Well for diehard musical fans such as myself, the title of the post should give away what work is featured. Franz Schubert's String Quartet in D minor, D.810 "Death and the Maiden is a revolutionary work written in 1824, around the time the composer became aware of his failing health. A common theme among composers. The quartet gains its famous name from the second movement, which features adapted material taken from the piano accompaniment to Schubert's 1817 lied of the same title.

For Schubert it was a fatal blow to his health that grew to form the great work and the course his life would follow. Two years before the quartet was written, Schubert contracted syphilis and spent most of the following year confined and weakened by debilitating treatments. Through the course of his treatment, his career stalled and his income had ceased. Even when he emerged victorious from the first two phases of the illness, he faced the constant terror of not knowing how long the incurable disease would remain dormant before resuming its final and fatal course.

1. Allegro

Part 1

Part 2

For the fourteenth quartet, Schubert reached back deep into his mind and emerged with a rather chilling and concise connection. It was a song he had written in his teens to an eight line poem, "The Death and the Maiden," by Matthius Claudius, in which a girl begs to be let alone by death, who soothes her with a promise of friendship and gentle sleep. The melody and accompaniment to this poem, aside from one brief frightened outburst, is an unremitting rhythm of a half and two quarter notes. Together it forms a shrouding feeling of grimness and the inevitability of a doom that the naive girl barely suspects.

One could argue that the quartet was written around the second movement. The movement itself is a set of variations on the song that follows and expands upon its narrative. After stating the austere theme, violin filigrees invoke the maiden, then the texture thickens, darkens and becomes more urgent as death nears before emerging into the promised peacefulness. For the final variation, the minor dirge returns, builds to a strong climax of triumph and then subsides into a whisper as death moves on to patiently lie in wait to lure his next innocent victim.

2. Andante con moto

Part 1

Part 2

The remainder of the quartet provides a fine prologue and aftermath for the central drama of focus. Schubert establishes mood through persistent minor tonality, tense rhythms, bold harmonic progressions and stormy emotion. Perhaps the most famous storm of all is the unforgettable opening, a great, riveting moment that puts it among the finest in all the quartet literature. It is a story that is propelled to our hearts so efficiently, an assertive unison figure of a dotted half note, descending triplet eights, a quarter note and a 3-beat rest is repeated, "becomes perplexed and then mellows into feminine grace before rebounding with an insinuating fury that traps the tenderness within its grasp," (Peter Gutmann). The third movement is a grotesque dance of death, sharp and offbeat with a gruff sort of allure. "Death slowly creeps beyond the sight, but not without gracing the touch and sound."

3. Scherzo: Allegro molto


The finale is all coiled tension and bundled energy, culminating in a vertiginous acceleration to a breathless conclusion – "we all know that the destiny of humanity ultimately is to lose the battle against mortality, but Schubert urges us (and himself, of course) to resist."

4. Presto


The videos feature one of my favorite performing groups, the Alban Berg Quartet, which I sadly learned writing this post that the group has decided to disband in July of this year following an illustrious course of achievement and a great reputation for their recordings and superb performances. Through 37 years, Valentine Erben (cello) and Gunter Pichler (1st violin) are still original members since the groups spawn in 1971.