Franz Schubert - String Quartet No 14 D minor Death and the Maiden

 

Franz Schubert

(1797~1828/오스트리아)

 

                                                                        Franz Schubert in 1825

                                                              (painting by Wilhelm August Rieder)

 

 

String Quartet No 14 D minor Death and the Maiden

 

Alban Berg Quartet

 

For other uses, see Death and the Maiden (disambiguation).

Original manuscript of Death and the Maiden quartet, from the Mary Flagler Cary Music Collection, Morgan Library, New York

Original manuscript of Death and the Maiden

 

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.

 

The quartet takes its name from the lied "Der Tod und das Mädchen", D 531, a setting of a poem of the same name by Matthias Claudius which Schubert wrote in 1817. The theme of the song forms the basis of the second movement of the quartet. The theme is a death knell that accompanies the song about the terror and comfort of Death.

 

Alban Berg Quartett

 

 

1.Allegro, in D minor

애수를 띤 멜로디가 힘찬 리듬으로 생기있게 제시된다 . 제1테마가 전체를 구성하는 요소인데

전반적으로 죽음의 그림자가 감도는 것이 하나의 특징이다

2.Andante con moto, in G minor

슈베르트의 유명한 가곡 "죽음과 소녀"의 멜로디를 테마로 사용하여 6개의 변주와 코다로 되어있다.

죽음의 신은 소녀를 자기의 제물로 삼으려 한다.  소녀는 아직 젊으니 다치지 말아달라 간청하지만

너를 내품에서 편히 쉬게 해주겠노라고 대답한다

이 변주곡 형식은 음악의 모든 범위에서 가장 영감적인 것이라고 슈우만은 평하였다

3.Scherzo: Allegro molto, in D minor

경쾌한 멜로디와 흥분된 리듬으로 제2악장과는 대조적이다.
중간에 트리오를 가진 3단으로 된 스케르조이다 모든 구조는 명쾌하고 리듬은 매혹적이다.

4.Presto, in D minor

발랄하고 생기에 차있어 로맨틱한 정취가 찬란한 빛을 발하고 있다.
화려함을 강조한 것은 물론 교묘한 조바꿈으로 환희의 정점에 이른다.
죽음이라든가 그에 관한 연상등은 전혀 보이지 않는다.

 

The first movement runs a relentless race through terror, pain and resignation, ending with a dying D minor chord.

The second movement is a theme and five variations, based on the theme from the Schubert Lied. The theme is like a death march in G minor, ending on a G major chord. Throughout the movement, Schubert does not deviate from the basic harmonic and sentence structure of the 24-measure theme. But each variation expresses a profoundly different emotion. In the first variation, a lilting violin descant floats above the theme, played in pulsing triplets in the second violin and viola that recall the triplets of the first movement.In the second variation, the cello carries the theme, with the first violin playing the pulsating role – this time in sixteenth notes. After two relaxed variations, the third variation returns to the Sturm und Drang character of the overall piece: a galloping fortissimo figure breaks off suddenly into piano; the violin plays a variant of the theme in a high register, while the inner voices continue the gallop. The fourth variation is again lyrical, with the viola carrying the melody under a long violin line in triplets. This is the only variation in a major key – G major. In the fifth variation, the second violin takes up the theme, while the first violin plays a sixteenth-note arpeggiated motif, with the cello playing the triplets in the bass. The variation grows from pianissimo to fortissimo, then again fades and slows in pace, finally returning to a restatement of the theme – this time in G major.

The scherzo is designed as a classical minuet: two strains in 3/4 time, repeated, in D minor, followed by a contrasting trio section in D major, at a slower tempo, and ending with a recapitulation of the opening strains. The trio section is the only real respite from the compelling pace of the whole quartet: a typically Schubertesque melody, with the first violin playing a dancing descant above the melody line in the lower voices.

The finale of the quartet is a tarantella in rondo-sonata form, in D minor. The tarantella is a breakneck Italian dance in 6/8 time, that, according to tradition, was a treatment for madness and convulsions brought on by the bite of a tarantula spider. The movement opens with the main section of the rondo in unison, with a theme based on a dotted figure.The theme develops characteristically, with sudden lurches from loud to soft and running triplets, leading to the second section of the rondo: a broad, chorale-like theme. A crescendo leads to the Prestissimo coda of the movement and of the piece. The coda begins in D major, suggesting a triumphant end – a device common in classical and romantic quartets. But in this case, the coda suddenly returns to D minor, for a tumultuous and tragic conclusion.

 

Quartetto Italiano
I Violin: Paolo Borciani, II Violin: Elisa Pegreffi, Viola: Dino Asciolla, Cello: Franco Rossi

           

슈베르트는 모두 15곡의 현악 4중주곡을 작곡했는데 24세 때에 쓴 제12번  c단조 이후의 4곡이 내용도 충실하고 그의 성숙된 음악성을 잘 보여준다. 그 중에서이 현악 4중주 제14번 "죽음과 소녀"가 절정기에 쓰여진 걸작으로 평가받고 있다.

그의 다른 대부분의 실내악곡이나 기악곡에서 볼 수 있듯이 현악 4중주곡에 있어서도 슈베르트는 베토벤과는 달리 심각한 사상이나 인생관보다는 다분히 낭만적인 요소가 강해서 개인적인 감상을 노래하듯 들려준다.

현악 4중주 제14번에 "죽음과 소녀"라는 부제가 붙은 이유는 제 2악장이 슈베르트 자신이 쓴 "죽음과 소녀"라는 가곡의 반주부분을 도입해 그 음울한 멜로디를 바탕으로 한 변주곡으로 이루어져 있기 때문이다.

그의 가곡 "죽음과 소녀"는 마티아스 클라우디우스 (M. Claudius)라는 시인의 시에 곡이 붙여진 것인데, 죽음에 다다른 소녀와 그녀의 생명을 거두어 가려는 죽음의 사자와의 대화로 이루어져 있다. 그 기본적인 내용은 다음과 같다.

소녀의 간절한 소망, "나는 아직 어려요. 그냥 지나가 주세요."
사자의 달콤한 대답, "나는 친구란다. 괴롭히려 온 것이 아니야.
내 팔 안에서 꿈결같이 편히 잠들 수 있단다."

슈베르트가 죽기 2년 전인 29세 때(1826년)에 완성된 이 현악 4중주 제14번은비교적 가벼운 분위기인 다른 대부분의 소규모 곡들과는 달리 깊이 있는 사색과 가볍지만은 않은 내용을 담고 있으며, 형식적인 구조와 전개과정에 있어서도 두드러진 성숙도를 보여 준다. 모든 악장이 단조로 쓰여 있어 그 어둡고도 슬픈 분위기를 짐작케 한다.

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.^[1] 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,

 

Think of a man whose health can never be restored, and who from sheer despair makes matters worse instead of better. Think, I say, of a man whose brightest hopes have come to nothing, to whom love and friendship are but torture, and whose enthusiasm for the beautiful is fast vanishing; and ask yourself if such a man is not truly unhappy.

 

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.^[3]

 

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.^[4] 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..."^[5] 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.^[6]

Der Tod und das Mädchen, Hans Baldung Grien, 1517

 

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."^[7] 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.^[8]

Schubert wrote the D minor quartet in March 1824,^[9] 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.^[10] It was first played in January, 1826, at the Vienna home of Karl and Franz Hacker, amateur violinists, apparently with Schubert on the viola.^[11]

Inspiration

The quartet takes its name from the lied "Der Tod und das Mädchen", D 531, a setting of a poem of the same name by Matthias Claudius which Schubert wrote in 1817. The theme of the song forms the basis of the second movement of the quartet. The theme is a death knell that accompanies the song about the terror and comfort of death:

The Maiden:

Oh! leave me! Prithee, leave me! thou grisly man of bone!

For life is sweet, is pleasant.

Go! leave me now alone!

Go! leave me now alone!

Death:

Give me thy hand, oh! maiden fair to see,

For I'm a friend, hath ne'er distress'd thee.

Take courage now, and very soon

Within mine arms shalt softly rest thee!"^[12]

But it is not only this theme of the quartet that recalls death. The quote from the song "makes explicit the overriding theme of the work, its bleak vision and almost unremitting foreboding," writes Andrew Clements.^[13] From the violent opening unison. the first movement runs a relentless race through terror, pain and resignation, ending with a dying D minor chord. "The struggle with Death is the subject of the first movement, and the andante accordingly dwells on Death's words," writes Cobbett.^[14] After a scherzo movement, with a trio that provides the only lyrical respite from the depressing mood of the piece, the quartet ends with a tarantella – the traditional dance to ward off madness and death. "The finale is most definitely in the character of a dance of death; ghastly visions whirl past in the inexorable uniform rhythm of the tarantella," writes Cobbett.^[14]

 

So strong is the association of death with the quartet that some analysts consider it to be programmatic, rather than absolute music. "The first movement of Schubert's Death and the Maiden string quartet can be interpreted in a quasi-programmatic fashion, even though it is usually viewed as an abstract work," writes Deborah Kessler.^[15] Theologian Frank Ruppert sees the quartet as a musical ｅxpression of Judaeo-Christian religious myths. "This quartet, like so many of Schubert's works, is a kind of para-liturgy," he writes. Each movement is about a different episode in the mythic process of death and resurrection.

 

Reception

The Death and the Maiden, Bode Museum, Berlin

 

After the initial reading of the quartet in 1826, the quartet was played again at a house concert in the home of composer Franz Lachner, with violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh leading. Schuppanzigh, one of the leading violinists of the time, who debuted many of Beethoven's and Schubert's quartets, was reportedly unimpressed. "Brother, this is nothing at all, let well alone: stick to your Lieder," the aging Schuppanzigh is reported to have said to Schubert.^[20]

 

Schuppanzigh's impressions notwithstanding, Schubert's quartet soon won a leading place on the concert stage and in the hearts of musicians. only the excellence of such a work as Schubert's D minor Quartet... can in any way console us for the early and grievous death of this first-born of Beethoven; in a few years he achieved and perfected things as no one before him," wrote Robert Schumann of the quartet.^[21]

 

The quartet has been honored by several transcriptions. In 1878, Robert Franz transcribed it for piano duet, and in 1896 Mahler planned an arrangement for string orchestra and notated the details

in a score of the quartet (the work was never completed, however, and only the second movement was written out and played; the modern revival of the arrangement is in a version edited by David Matthews).

In the 20th century, British composer John Foulds and American composer Andy Stein made versions for full symphony orchestra.

At Fridtjof Nansen's state funeral in 1930, Death and the Maiden was performed instead of speeches.

The quartet has also inspired other works. Ariel Dorfman's 1991 play Death and the Maiden, adapted for film in 1994 by Roman Polanski, is about a woman tortured and raped in a South American dictatorship, to the strains of the quartet. It has also appeared as incidental music in numerous films: The Portrait of a Lady (Jane Campion, 1996), What? (Roman Polanski, 1972), Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (BBC production, 2004), and in Samuel Beckett's radio play All That

Fall (1962).   <영어위키 및 검색자료>