The Dark Side of Schubert

Composer: Schubert 

Repertoire: String Quartet No.12, ‘Quartettsatz’; String Quartet No.14, ‘Death and the Maiden’

Schubert’s late works may be melodically glorious, but emotionally they are no picnic. The composer, who had suffered from syphilis since his mid-twenties and died aged just 31, experienced a polarity of passion for life and despair over the nature and likely outcome of his illness. In his famous D minor String Quartet No.14, ‘Death and the Maiden’, with its central variations on his song of that title portraying death as a welcome release, Schubert is often at his bleakest. There’s the starkly violent opening, shudders of fear and doubt in the variations, and tremendous nervous energy in the finale, a sort of dance-of-death of a kind he explored in a number of works from around the same period.

For Videos Click on Read More

Schubert: String Quartet Nr.12 in c, D703 "Quartettsatz"
Amadeus Quartet

Schubert: String Quartet Nr.14 in d minor "Death And The Maiden"

 Alban Berg Quartet