Schubert lived from

1797 to 1828. He was born some

28 years after Beethoven, but outlived him

by only one year. Thus, he lived during a time when

the string quartet was thriving.

But, by the time Beethoven had composed

his Opus 59 or "Razumovsky" quartets in 1806,

the romantic concept of the virtuoso pianist

slash composer was already on the rise,

drawing attention and interest in the direction of chamber music

that involved the piano. But so long as Beethoven,

the great string quartet composer was alive, the medium remained

of interest to composers and listeners.

Schubert was one composer who successfully integrated

a romantic sensibility that was born of personal suffering,

into the distinctly classical parameters

of the string quartet. In his most famous quartet,

"Death and the Maiden," he accomplished this

by integrating lieder, or art song, into the work.

Arnold will tell us more about this song,

which Schubert had composed some seven years before

the quartet, and even more importantly,

heâll tell us what it reflected about Schubert's frame of mind

in the face of ongoing personal struggle.

Franz Schubert once said, "Think of a man whose health can never be restored,

and who from sheer despair makes matters worse

instead of better. Think, I say,

of a man whose brightest hopes have come to nothing,

to whom love and friendship are but torture,

and whose enthusiasm for the beautiful is fast

vanishing, and ask yourself if such a man is not

truly unhappy." Schubert

confided these heartbreaking feelings to a friend,

during a time when he had been hospitalized in all probability

for an outburst of tertiary syphilis.

The possibility of an early death must have weighed

heavily on his mind when shortly after in 1824,

he composed his Death and the Maiden String Quartet

in D Minor. The quartet takes its name

from the song, "Der Tod und das Madchen," ("Death and the

Maiden",) a setting of a poem of the same name

by Matthias Claudius. The theme of the song,

which Schubert wrote in 1817, provides the basic material

for the quartet's second movement. The poem reads

as follows: The maiden speaks first.

Pass me by, oh pass me by,

Go, wild skeleton! I am still young,

go, dear one, And touch me not!

And Death speaks: Give me your hand, o fair

and tender form! I am your friend, I do not come to punish.

Be of good cheer, I am not wild, You shall sleep softly

in my arms." There is no longer room for doubt.

Death is front and center in every movement of the quartet,

each in A minor, and each grappling with the forces

that would eventually snuff out Schubert's life.

the first movement's fearful opening chords that announce

its verdict of doom, the dirge-like

second movement in which Death speaks to the young woman,

the manic and menacing scherzo of the third movement

with the briefest lyrical ray of sunshine in its trio section,

and the fourth movement's tarantella of death.

One can speak of The Death and the Maiden's

form, its equal division of labor among the four voices,

and the evolution of Schubert's quartet skills,

but it is the epic scale of

this quartet--its "heavenly length"

as Schumann called it--its wealth of feeling,

and the sheer drama of the music that cause listeners and musicians alike

to leave a performance of Schubert's masterpiece deeply moved

if not entirely stunned and shattered.

Sheer drama, indeed.

What has always struck me about this quartet

is the rather fast tempo designations

of all four movements. Schubert rarely allows the intensity of

the music to wane. The first movement is marked

allegro, meaning "fast," the second is andante con moto, "a walking tempo with motion,"

is andante con moto, "a walking tempo with motion,"

the third is "presto" meaning "very fast"

and the fourth prestissimo,

or "as fast as possible." Even the "slow" second movement

involves a lot of motion. We'll take a closer look at the second movement's

rhythmic activity in the "Nuts and Bolts" segment

of this program. The fast tempo designations

do much to enhance the fiery, brutal,

fearsome and dramatic nature

of this music. Even when there are moments of major mode

hope, they are fleeting and quickly overrun

by the prevailing terror.

[MUSIC]

Death and Schubert

The World of the String Quartet

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