Schubert finished the quintet in late September or early October 1828, about two months before he died, in the same months as his last three piano sonatas and some of the Schwanengesang songs. He offered it to the publisher Probst, who asked instead for songs and more popular piano music. The Hellmesberger Quartet gave the first known public performance at the Musikverein in Vienna on November 17, 1850, and Spina published it in 1853.
The second cello, where a second viola was more usual, gives the whole piece a deep, rich sound. The first movement alone takes more than a third of the length, and its second theme is a duet for the two cellos. Schubert keeps turning to the key a half step above home, C to D-flat, most memorably in the closing two notes.
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