Too much music

Yesterday I went to a piano duet recital, by two talented Wellington musicians, Fiona McCabe and Catherine Norton. For me, the highlight was Schubert's Grand rondeau, D951. I don't recall ever having heard this piece before. Schubert wrote it five weeks before he died. It is a rondo using a gentle, song like theme. The music just sprouted from the 29 year old Schubert. In the last year of his life he wrote his greatest instrumental works, the piano trios, his three great last sonatas, his cello quintet, and the song cycle Winterreisse, one of the most moving song cycles ever written. The slow movement of the A Major sonata and the slow movement of the Cello Quintet are some of the most melancholy pieces I can think of. Although suggesting that Schubert had his own forthcoming death in mind is romanticising these works, they have a gentle, sad, acceptance of fate  that can only be captured in music, or perhaps more accurately, only the young Schubert, on the brink of his own death could capture. Much of the rest of the music of his last years is sunny, cheerful, but there is always a tinge of sadness that creeps though. Music just poured out of him, even though he felt ill for much of the time. He gorged himself on music and wanted more. He wanted to learn counterpoint. He didn't think he was good enough. What a wonderfully humble little man he was. Since yesterday my mind is full of Schubert's late works. I have listened to the A Major Sonata, the Cello Quintet, the F minor Fantasie for Piano Duet. If there would be music at a Jewish funeral I would select my music from among these pieces, though would not want to rush their perforamnce.