Franz Schubert

Chamber Symphony Bb Major

Schubert's last piano sonata in a chamber symphony version for classical octet: aware that no really adequate works of the same instrumentation exist which might complement a concert programme with Schubert's singular Octet op. 166, Heribert Breuer has chosen the major Piano Sonata in Bb major, published posthumously, for a new version in this instrumentation. Breuer calls his version a 'chamber symphony' to express the basic symphonic idea of this extraordinary work in the title. It will not escape the expert's notice that by instrumentation and articulation, a bridge is built in the slow movement to the adagio of the string quintet also created in 1828, the year of Schubert's death: 'Fülle des Wohllauts'.