I was going through some old LPs recently, as I am on the verge of selling my record player on eBay and I wanted to have a listen to a few for which I don’t as yet have any digital version. One that I am going to have to replace with digital is Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major by The Aeolian String Quartet. This LP was recorded in 1973 and I’m certain I bought it second-hand some time in the 90s. I know that I bought lots of second-hand LPs in the 90s so it was probably one of them.
For years I was sort of interested in classical music but never really truly embracing it and understanding what it could do or be. I was still listening primarily to alternative and experimental music from the rock field and then dipping my ears into the world of classical from time to time. I think a lot of people do this, realising the rock/pop thing doesn’t usually have a lot of substance really we dip into classical, however we don’t have the necessary sensibility to hear what is going on very well so we give up and return to alternative rock/pop or what-have-you.
In these forays into classical music sometimes I’d encounter something that touched me. There were a few things that touched so much that I kept wanting to play and play them again. One of them is of course this recording of Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major by the Aeolian string quartet. It is the third movement which did it. I find it almost impossible to write why this Scherzo, Presto and Trio has had such an impression. It takes you somewhere previously undefined. This place is fragile but you want to stay and treasure it while you can.
I do have other versions of Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major in digital forms, but none appeals to me quite as much as this one by the Aeolian string quartet.