Bach Festival spotlights Schubert

Schubert’s music is as entrancing in Winter Park, Fla., as in Vienna, Austria, where his genius graced the landscape for a mere 30 short years.

On Nov. 17, the Bach Festival Guest Artist Series presented the Miró String Quartet, resident artists at the University of Texas, in an all-Schubert program in Tiedtke Hall at Rollins College.

Schubert Quartet No. 12 in C minor (Quartettsatz) opened the program. This Quartettsatz (quartet piece) is a compact gem of writing and remains, like Schubert’s famous Eighth Symphony, unfinished. Schubert was one of the great masters of melody, and his amicable tunes marked the programs entirety. The 12th Quartet set the tone for the afternoon with melodious inspiration.

The Miró Quartet of world-class players approached virtuosic perfection and reached it convincingly.

String Quartet in E Major Op. 125 No. 2 brought four crystal-clear instrumental voices that gave full meaning to Schubert’s compositional form and myriad winning tunes. Cheerful, immaculate melodies filled the air.

The program’s second half brought the well-known String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, known worldwide as “Death and the Maiden.” This music is Schubert at his most mature, and the hearer can anticipate here predictions of Beethoven’s profound inventions that were to come. The rapidity of the Miró’s performance in the last movement of the quartet made one wonder if they could maintain the speed in the even faster tempo of the coda, which ends the Quartet. They did!

Winter Parkers can be grateful indeed to be able to hear – at their own doorstep – such eloquence personified as the music of the Miró Quartet, with its ineffably beautiful performance.

The audiences standing and cheering expressed enormous, well-deserved gratitude. An afternoon to remember!