About the Program
by Jason S. Heilman, Ph.D.
Franz Schubert
Quartet No. 12 in C Minor, D.703,
Born January 31, 1797, in Lichtental, Vienna, Austria
Died November 19, 1828, in Vienna
“Quartet Movement”
Composed in 1820; duration: 10 minutes
By the early 1800s, the city of Vienna was renowned for
its tradition of instrumental music, which followed in a
line from Haydn to Mozart and finally to Beethoven. It
was not a particularly good city to be a songwriter, however — even for a genius songwriter like Franz Schubert.
Throughout the late 1810s and early 1820s, when Beethoven was redefining the symphony and the string quartet
with each new work, Schubert was gaining underground
fame for his innovative and expressive song settings of
German romantic poetry. These Lieder, as they were
called, were composed for home music-making, and in
these private circles, Schubert was quickly becoming an
in-demand celebrity. But Schubert knew that songs were
a fleeting medium. Musical immortality in Vienna could
only be gained through public performances of symphonies and string quartets. Unfortunately, this was the
realm in which he struggled the most to gain any attention, though it was certainly not for lack of effort.
Given that Franz Schubert did not live to see his thirtysecond birthday, it is not surprising that he left behind a
large number of unfinished pieces. But on closer examination, it turns out that relatively few of these incomplete
works date from his final year. Indeed, it seems that
Schubert developed a habit of setting works aside and
never returning, bouncing quickly as he did from one musical idea to another. The classic example is his Eighth
Symphony, the famous “Unfinished Symphony,” for
which Schubert completed only two movements. But that
piece dates from 1822, some six years before his death;
Schubert still managed to finish his Ninth Symphony and
even start a Tenth in the years that followed.
By the time he was 19 years old, Schubert had composed
an astonishing 11 string quartets, plus numerous fragmentary pieces. The impetus for this prolific output was
the composer’s own family: Schubert’s father, a Viennese
schoolteacher, was an amateur cellist, and his two older
brothers played violin. With Schubert on the viola, the
family had a string quartet, and the precocious young
composer soon began trying out his own musical ideas in
this relatively friendly setting. These early quartets, which
Schubert started composing at the age of 13, were mostly
competent pieces, but hardly masterworks in the Mozartian mold. Many of them bear the stylistic hallmarks of
Schubert’s music teacher, Mozart’s famous rival Antonio
Salieri.
When Schubert completed his schooling at age 17, life as a
professional composer did not seem to be a likely prospect, so he reluctantly decided to follow in his father’s
footsteps and become a schoolteacher. Yet he must have
held out some hope that his fortunes might change, as he
continued to compose prolifically in his spare time. Some
of Schubert’s more sociable friends encouraged him to
keep writing songs for their private gatherings, and this
experience transformed the young composer. Schubert
had already composed several popular Lieder by this
time, including “Gretchen am Spinnrade” (“Gretchen at
the Spinning Wheel,” 1814) and “Erlkönig” (“Erl-king,”
1815), but it was during the pivotal four-year span from
1816 to 1820 that he truly found his own voice. This voice
can clearly be heard in such songs as “Der Wanderer”
(“The Wanderer,” 1816), “Der Tod und das Mädchen”
(“Death and the Maiden,” 1817), “Die Forelle” (“The
Trout,” 1817), and “An die Musik” (“To Music,” 1817).
Schubert also left behind several unfinished chamber
works, the most notable of which is what would have been
his Twelfth String Quartet. Started in December of 1820,
this quartet was Schubert’s first attempt at the genre in
nearly four years. During that time, Schubert’s musical
style had matured considerably, as had his prospects:
with a growing reputation from his Lieder, he now had
the opportunity to write for professional chamber musicians for the first time. But this newfound freedom must
have felt daunting, because Schubert only completed the
first movement and 41 bars of the second before setting
this quartet aside forever. It remained in obscurity until
1867 — nearly forty years after the composer’s death —
when a wave of interest in all things Schubert swept Vienna. By then, the movement was regarded as a satisfying
quartet in its own right and received its public premiere.
This brief Quartettsatz (“quartet movement”) already
shows many of the hallmarks of Schubert’s mature style
in its grander scale and flowing melodicism. Set in sonata
form, it opens with a nervous, scherzo-like first theme
that is soon contrasted by a soaring, lyrical second. The
themes are developed dramatically and return to end the
movement with the same nervous energy as it began,
leaving us to ponder what wonders we might have encountered if Schubert had completed the work.
Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, D.810,
“Death and the Maiden”
Composed in 1824; duration: 38 minutes
Three years after setting his Twelfth Quartet aside, Schubert came face to face with his own mortality. In 1823, he
spent several days in the hospital, suffering from a significant outbreak of the illness that would claim his life five
years later. We are not sure what this illness was; traditionally it was thought to have been typhus or typhoid
fever, but more recent biographers believe Schubert may
have died of syphilis. Upon leaving the hospital, Schubert
entered into what would be the last phase of his compositional life. Armed with a new burst of confidence, his
works from that point on show even greater ambition in
form and scale.
In 1824, Schubert returned to the string quartet genre,
composing two new pieces, both of which refer to earlier
works in the composer’s already-vast output. Schubert’s
Thirteenth String Quartet borrows a theme from his incidental music for the play Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus, which he had only recently completed. His Fourteenth String Quartet uses a theme from the Lied “Der
Tod und das Mädchen” (“Death and the Maiden”), which
Schubert had composed some seven years prior during
the pivotal phase in his musical development. Given how
infrequently Schubert had quoted himself in his previous
compositions (the famous “Trout” Quintet is another rare
example), the reuse of these melodies seems significant —
particularly in light of the composer’s recent brush with
mortality.
Schubert’s 1817 song “Death and the Maiden” is a setting
of a German romantic poem by Matthias Claudius, who
wrote under the pen name “Asmus.” The poem is an invented folk legend in which a young woman is visited by
the figure of Death. Immediately, she pleads breathlessly
for her life:
Pass! Oh, pass!
Go, vicious skeleton!
I am still young! Go, please,
And touch me not!
But Death is insistent, calmly intoning:
Give your hand, you beautiful and gentle thing.
I am a friend, and come not to punish.
Take heart! I am not vicious;
You shall sleep softly in my arms.
This song serves as the basis for a set of variations in the
latter quartet’s second movement, but the overall tone of
the struggle against Death seems to pervade the entire
four-movement work. The piece opens with a bleak introduction, which forms the basis for the allegro movement’s vigorous first theme. This is soon contrasted by a
more pastoral second theme, which begins unexpectedly
in the relative major key before settling on the customary
dominant, showing how far Schubert is starting to push
the traditional sonata form. The andante con moto second movement presents the “Death and the Maiden”
variations — though, interestingly, Schubert chose to use
Death’s plaintive chorale and not the maiden’s pleading
melody. This movement reaches dramatic heights, but its
mood is quickly dispelled by the subsequent scherzo and
trio, which may have been inspired by the well-known
image of Death playing the violin. The presto fourth
movement is a tarantella, a frantic Italian folk dance that
was thought to ward off death from the bite of a tarantula.
This brings the quartet from the grim specter of Death to
a desperate affirmation of life. Unfortunately, the initial
response to this quartet from Schubert’s circle was not
positive, and he put it aside. This most famous of Schubert’s quartets was not rediscovered and published until
1831, nearly four years after the composer’s death.
Program notes copyright © 2015 by Jason S. Heilman, Ph.D.