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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. ==Composition== 1823 and 1824 were hard years for Schubert. For much of 1823 he was sick, some scholars believe with an outburst of tertiary stage syphilis, and in May had to be hospitalized.〔Brown (1982), p. 38.〕 He was also without money: he had entered into a disastrous deal with Diabelli to publish a batch of works, and received almost no payment; and his latest attempt at opera, ''Fierabras'', was a flop. In a letter to a friend, he wrote, Yet, despite his bad health, poverty and depression, Schubert continued to turn out the tuneful, light and ''gemütlich'' music that made him the toast of Viennese society: the song cycle ''Die schöne Müllerin'', the octet for string quartet, contrabass, clarinet, horn and bassoon, more than 20 songs, and numerous light pieces for piano.〔Brown (1982), pp. 106–158.〕 After 1820, Schubert returned to the string quartet form, which he had last visited as a teenager. He wrote the one-movement ''Quartettsatz'' in 1820, and the ''Rosamunde'' quartet in 1824 using a theme from the incidental music that he wrote for a play that failed. These quartets are a huge step forward from his initial attempts.〔See, for example, Griffiths (1983), p. 96.〕 Even Schubert recognized this fact; in July 1824, he wrote his brother Ferdinand of his earlier quartets, "it would be better if you stuck to other quartets than mine, for there is nothing in them..."〔quoted in Griffiths (1983), p. 96.〕 There are several qualities that set these mature quartets apart from Schubert's earlier attempts. In the early quartets, it is primarily the first violin that carries the melody, with the other instruments playing supporting roles; in the later quartets, the part writing is much more advanced, and each instrument brings its own character and presence, for a more complex and integrated texture. Also, the later quartets are structurally much more integrated, with motifs, harmonies, and textures recurring in a way that ties the entire work together.〔For a discussion of the differences between the early and late quartets, see Griffiths (1983), pp. 95–96, and Cobbett (1929), V II, p. 354.〕 But beyond these technical improvements, Schubert in these later works made the quartet medium his own. "He had now ceased to write quartets to order, for experimental study, or for the home circle," writes Walter Willson Cobbett. "To the independent artist... the string quartet had now also become a vehicle for conveying to the world his inner struggles."〔Cobbett (1929), Volume II, p. 357.〕 For Schubert, who lived a life suspended between the lyrical, romantic, charming and the dramatic, chaotic, and depressive, the string quartet offered a medium "to reconcile his essentially lyric themes with his feeling for dramatic utterance within a form that provided the possibility of extreme color contrasts," writes music historian Homer Ulrich.〔Ulrich (1966), p. 270.〕 Schubert wrote the D minor quartet in March 1824,〔Composer and editor Franz Lachner mistakenly dated the quartet to 1826, when it was first played in public. Brown (1982), p. 41.〕 within weeks of completing the A minor ''Rosamunde'' quartet. He apparently planned to publish a three-set volume of quartets; but the Rosamunde was published within a year, while the D minor quartet was only published in 1831, three years after Schubert's death, by Diabelli.〔Brown (1984), p. 72. The urtext score is published by Baerenreiter Verlag.〕 It was first played in January, 1826, at the Vienna home of Karl and Franz Hacker, amateur violinists, apparently with Schubert on the viola.〔Berger (2001), p. 183.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「String Quartet No. 14 (Schubert)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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