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 takes its name from the lied "Der Tod und das Mädchen" ("Death and the Maiden, D.531), a setting of a poem of the same name by Matthias Claudius which Schubert wrote in 1817.
After the initial reading of the quartet in 1826, the quartet was played again at a house concert in the home of composer Franz Lachner, 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.
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Full Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_Quartet_No._14_(Schubert)
Performed by: Belcea Quartet
Music by courtesy and under copyright of: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Music license: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Website: www.gardnermuseum.org
Image: "Clouds at Sunset" by James Hamilton Shegogue
Image source: National Gallery of Art
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