String Quartets nos 10 & 15

For their first incursion into the works of Schubert on disc, the members of the Cuarteto Casals invite us to discover two quartets situated at the two extremes of the composer’s life. Wrongly dated much later on its publication in 1830, the Quartet in E flat is in fact the work of a 16-year-old musician who had just entered teacher training college . . . whereas its companion here was to be Schubert’s very last quartet. Only thirteen years separate the two pieces! But in the meantime a whole world had invaded his musical consciousness, and here the naivety of G major throws a deceptive veil over inner upheavals.