Schubert's String Quintet D.956

1827 and 1828 were extraordinary years in Europe, and especially in Vienna. Beethoven died in 1827, leaving behind his last string quartets. Schubert died in 1828, leaving behind the recently finished song cycle die Winterreise D.911, the B flat piano sonata D.960, and the string quintet D.956. There are few more personal works in the whole of music, than these. Maybe Tchaikovsky's Pathétique symphony falls into the same highly personal category. Beethoven died at the age of 57, Schubert at the age of 32. If either had lived an extra 20 years, what would he have composed?

Schubert was born just one year before Mozart died; he died just one year after Beethoven's death. His music is eternal and will last for ever. If ever a piece of music speaks of what the Germans term, after Wagner's die Walküre: Todesverkündung (announcement of death), it is Schubert's string quintet, its two cellos giving added gravitas and a sombre ambiance. Listening to this, or to Beethoven's C sharp minor Op 131 or B flat string quartets Op 130 (with the Große Fuge for the latter) a Martian might conclude that Western music never again achieved such peaks and that the 100 years 1728-1828 with Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert saw music's high tide. Martians often have a point.

I listened to Schubert's string quintet recorded during the 1960s by an ensemble led by Arthur Grumiaux (who else, in Schubert's music?) It has become a bit of a cliché that so many people have nominated this quintet as “music to die to” (especially the second movement that alternates resignation with frustrated anger). Schubert knew he was going to die soon, but he also knew that even greater music resided within him; what it was, we can only guess, alas for us. Grumiaux's name is almost a guarantee of success, in Schubert, at any rate. I grew up with the recording by Casals, Tortelier, Stern, Schneider and Katims; an all-star event, but a long way from Vienna in 1828. Many people have recorded the work, including the Hollywood Quartet, and a group led by Jascha Heifetz. But if you want Schubert, the whole Schubert and nothing but Schubert: Grumiaux's ensemble is high among best bets, right down to that final ominous chord at the end of the work that Schubert never heard before he died.

Rachmaninov's Danse Hongroise Op 6 No.2

As someone who enjoys violin playing, I have built up over the decades a considerable collection of recordings of short salon pieces. 39 different recordings of Tchaikovsky's Mélodie. 42 recordings of Kreisler's Liebesfreud: 16 recordings of Elgar's Salut d'Amour. Even 24 recordings of William Kroll's meretricious Banjo & Fiddle, a piece I heartily dislike. But in all my collection, I only have four – FOUR – recordings of Sergei Rachmaninov's Danse Hongroise (Op 6 No.2 of his Morceaux de Salon.) How on earth is this piece almost always overlooked in collections of short violin pieces? It is attractive music, lasting just under four minutes. The only four violinists in my collection to have recorded it are Akiko Suwanai, David Frühwirth, Sacha Sitkovetsky, and Ruggiero Ricci. Really odd how some pieces of music are so often overlooked. If I were several decades younger, I'd go out and buy the music and play it myself.

Akiko Suwanai

Since the early 1950s I have collected recordings of violinists and violin playing. I am now starting to shed much of my collection, since many performers simply do not age too well. One violinist whose recordings I will never delete, is Akiko Suwanai. She came second in the Queen Elizabeth in Brussels in 1989, and first in the Tchaikovsky in Moscow in 1990. In both competitions she played the Paganini D major concerto and the Moscow performance, in particular, is an amazing performance of true gold standard.

I have just been listening to a CD she recorded in Paris in 2016, with the pianist Enrico Pace (a present from a friend). The recording is excellent, with that difficult to achieve balance between piano and violin. The two works are the Franck sonata, plus the early Strauss sonata. Twenty six years on from Moscow, her playing has not diminished in the slightest; her performance of the Franck sonata, in particular, is suffused with a tender lyricism and the sonata sheds the beefiness from which it so often suffers. Throughout, Enrico Pace is an excellent partner.

She has had a relatively low profile career, but is well known to connoisseurs of violin playing. On record, she appears to specialise in the late romantic repertoire, with an impressive discography. Her recordings are always an excellent choice and I am particularly fond of her Dvorak Four Romantic Pieces (with Boris Berezovsky, 1998). She is notable for Czech music, also for Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Wieniawski. I heard her in person only once, giving an impressive performance of the Bartok violin concerto in Washington, with her hair flying in all directions. Akiko Suwanai is always on my automatic buy list.