The Quartettsatz c-Moll (Quartet Movement in C minor) D 703 was composed by Franz Schubert in December 1820 as the first movement, Allegro assai, of a string quartet he was never to complete. Upon publication it was nonetheless listed as his "String Quartet No. 12". (Schubert did also compose the first 40 bars of the next movement, Andante.) The nine-minute work is regarded as an early product of the composer's mature phase of output. [1] [2] [3]
Schubert began work on his twelfth string quartet in early December 1820, shortly after a "Schubertiade" held at the home of Ignaz von Sonnleithner on the first of the month. [4] It was his first attempt at writing a string quartet since completing the String Quartet No. 11 in E major, D 353 in 1816.
After completing the allegro assai first movement, Schubert wrote out the 41 bar exposition of the following andante movement before abandoning the work. [5]
As with the later "Unfinished" Symphony, there has been much speculation on why Schubert left the composition incomplete. One view presented by Bernard Shore is that Schubert put it aside to follow up another musical idea and never got back to it. [6] Javier Arrebola speculates that the work (like several others written during the same period) was put aside because it "...did not yet represent the great leap forward he was striving for". [7] It has also been speculated that the work was abandoned because Schubert, having written a powerful first movement, was unable to come up with an effective following movement. [4]
Following Schubert's death the manuscript score eventually found its way into the ownership of Johannes Brahms. [8] The Quartettsatz received its posthumous premiere on 1 March 1867 in Vienna, with publication of the score, edited by Brahms, following in 1870. [8] [9] [10]
For a number of years it was believed that the Quartettsatz was an early work dating to around 1814 (perhaps a confusion with the Quartettsatz in C minor D 103). [11] In 1905, Edmondstoune Duncan wrote of the composition that it was "...fairly workman-like and effective, but is of little further consequence, and is only mentioned by way of completeness". [11] Later opinion, such as Maurice Brown's comment that the quartet was "...the only movement in Schubert's instrumental work, prior to the 'Unfinished' Symphony, which prepares us for the greatness which bursts forth in that symphony," [12] established the work's true importance as a forerunner of the late string quartets which are among Schubert's greatest works. Four years after the "Quartettsatz," Schubert returned to the genre to write the Rosamunde Quartet, D 804, which was followed by the "Death and the Maiden" Quartet D 810 and the Fifteenth Quartet, D 887.
The composition consists of a single sonata form movement marked Allegro assai and typical performances last nine minutes.
In 2004 the Oregon String Quartet premiered Livingston Gearhart's 1990 completion of the Quartettsatz and the Andante. [13]
The Brentano String Quartet performed the Quartettsatz as part of their Fragments Project in 2012; for this concert series the composition was paired with a work entitled Fra(nz)g-mentation by composer Bruce Adolphe that was based on Schubert's Andante sketches. [14]
Sonata form is a musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle of the 18th century.
The Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34, by Johannes Brahms was completed during the summer of 1864 and published in 1865. It was dedicated to Her Royal Highness Princess Anna of Hesse. Like most piano quintets composed after Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet (1842), it is written for piano and string quartet.
The String Quartet No. 13 in B♭ major, Op. 130, by Ludwig van Beethoven was completed in November 1826. The number traditionally assigned to it is based on the order of its publication; it is actually Beethoven's 14th quartet in order of composition. It was premiered in March 1826 by the Schuppanzigh Quartet and dedicated to Nikolai Galitzin on its publication in 1827.
Cyclic form is a technique of musical construction, involving multiple sections or movements, in which a theme, melody, or thematic material occurs in more than one movement as a unifying device. Sometimes a theme may occur at the beginning and end ; other times a theme occurs in a different guise in every part.
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". It was composed in 1824, after the composer suffered 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.
Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 5 in B♭ major, D. 485, was written mainly in September 1816 and completed on 3 October 1816. It was finished six months after the completion of his previous symphony.
The String Quartet No. 15 in G major, D. 887, was the last quartet written by Franz Schubert in June 1826. It was posthumously published in 1851, as Op. 161. The work focuses on lyrical ideas and explores far-reaching major and minor modes, which was uncommon to this degree in his compositions. Schubert reinforced this with a range of dynamic contrast and use of texture and pizzicato. The structural form of the movements in this quartet are somewhat ambiguous due to Schubert's focus on lyricism rather than traditional harmonic structure.
The Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, is a symphony written by Johannes Brahms. Brahms spent at least fourteen years completing this work, whose sketches date from 1854. Brahms himself declared that the symphony, from sketches to finishing touches, took 21 years, from 1855 to 1876. The premiere of this symphony, conducted by the composer's friend Felix Otto Dessoff, occurred on 4 November 1876, in Karlsruhe, then in the Grand Duchy of Baden. A typical performance lasts between 45 and 50 minutes.
Franz Schubert's final chamber work, the String Quintet in C major is sometimes called the "Cello Quintet" because it is scored for a standard string quartet plus an extra cello instead of the extra viola which is more usual in conventional string quintets. It was composed in 1828 and completed just two months before the composer's death. The first public performance of the piece did not occur until 1850, and publication occurred three years later in 1853. Schubert's only full-fledged string quintet, it has been praised as "sublime" or "extraordinary" and as possessing "bottomless pathos," and is generally regarded as Schubert's finest chamber work as well as one of the greatest compositions in all chamber music.
The String Quartet No. 13 in A minor, D 804, Op. 29, was written by Franz Schubert between February and March 1824. It dates roughly to the same time as his monumental Death and the Maiden Quartet, emerging around three years after his previous attempt to write for the string quartet genre, the Quartettsatz, D 703, that he never finished.
The String Quartet No. 14 in G major, K. 387, nicknamed the "Spring" quartet, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1782 while in Vienna. In the composer's inscription on the title page of the autograph score is stated: "li 31 di decembre 1782 in vienna". The work was perhaps edited in 1783. This is the first of the Haydn Quartets, a set of six string quartets he wrote during his first few years in Vienna in honor of the composer Joseph Haydn, who is generally viewed as the father of the string quartet form.
The Fantasie in C major, Op. 15, popularly known as the Wanderer Fantasy, is a four-movement fantasy for solo piano composed by Franz Schubert in 1822. It is widely considered Schubert's most technically demanding composition for the piano. Schubert himself said "the devil may play it," in reference to his own inability to do so properly.
Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 4 in C minor, D 417, called by its composer the Tragic, was completed in April 1816, a year after his Third Symphony, when he was 19 years old. However, it was not premiered until November 19, 1849, in Leipzig, more than two decades after Schubert's death.
Johannes Brahms's Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115, was written in 1891 for the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld. It is scored for a clarinet in A with a string quartet. It has a duration of approximately thirty-five minutes.
Quartettsatz can refer to these compositions:
The Piano Sonata in E major, D 157 is a piano sonata with three movements composed by Franz Schubert in February 1815. The Allegro D 154 is an early version of its first movement.
The Piano Quartet in E♭ major, Op. 47, was composed by Robert Schumann in 1842 for piano, violin, viola and cello. Written during a productive period in which he produced several large-scale chamber music works, it has been described as the "creative double" of his Piano Quintet, finished weeks earlier. Though dedicated to the Russian cellist Mathieu Wielhorsky, it was written with Schumann's wife Clara in mind, who would be the pianist at the premiere on 8 December 1844 in Leipzig.
Johannes Brahms's String Quartet No. 1 in C minor and String Quartet No. 2 in A minor were completed in Tutzing, Bavaria, during the summer of 1873, and published together that autumn as Op. 51. They are dedicated to his friend Theodor Billroth. He only published one other string quartet, No.3 in B-flat Major, in 1875.
The Quartettsatz in c-Moll, D. 103 was composed by Franz Schubert in 1814. It is believed to be the only surviving movement of a complete quartet in C minor.
The String Quartet No. 1 in mixed keys was composed by Franz Schubert in 1810 or 1811.
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