Schubert Dying and the Maiden

This confessional letter reveals the composer’s determined frame of mind as he grappled with the cruel realisation that there was no hope of him recovering from syphilis. He had spent a part of the earlier 12 months in hospital combating the illness, however with little success.

When and why did Schubert compose Dying and the Maiden?

Confronting the prospect that his life can be minimize brief, coupled with persevering with nervousness as to his prospects of securing any semblance of monetary stability, solid a darkish shadow over most of the works written throughout this era. None, nevertheless, initiatives such an uncompromising message of despair because the String Quartet in D minor. It was the second of two quartets written in 1824, and got here to be generally known as Der Tod und das Mädchen (‘Dying and the Maiden’) as a result of within the second motion, Schubert composed a set of variations primarily based on a fraction of the piano accompaniment from the track of the identical title which he had composed again in 1817.

What are the traits of Schubert’s track Dying and the Maiden?

Alongside the ‘Rosamunde’ Quartet, Dying and the Maiden marks a radical break with Schubert’s earlier works on this style. Whereas his earlier quartets kind of adopted within the footsteps of Haydn and Mozart, Dying and the Maiden displays a dedication to stamp his personal individuality on the medium. What’s new is the symphonic scale and heightened emotional temperature of Schubert’s musical argument which all through is haunted by the spectre of loss of life.

The lengthy and intense first motion, lasting nicely over 1 / 4 of hour when observing the exposition repeat, presents a veritable battle-ground between forceful and declamatory materials that has a quasi-orchestral richness and quieter extra lyrical episodes. For probably the most half, the music is darkish and sombre, the few shifts right into a supposedly brighter main key providing little aid. Maybe probably the most disturbing passage comes on the finish of the motion the place as an alternative of the anticipated emphatic last chords, the music collapses from sheer exhaustion right into a ghostly echo of the opening dramatic flourish.

The suppressed dynamics right here in impact supply an impressed segue into the calm opening of the second motion the place the quartet hauntingly intones the piano a part of the Dying and the Maiden track in four-part concord, sounding to all intents and functions like a liturgical chant. Schubert topics this materials to ingenious transformations, from the lyrical introversion of the primary two variations to the hard-edged depth of the third. Most poignant of all is his trademark shift into the main key for the fourth variation. Within the context of a piece that doggedly returns to and reinforces the minor key all through its 4 actions, this modification of temper sounds all of the extra poignant.

A equally transient oasis of tranquillity is recreated later within the work within the light major-key Trio that frames the driving Scherzo, a few of whose thematic materials is culled from a set of Ländler for piano that Schubert had composed the earlier 12 months. After this comes the extraordinary and terrifying Presto finale, a whirlwind roller-coaster dance of loss of life solid within the type of a tarantella. The obsessive rhythmic vitality of the opening thought, which returns a number of instances all through the motion, creates an virtually claustrophobic environment and the one method Schubert appears capable of resolve issues is by introducing an accelerando on the finish which drives the music even additional into the abyss.

Schubert devoted each the ‘Rosamunde’ and Dying and the Maiden quartets to Ignaz Schuppanzigh, the primary violinist of an expert quartet that had been carefully related to performing the works of Beethoven. Though Schuppanzigh graciously accepted the ‘Rosamunde’, he was way more dismissive of Dying and the Maiden, advising Schubert that his time can be higher spent writing songs. The web results of this rejection, which proved a bitter blow to Schubert, was that the work was by no means revealed throughout his lifetime and obtained only a few performances till the late 1840s.

Thereafter, nevertheless, Dying and the Maiden entered the repertoire, securing the esteem of many Romantic composers together with Schumann, Brahms and Dvořák. Gustav Mahler was additionally a powerful admirer of the work, however felt that its impression within the live performance corridor can be drastically enhanced by his determination, in 1896, to rearrange his fellow Austrian’s piece for string orchestra.

We named Schubert one of many greatest Austrian composers ever and probably the most well-known composers of all time

The greatest recordings of Schubert’s Dying and the Maiden

Takács Quartet

Hyperion CDA67585

Few quartets have loved such an extended and distinguished recording historical past as Dying and the Maiden. Certainly, one of many earliest recorded variations, given by the Busch Quartet within the late Thirties (Warner Classics), nonetheless very a lot holds its personal, notably for the splendidly shifting method by which the gamers unfold the sequence of variations within the second motion, and for the sustained vitality and pressure of the Finale which is capped by a daring virtually unhinged accelerando close to the top. Later performances from Seventies and ’80s by the Amadeus (DG), the Alban Berg (Warner Classics) and Quartetto Italiano (Common) additionally command huge respect for the heat and fluidity of their performances though they don’t take as many dangers because the Busch Quartet.

Since then, virtually each main quartet price its salt has dedicated its interpretation of Dying and the Maiden to disc, making the sector not solely extraordinarily crowded however extremely aggressive. In fact, absolute technical mastery of Schubert’s ferociously tough writing, particularly within the quick and livid unison passages of the finale, must be taken with no consideration, and virtually all of the at the moment obtainable variations fulfil this requirement greater than admirably. So the selection of the best recording rests way more on the methods by which the gamers familiarize yourself with sustaining the emotional anguish of Schubert’s message with out being over-bearing an excessive amount of of the time. Equally important is the extent to which interpreters resist the temptation to contrive sudden synthetic shifts in gear to allow there to be enough contrasts in temper in such an extended and expansive work.

To my thoughts, the Takács Quartet’s 2006 recording trumps all rivals in delivering a efficiency that maintains an virtually demonic ahead momentum all through the primary, third and fourth actions. They’ve all the required energy and number of timbre to encapsulate each side of the music, from wildness and anger to tenderness, poignancy and even numbness of expression. However that is achieved with out resorting to sentimentality or exaggerated mannerisms. On account of their extremely refined mastery of Schubert’s textures, they completely convey the emotional ambiguity that lies behind the music’s extra lyrical episodes, a great instance being the gentler second thought within the first motion the place the menacing viola ostinato sample casts a distinctly uneasy gentle on the sweet-toned melody in thirds within the violins.

BBC Music Journal‘s editor Charlotte Smith named the Takács Quartet one of many greatest string quartet ensembles ever