String Quartet No. 14 (Schubert)

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 lied

The String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D 810, known as Death and the Maiden, is a piece by Franz Schubert that has been called "one of the pillars of the chamber music repertoire".[1] It was composed in 1824, after the composer suffered from a serious illness and realized that he was dying. It is named for the theme of the second movement, which Schubert took from a song he wrote in 1817 of the same title. But, writes Walter Willson Cobbett, all four movements of the quartet are welded "into a unity under the pressure of a dominating idea - the dance of death."[2]

The quartet was first played in 1826 in a private home, and was not published until 1831, three years after Schubert's death.

  1. ^ Rothwell, Jessie. "String Quartet No. 14 Death and the Maiden". Los Angeles Philharmonic Association. Retrieved November 1, 2017.
  2. ^ Cobbett (1923), v.2, p. 360