Classical Music | Music for Quartet

Recorded on 11/02/2016, uploaded on 05/18/2017

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

In 1824, while suffering from financial hardships and recovering from a severe outbreak of the illness that would claim his life a few years later at the age of 31, Franz Schubert wrote the following words to his friend Leopold Kupelwieser:

“I feel myself to be the most unfortunate, the most miserable being in the world. Think of a man whose health will never be right again, and who from despair over the fact makes it worse instead of better. Think of a man, I say, whose splendid hopes have come to naught, to whom the happiness of love and friendship offers nothing but acutest pain, whose enthusiasm (at least, the inspiring kind) for the Beautiful threatens to disappear, and ask yourself whether he isn’t a miserable, unfortunate fellow.

My peace is gone, my heart is heavy,

I find it never, nevermore…

…so might I sing every day, since each night when I go to sleep I hope never again to wake, and each morning merely reminds me of the misery of yesterday.”

It was in this state of mind that Schubert wrote his fourteenth string quartet, “Der Tod und das Mädchen” (Death and the Maiden). The nickname of the work references a song he had written in 1817 to a text of the German romantic poet Matthias Claudius, the theme of which forms the basis for the quartet’s second movement. Claudius’s poem (text below) is a dialogue between a young maiden and Death incarnate: as Death approaches, the maiden, terrified, pleads for her life; Death, in turn, responds with comforting words of peace. Far from simply recycling his own tune, Schubert takes as the centerpiece of the entire quartet this idea of the duality of death as something simultaneously horrifying and consoling. From the opening of the piece to its dramatic and brutal ending, he moves deftly between shocking, unforgiving, anxiety-inducing music and passages of the utmost tenderness and lyricism. The final movement takes the form of a tarantella, a blazingly fast Italian dance whose origins lie in the misconception that one could sweat out the venom from a poisonous spider if one were to dance vigorously enough, and calls to mind Schubert’s famous setting of Goethe’s poem “Erlkönig”—another poem about death personified, in which the human figure is frightened and the specter of death is soothing and seductive.

“Death and the Maiden” was first performed in 1826, with Schubert on the viola, but due to an unfavorable initial response was not published until nearly four years after his death. Today it stands as one of the most beloved pieces in the string quartet literature.

The Maiden:

Away! Ah, Away! thou cruel man of bone!

I am still young. Go, instead.

And do not touch me!

Death:

Give me thy hand, you fair and tender creature,

I am a friend, and do not come to punish.

Be of good courage; I am not cruel

You shall sleep gently in my arms.   

Notes by Robert Anemone

Larchmere String Quartet:

  Alicia Choi, Violin
  Robert Anemone, Violin
  Rose Wollman, Viola
  Kirsten Jermé, Cello

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.