0:07
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.
1:36
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]