In early 1824 clarinettist Ferdinand Troyer commissioned Schubert to write a large-scale chamber work to program alongside Beethoven’s Septet. Schubert complied with an identical sequence of movements, added a second violin to the instrumentation, raised the key by a tone to sunny F Major and created one of the great masterpieces of his maturity.

Its easygoing bonhomie is surprising considering Schubert’s circumstances at the time – the previous year saw his operatic ambitions dashed and he had experienced the first intimations of his fragile mortality with a bout of the malady that would eventually kill him.

As the exemplar of modern virtuosi who can confidently cross over...