Classical Music | Music for Quartet

Recorded on 02/04/2009, uploaded on 03/16/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Franz Schubert began his Twelfth String Quartet in December 1820. The first movement and forty measures of an Andante second movement were completed before he abandoned the work. The completed first movement has since come to be known as the Quartett-Satz. Despite being abandoned, the Quartett-Satz is considered to be an important work in Schubert's oeuvre and the precursor of his later, most successful, quartets. Four years later, in 1824, Schubert returned to the genre and composed the Rosamunde, Death and the Maiden and Fifteenth Quartets

The Quartett-Satz opens with a two-fold idea that forms the melodic germ of the piece—first, an oscillating semitone motif, which is then repeated descending along the melodic minor scale to form the second motif. The first thematic section passes briefly by and transitions nearly without notice into the second theme. A lyrical tune in A-flat major, the second theme is accompanied by the triplet rhythm of the first theme. At the conclusion of the second theme, the driving tremolos that begun the work make a startling return in the remote key of A-flat minor and through a series of sweeping violin runs manages its way back to the key of G. Forming the closing section of the exposition, the first theme returns with a new countermelody set against it.

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.