Death and the Maiden Quartet (Schubert)

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The String Quartet in D minor written in 1824 by Franz Schubert, just after the composer became aware of his ruined health, is popularly known as the Death and the Maiden Quartet from the variation-subject of the second movement. In the numerical order his quartets it is his String Quartet No. 14, and is D. 810 in Otto Erich Deutsch's thematic catalog of Schubert's works. The work is a string quartet in four movements:

Allegro, in D minor and common time
Andante con moto, in G minor and divided common (2:2) time
Scherzo: Allegro molto, in D minor and 3:4 time
Presto, in D minor in 6:8

The opening movement is, along with that of the preceding and next quartet and that of his string quintet, among the most extended and substantial in his chamber music output, if not in his output as a whole. It is a sonata form movement whose exposition encompasses three main key regions, D minor, F major and A minor.

The second movement is a theme — taken from his macabre song Der Tod und Das Mädchen (D 531 in Deutsch's catalog) — and five variations, with coda.

The third movement's main theme can also be heard in one of a set of piano dances; its lyrical D major trio varies its 'repeats'.

The relentless finale-tarantella is a sonata-rondo in form — a rondo whose first episode returns as the last, and whose central section contains elements of development. Its coda promises major-mode triumph, and snatches it away.

Arrangements

This is one of the quartet works, along with Beethoven's quartetto serioso that Mahler arranged for use by a string orchestra, mostly by doubling some of the cello parts with double basses.

In 1930 the British composer John Foulds made a version "as a symphony" for full (classical) orchestra.

Appearances in Film and Television

Besides the 1994 film [Death and the Maiden] directed by Roman Polanski, Schubert's quartet has been used in the score of at least the following:

The 1983 French film [Le Bâtard]
The 1996 Russian film [President i yego zhenshchina]
The 1996 Jane Campion film [Portrait of a Lady]
The BBC TV production of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking

External link

[A website with MIDIs of the quartet]

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