light. The central Adagio is one of Schubert’s most celebrated creations: a suspended meditation of almost celestial purity, interrupted at its center by a passage of striking dramatic tension. The Scherzo restores an earthy vitality before yielding to a trio with a folk-like character that evokes the alpine landscapes of the composer’s youth. The final movement, rhythmic and luminous, closes with an unexpected burst of life from a man so close to his end.
In this quintet, Schubert seems to offer his spiritual testament—a work in which human fragility and hope meet, and which, performed in a sacred space, reveals its full contemplative and universal power.
