Death and the Maiden Quartet (Schubert)
Encyclopedia
The String Quartet No. 14 in D minor
, known as Death and the Maiden, by Franz Schubert
, is one of the pillars of the chamber music repertoire. Composed in 1824, after the composer suffered through a serious illness and realized that he was dying, it is Schubert's testament to death. The quartet is named for the theme of the second movement, which Schubert took from a song he wrote in 1817 of the same title; but the theme of death is palpable in all four movements of the quartet.
The quartet was first played in 1826 in a private home, and was not published until 1831, three years after Schubert's death. Yet, passed over in his lifetime, the quartet has become a staple of the quartet repertoire. It is D. 810 in Otto Erich Deutsch
's thematic catalog of Schubert's works.
The quartet has four movements:
, was a flop. In a letter to a friend, he wrote,
Yet, despite his bad health, poverty and depression, Schubert continued to turn out the tuneful, light and gemütlich
music that made him the toast of Viennese society: the song cycle Die schöne Müllerin
, the octet
for string quartet, contrabass, clarinet, horn and bassoon, more than 20 songs, and numerous light pieces for piano.
After 1820, Schubert returned to the string quartet form, which he had last visited as a teenager. He wrote the one-movement Quartettsatz
in 1820, and the Rosamunde
quartet in 1824 using a theme from the incidental music that he wrote for a play that failed. These quartets are a huge step forward from his initial attempts. Even Schubert recognized this fact; in July 1824, he wrote his brother Ferdinand, "it would be better if you stuck to other quartets than mine, for there is nothing in them..." There are several qualities that set these mature quartets apart from Schubert's earlier attempts. In the early quartets, it is primarily the first violin that carries the melody, with the other instruments playing supporting roles; in the later quartets, the part writing is much more advanced, and each instrument brings its own character and presence, for a more complex and integrated texture. Also, the later quartets are structurally much more integrated, with motifs, harmonies, and textures recurring in a way that ties the entire work together.
But beyond these technical improvements, Schubert in these later works made the quartet medium his own. "He had now ceased to write quartets to order, for experimental study, or for the home circle," writes Walter Willson Cobbett
. "To the independent artist... the string quartet had now also become a vehicle for conveying to the world his inner struggles." For Schubert, who lived a life suspended between the lyrical, romantic, charming and the dramatic, chaotic, and depressive, the string quartet offered a medium "to reconcile his essentially lyric themes with his feeling for dramatic utterance within a form that provided the possibility of extreme color contrasts," writes music historian Homer Ulrich.
Schubert wrote the D minor quartet in March 1824, within weeks of completing the A minor Rosamunde quartet. He apparently planned to publish a three-set volume of quartets; but the Rosamunde was published within a year, while the D minor quartet was only published in 1831, three years after Schubert's death, by Diabelli. It was first played in January, 1826, at the Vienna home of Karl and Franz Hacker, amateur violinists, apparently with Schubert on the viola.
"Der Tod und das Mädchen
" ("Death and the Maiden, D.531), which Schubert wrote in 1817. The theme of the song, which is the theme of the second movement of the quartet, is a death knell that accompanies the song about the terror and comfort of death:
The Maiden:
Death:
But it is not only this theme of the quartet that recalls death. The quote from the song "makes explicit the overriding theme of the work, its bleak vision and almost unremitting foreboding," writes Andrew Clements. From the violent opening unison. the first movement runs a relentless race through terror, pain and resignation, ending with a dying D minor chord. "The struggle with Death is the subject of the first movement, and the andante accordingly dwells on Death's words," writes Cobbett. After a scherzo movement, with a trio that provides the only lyrical respite from the depressing mood of the piece, the quartet ends with a tarantella
— the traditional dance to ward off madness and death. "The finale is most definitely in the character of a dance of death; ghastly visions whirl past in the inexorable uniform rhythm of the tarantella," writes Cobbett.
So strong is the association of death with the quartet that some analysts consider it to be programatic
, rather than absolute music
. "The first movement of Schubert's Death and the Maiden String Quartet can be interpreted in a quasi-programmatic fashion, even though it is usually viewed as an abstract work," writes Deborah Kessler. Theologian Frank Ruppert sees the quartet as a musical expression of Judaeo-Christian religious myths. "This quartet, like so many of Schubert's works, is a kind of para-liturgy," he writes. Each movement is about a different episode in the mythic process of death and resurrection.
, from the lyrical to the compelling and dramatic. A driving undercurrent of triplets is a recurring motif in all four movements.
The scherzo is designed as a classical minuet: two strains in 3/4 time, repeated, in D minor, followed by a contrasting trio section in D major, at a slower tempo, and ending with a recapitulation of the opening strains. The trio section is the only real respite from the compelling pace of the whole quartet: a typically Schubertesque melody, with the first violin playing a dancing descant above the melody line in the lower voices.
The scherzo is a short movement, serving as an interlude leading to the frenetic last movement.
in rondo-sonata form, in D minor. The tarantella is a breakneck Italian dance in 6/8 time, that, according to tradition, was a treatment for madness and convulsions brought on by the bite of a tarantula
spider. Appropriately, Cobbett calls this movement "a dance of death."
The movement is built of sections. The first, main section recurs between each of the subsequent sections.
, with violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh
leading. Schuppanzigh, one of the leading violinists of the time, who debuted many of Beethoven's and Schubert's quartets, was reportedly unimpressed. "Brother, this is nothing at all, let well alone: stick to your Lieder," the aging Schuppanzigh is reported to have said to Schubert.
Schuppanzigh's impressions notwithstanding, Schubert's quartet soon won a leading place on the concert stage and in the hearts of musicians. "Only the excellence of such a work as Schubert's D minor Quartet... can in any way console us for the early and grievous death of this first-born of Beethoven; in a few years he achieved and perfected things as no one before him," wrote Robert Schumann
of the quartet.
The quartet has been honored by several transcriptions. In 1878, Robert Franz
transcribed it for piano duet, and in 1896 Mahler
planned an arrangement for string orchestra and notated the details in a score of the quartet (the work was never completed, however, and only the second movement was written out and played; the modern revival of the arrangement is in a version edited by David Matthews
).
In the 20th century, British composer John Foulds
and American composer Andy Stein
made versions for full symphony orchestra.
At Fridtjof Nansen
's state funeral in 1930, "Death and the Maiden" was performed instead of speeches.
The quartet has also inspired other works. Ariel Dorfman
's 1991 play Death and the Maiden
, adapted for film
in 1994 by Roman Polanski
, is about a woman tortured and raped in a South American dictatorship, to the strains of the quartet. It has also appeared as incidental music in numerous films: The Portrait of a Lady
(Jane Campion
, 1996), What? (Roman Polanski, 1972), Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
(BBC production), and in Samuel Beckett
's radio play All That Fall
(1962).
D minor
D minor is a minor scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. In the harmonic minor, the C is raised to C. Its key signature has one flat ....
, known as Death and the Maiden, by Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
, is one of the pillars of the chamber music repertoire. Composed in 1824, after the composer suffered through a serious illness and realized that he was dying, it is Schubert's testament to death. The quartet is named for the theme of the second movement, which Schubert took from a song he wrote in 1817 of the same title; but the theme of death is palpable in all four movements of the quartet.
The quartet was first played in 1826 in a private home, and was not published until 1831, three years after Schubert's death. Yet, passed over in his lifetime, the quartet has become a staple of the quartet repertoire. It is D. 810 in Otto Erich Deutsch
Otto Erich Deutsch
Otto Erich Deutsch was an Austrian musicologist. He is known for compiling the first comprehensive catalogue of the works of Franz Schubert, first published in 1951 in English, new edition in 1978 in German...
's thematic catalog of Schubert's works.
The quartet has four movements:
- Allegro, in D minor and common time
- Andante con moto, in G minor and divided common (2/2) time
- ScherzoScherzoA scherzo is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata. The scherzo's precise definition has varied over the years, but it often refers to a movement which replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or...
: Allegro molto, in D minor and 3/4 time - PrestoPresto-As a common word:* An incantation or interjection used by some stage magicians* A musical score marking indicating a fast tempo* An exclamation to mean: [to be completed] right away, instantly, i.e. "magically"-Places:*Presto, Bolivia...
, in D minor and 6/8 time
Composition
1823 and 1824 were hard years for Schubert. For much of 1823 he was sick with an outburst of tertiary stage syphilis, and in May had to be hospitalized. He was broke: he had entered into a disastrous deal with Diabelli to publish a batch of works, and received almost no payment; and his latest attempt at opera, FierabrasFierabras
Fiërabras or Ferumbras is a Saracen knight appearing in several chansons de geste and other material relating to the Matter of France...
, was a flop. In a letter to a friend, he wrote,
Gemütlichkeit
Gemütlichkeit is a German abstract noun that has been adopted into English. Its closest equivalent is the word "coziness"; however, rather than merely describing a place that is compact, well-heated and nicely furnished , Gemütlichkeit connotes the notion of belonging, social acceptance,...
music that made him the toast of Viennese society: the song cycle Die schöne Müllerin
Die schöne Müllerin
Die schöne Müllerin , is a song cycle by Franz Schubert on poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the earliest extended song cycle to be widely performed. The work is considered one of Schubert's most important, and it is widely performed and recorded....
, the octet
Octet (Schubert)
The Octet in F major, D. 803 was composed by Franz Schubert in March 1824. It was commissioned by the renowned clarinetist Ferdinand Troyer and came from the same period as two of Schubert's other major chamber works, the Rosamunde and the Death and the Maiden string quartets.-Structure:Consisting...
for string quartet, contrabass, clarinet, horn and bassoon, more than 20 songs, and numerous light pieces for piano.
After 1820, Schubert returned to the string quartet form, which he had last visited as a teenager. He wrote the one-movement Quartettsatz
Quartettsatz (Schubert)
The Quartettsatz in C minor, D. 703 was composed by Franz Schubert in December 1820. It is the first movement, the Allegro assai, of a Twelfth String Quartet which Schubert never completed...
in 1820, and the Rosamunde
String Quartet No. 13 (Schubert)
The String Quartet No. 13 in A minor , D. 804, Op. 29, was written by Franz Schubert between February and March 1824...
quartet in 1824 using a theme from the incidental music that he wrote for a play that failed. These quartets are a huge step forward from his initial attempts. Even Schubert recognized this fact; in July 1824, he wrote his brother Ferdinand, "it would be better if you stuck to other quartets than mine, for there is nothing in them..." There are several qualities that set these mature quartets apart from Schubert's earlier attempts. In the early quartets, it is primarily the first violin that carries the melody, with the other instruments playing supporting roles; in the later quartets, the part writing is much more advanced, and each instrument brings its own character and presence, for a more complex and integrated texture. Also, the later quartets are structurally much more integrated, with motifs, harmonies, and textures recurring in a way that ties the entire work together.
But beyond these technical improvements, Schubert in these later works made the quartet medium his own. "He had now ceased to write quartets to order, for experimental study, or for the home circle," writes Walter Willson Cobbett
Walter Willson Cobbett
Walter Willson Cobbett CBE was a British businessman and amateur violinist, and editor/author of Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music. He also endowed the Cobbett Medal for services to Chamber Music....
. "To the independent artist... the string quartet had now also become a vehicle for conveying to the world his inner struggles." For Schubert, who lived a life suspended between the lyrical, romantic, charming and the dramatic, chaotic, and depressive, the string quartet offered a medium "to reconcile his essentially lyric themes with his feeling for dramatic utterance within a form that provided the possibility of extreme color contrasts," writes music historian Homer Ulrich.
Schubert wrote the D minor quartet in March 1824, within weeks of completing the A minor Rosamunde quartet. He apparently planned to publish a three-set volume of quartets; but the Rosamunde was published within a year, while the D minor quartet was only published in 1831, three years after Schubert's death, by Diabelli. It was first played in January, 1826, at the Vienna home of Karl and Franz Hacker, amateur violinists, apparently with Schubert on the viola.
Inspiration
The quartet takes its name from the liedLied
is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...
"Der Tod und das Mädchen
Death and the Maiden (song)
Der Tod und das Mädchen , Death and the Maiden in English, is a lied composed by Franz Schubert. The text is derived from a poem written by German poet Matthias Claudius...
" ("Death and the Maiden, D.531), which Schubert wrote in 1817. The theme of the song, which is the theme of the second movement of the quartet, is a death knell that accompanies the song about the terror and comfort of death:
- Oh! leave me! Prithee, leave me! thou grisly man of bone!
- For life is sweet, is pleasant.
- Go! leave me now alone!
- Go! leave me now alone!
Death:
- Give me thy hand, oh! maiden fair to see,
- For I'm a friend, hath ne'er distress'd thee.
- Take courage now, and very soon
- Within mine arms shalt softly rest thee!"
But it is not only this theme of the quartet that recalls death. The quote from the song "makes explicit the overriding theme of the work, its bleak vision and almost unremitting foreboding," writes Andrew Clements. From the violent opening unison. the first movement runs a relentless race through terror, pain and resignation, ending with a dying D minor chord. "The struggle with Death is the subject of the first movement, and the andante accordingly dwells on Death's words," writes Cobbett. After a scherzo movement, with a trio that provides the only lyrical respite from the depressing mood of the piece, the quartet ends with a tarantella
Tarantella
The term tarantella groups a number of different southern Italian couple folk dances characterized by a fast upbeat tempo, usually in 6/8 time , accompanied by tambourines. It is among the most recognized of traditional Italian music. The specific dance name varies with every region, for instance...
— the traditional dance to ward off madness and death. "The finale is most definitely in the character of a dance of death; ghastly visions whirl past in the inexorable uniform rhythm of the tarantella," writes Cobbett.
So strong is the association of death with the quartet that some analysts consider it to be programatic
Program music
Program music or programme music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative. The narrative itself might be offered to the audience in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music...
, rather than absolute music
Absolute music
Absolute music is a concept in music that describes music as an art form separated from formalisms or other considerations; it is not explicitly about anything; it is non-representational. In contrast to program music, absolute music makes sense without accompanying words, images, drama, or...
. "The first movement of Schubert's Death and the Maiden String Quartet can be interpreted in a quasi-programmatic fashion, even though it is usually viewed as an abstract work," writes Deborah Kessler. Theologian Frank Ruppert sees the quartet as a musical expression of Judaeo-Christian religious myths. "This quartet, like so many of Schubert's works, is a kind of para-liturgy," he writes. Each movement is about a different episode in the mythic process of death and resurrection.
Analysis
The quartet throughout is characterized by sudden dramatic shifts from fortissimo to pianissimoPianissimo
Pianissimo is an Italian word, meaning "very soft". It can mean:*Pianissimo, refers to the volume of a soft sound or soft note.*Pianissimo Peche, a brand of Japanese cigarettes made by Japan Tobacco....
, from the lyrical to the compelling and dramatic. A driving undercurrent of triplets is a recurring motif in all four movements.
First movement: Allegro
| In the 14-measure introduction, Schubert establishes the elements that will carry through the entire quartet. The quartet begins with a unison D, played fortissimo, and a triplet figure, that establishes the triplet motif. Three and a half measures of fortissimo break off into a sudden, pianissimo chorale, the first of the many violent shifts of mood that occur throughout. | |
| After the introduction, Schubert presents the first theme: a continuation of the chorale motif, but with the triplets motif rippling through the lower voices, in a restless, unremitting stream. | |
| The triplet motif is transmuted into a connecting theme of its own, leading to the second theme in F major. This second theme has the typically Schubertian character, lyrical and flowing; but the triplets keep driving underneath, so it never enjoys the relaxation of other Schubert works. Nor does the theme resolve; each time it approaches an ending, it collapses into a false cadence, and then recycles, until it concludes in a burst of sixteenth notes in the first violin. | |
| The sixteenth note passage modulates through a range of keys, finally settling on A major, where it continues as an accompaniment to a restatement of the second theme in the second violin. The exposition ends with a transformation of the second theme, this time wrenched into a violent outburst in A minor. | |
| The development concentrates on the two forms of the second theme: the lilting, quiet version, and the violent inverted form. The section fluctuates between a fading relaxation (is this the seductive call of Death?) and fortissimo (resistance to Death?). Toward the end of the development, Schubert reintroduces the triplet motif of the first theme, leading to the recapitulation. | |
| Here the opening themes return, with variants. The music moves to D major, for a relaxed recapitulation of the second theme, then returns to D minor. A chorale reminiscent of the introduction leads to the coda. But even in the chorale, the tension does not relax, with a sudden fortepiano interrupting the quiet. The opening theme returns, played at a rushed tempo, like a sudden resurgence of life, growing to a climax that suddenly breaks off and the triplet motif, played at the original slower tempo, dies away to the end of the movement. |
Second movement: Andante con moto
| The second movement is a theme and five variations, based on the theme from the Schubert Lied. The theme is like a death march in G minor, ending on a G major chord. Throughout the movement, Schubert does not deviate from the basic harmonic and sentence structure of the 24-measure theme. But each variation expresses a profoundly different emotion. | |
| In the first variation, a lilting violin descant floats above the theme, played in pulsing triplets in the second violin and viola that recall the triplets of the first movement. | |
| In the second variation, the cello carries the theme, with the first violin playing the pulsating role - this time in sixteenth notes. | |
| After two relaxed variations, the third variation returns to the sturm und drang Sturm und Drang Sturm und Drang is a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music taking place from the late 1760s through the early 1780s, in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism... character of the overall piece: a galloping fortissimo figure breaks off suddenly into piano; the violin plays a variant of the theme in a high register, while the inner voices continue the gallop. |
|
| The fourth variation is again lyrical, with the viola carrying the melody under a long violin line in triplets. This is the only variation in a major key - G major. | |
| In the fifth variation, the second violin takes up the theme, while the first violin plays a sixteenth-note arpegiated motif, with the cello playing the triplets in the bass. The variation grows from pianissimo to fortissimo, then again fades and slows in pace, finally returning to a restatement of the theme - this time in G major. |
Third movement: Scherzo Allegro molto
Cobbett describes the third movement as the "dance of the demon fiddler". There is indeed something demonic in this fast-paced scherzo, full of syncopations and, like the other movements, dramatic leaps from fortissimo to pianissimo.The scherzo is designed as a classical minuet: two strains in 3/4 time, repeated, in D minor, followed by a contrasting trio section in D major, at a slower tempo, and ending with a recapitulation of the opening strains. The trio section is the only real respite from the compelling pace of the whole quartet: a typically Schubertesque melody, with the first violin playing a dancing descant above the melody line in the lower voices.
The scherzo is a short movement, serving as an interlude leading to the frenetic last movement.
Fourth movement: Presto
The finale of the quartet is a tarantellaTarantella
The term tarantella groups a number of different southern Italian couple folk dances characterized by a fast upbeat tempo, usually in 6/8 time , accompanied by tambourines. It is among the most recognized of traditional Italian music. The specific dance name varies with every region, for instance...
in rondo-sonata form, in D minor. The tarantella is a breakneck Italian dance in 6/8 time, that, according to tradition, was a treatment for madness and convulsions brought on by the bite of a tarantula
Tarantula
Tarantulas comprise a group of often hairy and often very large arachnids belonging to the family Theraphosidae, of which approximately 900 species have been identified. Some members of the same Suborder may also be called "tarantulas" in the common parlance. This article will restrict itself to...
spider. Appropriately, Cobbett calls this movement "a dance of death."
The movement is built of sections. The first, main section recurs between each of the subsequent sections.
| The movement opens with the main section of the rondo in unison, with a theme based on a dotted figure. The theme is traditionally bowed in the reverse direction from the usual bowing of dotted passages. This has the effect of moving the accent onto the off-beat, giving the entire passage the character of a limping dance. | |
| The theme develops characteristically, with sudden lurches from loud to soft and running triplets, leading to the second section of the rondo: a broad, chorale-like theme. Cobbett identifies this theme as a quote from another song of Schubert's, Der Erlkönig Der Erlkönig Der Erlkönig is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It depicts the death of a child assailed by a supernatural being, the Erlking or "Erlkönig"... , about a child who dies at the hands of king of the forest. The terrified child turns to his father for protection, but his father does not see the spirit, and ignores the child's pleas until the child is dead in his arms. "There is deep meaning in the appearance of this phrase," writes Cobbett. The chorale motif continues, with a flowing triplet accompaniment in the first violin that recalls the fourth variation of the Andante movement. This leads to a restatement of the main theme. |
|
| Here the triplet motif of the opening of the quartet also reappears, in disguised form. Then the chorale theme recurs, leading to the second statement of the main section. The third section of the rondo begins. This is a complex, involuted section with chromatic swirls of triplets and hemiola Hemiola In modern musical parlance, a hemiola is a metrical pattern in which two bars in simple triple time are articulated as if they were three bars in simple duple time... s that cause the listener to lose all sense of downbeat. This leads into a recapitulation of the second section, and then a return of the main section of the rondo. |
|
| A crescendo leads to the Prestissimo coda of the movement and of the piece. The coda begins in D major, suggesting a triumphant end - a device common in classical and romantic quartets. But in this case, the coda suddenly returns to D minor, for a tumultuous and tragic conclusion. | |
Reception
After the initial reading of the quartet in 1826, the quartet was played again at a house concert in the home of composer Franz LachnerFranz Lachner
Franz Paul Lachner was a German composer and conductor.Lachner was born in Rain am Lech to a musical family . He studied music with Simon Sechter and Maximilian, the Abbé Stadler. He conducted at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna. In 1834, he became Kapellmeister at Mannheim...
, with violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh
Ignaz Schuppanzigh
Ignaz Schuppanzigh November 20, 1776 – March 2, 1830, was a violinist, friend and teacher of Beethoven, and leader of Count Razumovsky's private string quartet. Schuppanzigh and his quartet premiered many of Beethoven's string quartets, and in particular, the late string quartets. The Razumovsky...
leading. Schuppanzigh, one of the leading violinists of the time, who debuted many of Beethoven's and Schubert's quartets, was reportedly unimpressed. "Brother, this is nothing at all, let well alone: stick to your Lieder," the aging Schuppanzigh is reported to have said to Schubert.
Schuppanzigh's impressions notwithstanding, Schubert's quartet soon won a leading place on the concert stage and in the hearts of musicians. "Only the excellence of such a work as Schubert's D minor Quartet... can in any way console us for the early and grievous death of this first-born of Beethoven; in a few years he achieved and perfected things as no one before him," wrote Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
of the quartet.
The quartet has been honored by several transcriptions. In 1878, Robert Franz
Robert Franz
Robert Franz was a German composer, mainly of lieder.-Biography:He was born Robert Knauth in Halle, Germany, the son of Christoph Franz Knauth...
transcribed it for piano duet, and in 1896 Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
planned an arrangement for string orchestra and notated the details in a score of the quartet (the work was never completed, however, and only the second movement was written out and played; the modern revival of the arrangement is in a version edited by David Matthews
David Matthews
David Matthews may refer to:* Dave Matthews , singer/guitarist of the Dave Matthews Band* David Matthews , MP for Swansea East 1919–1922* David Matthews , American bi-racial author...
).
In the 20th century, British composer John Foulds
John Foulds
John Herbert Foulds was a British composer of classical music. Largely self-taught as a composer, he was one of the most remarkable and unjustly forgotten figures of the "British Musical Renaissance"....
and American composer Andy Stein
Andy Stein
Andy Stein is a saxophone and violin player in the United States best known for his appearances with the country rock band Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. He is also known for the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band on the radio show "A Prairie Home Companion" and the movie. He has played on a...
made versions for full symphony orchestra.
At Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a...
's state funeral in 1930, "Death and the Maiden" was performed instead of speeches.
The quartet has also inspired other works. Ariel Dorfman
Ariel Dorfman
Vladimiro Ariel Dorfman is an Argentine-Chilean novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist. A citizen of the United States since 2004, he has been a professor of literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina since 1985.-Personal...
's 1991 play Death and the Maiden
Death and the Maiden (play)
Death and the Maiden is a 1990 play by Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman. The world premiere was staged at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 9 July 1991, directed by Lindsay Posner...
, adapted for film
Death and the Maiden (film)
Death and the Maiden is a 1994 drama film directed by Roman Polanski, based on the play by Ariel Dorfman. It starred Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley and Stuart Wilson.-Plot summary:...
in 1994 by Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski is a French-Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few "truly international filmmakers."...
, is about a woman tortured and raped in a South American dictatorship, to the strains of the quartet. It has also appeared as incidental music in numerous films: The Portrait of a Lady
The Portrait of a Lady (film)
The Portrait of a Lady is a 1996 film adaptation of Henry James's novel The Portrait of a Lady directed by Jane Campion.The film stars Nicole Kidman, Barbara Hershey, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Martin Donovan, Shelley Duvall, Richard E...
(Jane Campion
Jane Campion
Jane Campion is a filmmaker and screenwriter. She is one of the most internationally successful New Zealand directors, although most of her work has been made in or financed by other countries, principally Australia – where she now lives – and the United States...
, 1996), What? (Roman Polanski, 1972), Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking is a British television movie originally broadcast on BBC One in the UK on December 26, 2004. Produced by Tiger Aspect Productions, it was written by Alan Cubitt and was a sequel to the same company's adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles,...
(BBC production), and in Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
's radio play All That Fall
All That Fall
All That Fall is a one-act radio play by Samuel Beckett produced following a request from the BBC. It was written in English and completed in September 1956. The autograph copy is titled Lovely Day for the Races...
(1962).
Sources
- Clements, Andrew, "Schubert: Death and the Maiden", The Guardian, June 15, 2001
- Heuss, Alfred, "The music of Schubert", Chamber Music Evenings (1919)
- Kessler, Deborah, "The Maiden's Struggle and its Tonal Aftermath in the First Movement of Schubert's D Minor Quartet", the TASI Journal: The American Schubert Institute 1(1997): 27-33
- Sierra Chamber Society Program Notes (2006)
- The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians (ed. Stanley SadieStanley SadieStanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
, 1980) - "Death and the Maiden" from the BBC Discovering Music: Listening Library
External links
- Recording performed by the Borromeo String QuartetBorromeo String QuartetThe Borromeo String Quartet is an American string quartet, in residence at the New England Conservatory since 1992. They have performed throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia, at numerous festivals and in many distinguished chamber music series...
from the Isabella Stewart Gardner MuseumIsabella Stewart Gardner MuseumThe Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum or Fenway Court, as the museum was known during Isabella Stewart Gardner's lifetime, is a museum in the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, located within walking distance of the Museum of Fine Arts and near the Back Bay Fens...
in MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format - A website with MIDIs of the quartet
- In the BBC Discovering Music: Listening Library
- Recording of the quartet in Wikimedia commons by the Yorkside Quartet (Kensho and Kisho Watanabe, Violins, Jonathan Bregman, Viola, Scott McCreary, Cello) recorded in performance at Yale University, 2008:
- View the performance at YouTube