Schubert’s Farewell

Schubert’s final chamber music work has been described as “sublime,” “extraordinary” and as possessing “bottomless pathos,” and is generally regarded as his finest chamber work. The format of a string quintet with two cellos instead of two violas was very much Boccherini’s special genre. A cellist himself, Boccherini freed at least one of the cellos from providing the bass line, so as to soar lyrically.