I was listening to a fair bit of classical music around this time two years ago. Loved it because it was something new. The intensity has died down since and I'm back to my rock ways.
It gave me a new love I visit every now and then though : chamber music. There's something about violins and violas and cellos when you're in it for something rich and quiet. I especially love whatever little I've heard of Schubert.
String Quintet in C major was Schubert's final masterpiece. It was completed a couple of months before his early death at 31. It has four movements, each of which could be a complete masterpiece by itself. This first opening movement (adagio) sets the context from the get go. It's all bittersweet pathos: the swirls of cello-led harmonic planes are a beautiful dark cloud formation of doom closing in, the points and counterpoints of melody curl and coalesce around a refrain that's a harbinger of death come in the breeze. It's a storm of terrible beauty , and a moment of quiet clarity when both the inevitability of the end and the futile agitations that it breeds can be easily forgotten.
If you hadn't heard it before and liked it now , check out the other movements too. Totally totally worth it !
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