Schubert: String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D810 'Death and the Maiden' (Der Tod und das Mädchen)

This is ‘Vivere’. Not exactly a cheerful disc - all three compositions refer in various ways to death. This is reflected in the key (D minor is the key of death), in the opposite number of the Maiden, and finally even literally, in the fact that cellist Geneviève 'dies' before the end of the album. For us, however, to record this dramatic repertoire is to offer an ode to life. ‘Vivere’ - for by listening to this sombre music one realises how wonderful life can be. Performed by the Ragazze Quartet, four young women in the midst of life. The Ragazze Quartet is a young, Dutch string quartet, remarkable for its musical enthusiasm, talent, versatility and presentation. Its versatility in particular is unusual within the world of chamber music.

The quartet collaborates with and performs alongside composers, other musicians - classical or otherwise - and artists working in a variety of disciplines. In such projects the Ragazze Quartet always operates from its classical music core, while attempting to attain the ultimate crossover. The different disciplines are approached entirely equally, but in so doing they complement and elevate one another.

The quartet followed the two-year full-time curriculum of the Dutch String Quartet Academy (NSKA). There the members attended masterclasses directed by leading musicians from the international string quartet world, as well as lessons from their regular teachers Stefan Metz and Marc Danel. After completing the academy course the quartet was coached for a year by Luc Marie Aguera, violinist in the Quatuor Ysaye; this was made possible by the Dutch Kersjes Foundation.

On this new release, the Doric String Quartet turns to the music of Franz Schubert. It is the Quartet’s fifth release for Chandos, and the discography has gone from strength to strength. MusicWeb International said of the recent Korngold release (CHAN10707): ‘The Doric Quartet seem to have a Midas touch, and any repertoire they commit to disc comes out sparkling’. Their Schumann release (CHAN10692) was ‘Recording of the Month’ in both Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine.

In March 1824, despite describing himself as ‘the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world’, Schubert completed not only the great Octet, but also the two String Quartets recorded here.

The String Quartet in D minor is considered the greatest of Schubert’s late quartets, mainly on account of its raw emotional honesty, which reaches an almost unendurable pitch in the second movement, a set of variations based on Schubert’s song Der Tod und das Mädchen. All four movements are driven by extensively repeated rhythmic figures, reminiscent of the musical style of Schubert’s great idol, Beethoven.

Full of Schubertian ambivalence, the String Quartet in A minor is a deeply intimate work. The opening, expressing brooding sadness, is played by the first violin over a restless accompaniment, and subsequently interrupted by flurries of almost manic energy. In the second movement, Schubert ‘borrowed’ the main melody from the second Entr’acte of his incidental music to the play Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern (1823) by Wilhelmine von Chézy.

Following the Artemis Quartet‘s prizewinning Beethoven Quartet cycle on Virgin Classics, the Berlin-based ensemble has recorded Schubert’s last three quartets, works that Artemis cellist Eckart Runge praises for both their “incredible simplicity and purity” and their “almost terrifying modernism”.

Awarded both Germany‘s prestigious Klassik ECHO award and France’s Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros in 2011 for their Virgin Classics Beethoven cycle, the members of the Artemis Quartet now release an all-Schubert CD. It presents the composer’s final three string quartets: No 13 in A minor, ‘Rosamunde’ (which draws on his incidental music for Helmina von Chezy’s play Rosamunde); No 14 in D minor, ‘Death and the Maiden’ (with its haunting second movement based on his song Der Tod und das Mädchen), and No 15 in G major.

Schubert and Beethoven were contemporaries in Vienna, and Beethoven is reputed to have returned some of the younger composer’s admiration, but, as Eckart Runge, cellist of the Artemis Quartet points out: “In some senses, Beethoven and Schubert could hardly be more different.” He goes on to say that “The Artemis Quartet’s intensive experience of performing and recording the Beethoven cycle between 2009 and 2011 has provided new perspectives on every other quartet we play. There is an almost terrifying modernism in these three late Schubert quartets, but it is totally different from the modernism of Beethoven. And, when placed together in a programme, the three quartets shine in another light: No 14 is concentrated and dramatic; No 15 is huge, symphonic, and cosmic, and No 13 is introspective and melancholy – less spectacular than the other two.

A stunning version of Schubert’s famous ‘Death and the Maiden’ String Quartet performed on period instruments by one of the leading string quartets of our time, the Quatuor Mosaïques.

The ‘String Quartet No.14 in D Minor’, otherwise known as The Death and the Maiden, is considered one of the pillars of the chamber music repertoire. It’s a work that shows Schubert struggling in a world in which he has a lost his bearings, but also yearning for heaven. It is his testament to death. This release also features one of Schubert’s earlier quartets, the deeply foreboding D173 in G minor. This is a very dense, concise work, cohesive in its ideas, and technically challenging for its performers, with the fourth movement, especially, representing an veritable obstacle course.

The Quatuor Mosaïques decided to present these two quartets together for comparison. The juxtaposition is revealing, setting the works in perspective, providing enlightenment, emotion and enrichment, as well as allowing deeper insight. Thus the Quatuor Mosaïques continues to discover this master of the string quartet genre, Franz Schubert.

In both these works, the microphones have been placed very close to the instruments so that the resulting sound reflects a particular chamber music aesthetic. You will feel that you are right next to the ensemble and each instrument has a particular immediacy and is easy to distinguish and to follow.

“The Belcea Quartet throw every fibre of their beings into the most vivid projection of the masterpieces they undertake” (The Independent),

The Belcea Quartet has added three late masterpieces by Franz Schubert to their impressive discography on EMI Classics: the Quartet in D Minor ‘Death and the Maiden’, the Quartet in G Major D887 and the sublime String Quintet in C Major with Valentin Erben of the Alban Berg Quartet as the second cellist.

The Quartet in D minor ‘Death and the Maiden’ is one of two large-scale string quartets that Schubert composed in 1824. The subtitle refers to his famous song of the same name, the melody of which he used here as the basis for a set of variations in the second movement. The G Major Quartet of 1826 was the composer’s 15th and final string quartet. Its emotional and technical challenges were such that only the first movement was performed in public during Schubert’s lifetime and he was unable to find a publisher for it. The Quartet was first performed in its entirety in 1850 and was first published the following year.

The String Quintet in C Major dates from the last months of Schubert’s life, in 1828. The addition of the cello makes for a rich texture and powerful sound where needed but not to the exclusion of exquisite, soft, ethereal sections. Corina Belcea-Fisher, first violinist of the Belcea Quartet said, “It is a great challenge to capture all the varied emotions of the piece, emotions that can switch from one second to the next. It has been a great privilege for us to explore this work with Valentin (Erben), to be able to draw from his resources and his knowledge.”

From November 2009 until January 2010, the Belcea Quartet and Valentin Erben will make an extensive tour of Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany and Holland with a programme that includes the Schubert String Quintet. Their tour features a concert at London’s Wigmore Hall on December 10th.

The Belcea Quartet was established at the Royal College of Music in 1994 and has since been coached by the Chilingirian, Amadeus and Alban Berg Quartets. It is the Associate Ensemble at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Quartet in Residence at Bucharest’s Atheneum Concert Hall.

The Quartet’s engagements regularly take them to such prestigious international venues as Vienna’s Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Brussels’ Palais des Beaux Arts, Lisbon’s Gulbenkian, Zurich’s Tonhalle, Stockholm’s Konzerthuset, Paris’ Châtelet and Opera Bastille, Milan’s Sala Verdi, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, and to festivals throughout Europe. In the UK they regularly appear at the Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, Perth, Bath and Cheltenham festivals, and at the Wigmore Hall, where they were the Resident String Quartet from 2001 to 2006.

Leading instrumentalists with whom they collaborate include Thomas Adès, Piotr Anderszewski, Natalie Clein, Michael Collins, Imogen Cooper, Valentin Erben, Isabelle van Keulen, Paul Lewis and Yovan Markovitch, as well as singers Ann Murray, Simon Keenlyside, Lisa Milne, Anne Sofie von Otter, Angelika Kirchschlager and Ian Bostridge.

The Belcea Quartet has recorded exclusively for EMI Classics since 2001 and won the Gramophone Award for best Debut recording that year. Subsequent recordings for EMI include Schubert quartets (E-flat Major D87, Quartettsatz D703, A Minor D804 ‘Rosamunde’), Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet with Thomas Adès and Corin Long, Brahms’s String Quartet Op. 51 No. 1 and String Quintet Op. 111 with Thomas Kakuska, Fauré’s La Bonne Chanson with Ian Bostridge, a double disc of Britten’s string quartets, Mozart’s ‘Dissonance’ and ‘Hoffmeister’ quartets, and, most recently, the complete Bartók quartets, for which the Quartet was named Chamber Music Ensemble of the Year by Germany's prestigious Echo Klassik Awards and nominated for a 2008 Gramophone Award.

"The Belcea Quartet play with fire in their blood … their performances are never short of thrilling.” (The Scotsman)

'Be comforted! I am not cruel; sleep in peace in my arms', murmurs Death to the Maiden in a song written in 1817, seven years before the quartet to which it gave its name and which has since become one of the pillars of the repertoire. Here is a new challenge for the members of the Jerusalem Quartet, whose most recent incursion into Romantic territory, with Dvorák's 'American' Quartet, received exceptional praise from Le Monde de la Musique for 'its virtuosity, its vitality, its energetic, buoyant phrasing'.