The String Quintet in C Major (D 956, opus posthumous 163) by Franz Schubert is a chamber music work that the composer wrote in the summer of 1828, two months before his death. It is Schubert's last instrumental work.[1] This quintet premiered on November 17, 1850, at the Musikverein in Vienna and was published in 1853. The entire work has a length of approximately 50 minutes, depending on the interpretation of the performers.
This work is the only string quintet in Schubert's extensive series of chamber music works. It stands out for its somewhat unconventional instrumentation: 2 violins, viola, and 2 cellos (whereas it was more common, for example in Mozart's string quintets: 2 violins, 2 violas, and cello). This choice of two cellos makes the sound in the lower registers more sonorous. Luigi Boccherini also wrote some works in this instrumentation, but in Schubert the second cello is used more in the style of an additional viola line.[2]
The work consists of 4 movements:
