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Franz Schubert
Austrian composer Franz Schubert (1797-1828), the founder of the Romantic School, was known as the "King of Songs" for composing 634 art songs in just 31 years of his life, and he had a genius of endless melodic inspiration and loved music more than life.
The Romantic literary and artistic trend in Europe arose against the backdrop of the great social upheavals in Europe in the 19th century. Unlike the classical composers, who were full of optimism and self-confidence in the future, the composers of the Romantic period were both extremely dissatisfied with the dark social reality under feudal rule and disappointed with the ideal social system that was fantasized to be established during the French bourgeois revolution, so they could not see the way out of society and developed, and generally produced feelings of loss, dissatisfaction, and bitterness. In order to get rid of the bitterness of life and seek spiritual liberation, they indulge in the subjective experience of personal emotions, attach themselves to the distant past and nature, reveal the coldness of society and the loneliness that artists feel in society, and beautify love.
As a representative of the early days of Romantic music, Schubert lived in an era that, after the war against France, was ruled by a repressive regime in Metternich. Schubert's unwillingness to be ordinary and submissive led him to give up a comfortable middle-class life, to fight poverty and death throughout his life, and to put forward his indictment of social darkness and yearning for good things through music. Therefore, there is no shortage of autobiographical content in his works, such as the depiction of natural things, the depiction of love, etc., as well as a dark and irresistible force felt in the heart - the threat of death.
Schubert composed a total of 15 string quartets, the most famous of which is the String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, which is also known as the "Death and maiden string quartet" because its second movement is a variation on the theme of Schubert's own art song "Death and the Maiden".
By Egon Schiller
Death and the Maiden is a short, general-score art song written by Schubert during his elementary school teacher from 1814 to 1817 based on the poems of the poet Matthias claudius. The song describes the god of death approaching the girl step by step, the girl screams and asks the god of death to leave, but the cold god of death advises the girl not to be afraid, so that the girl can rest quietly in her arms. Schubert's chamber music works often adopt a distinctively intelligible and clear artistic tone, and introduce the melody of his own songs into chamber music to express his romantic temperament. This string quartet, which premiered in Vienna on 1 February 1826, was just like that.
Death and the Maiden
matthias claudius
girlish:
Go away, ah! Get out!
Stay away from me, you abominable skeleton rotting fool!
I'm still young, ah! Get out!
Don't touch me, dear dead body.
death:
Hand me your hand, beautiful and gentle girl!
I'm not here to make friends, not to insult you.
Be brave, I am not to be hated,
Lie down on my arm and you will sleep peacefully.
The whole song is divided into four movements.
First movement: Allegro, sonata. The first movement of the music opens in unison, as the prelude to the story, the music is like a symphony of majestic momentum, constantly strengthening the theme, bringing great pressure of fate, hinting at the irreversible fate of the girl.
The second movement, a slightly faster row, variations. This chapter adopts the melody of the song "Death and the Maiden", which is full of a mysterious atmosphere of horror. Through five variations, the content of the original song is made more dramatic, and the heavy steps of sobbing, horror, pain, calm, and death fill the whole movement.
Variation 1: In the rhythm of the cello pluck, the violin plays a melody of fine notes, mixed with a hint of panic in the jump. The maiden meets Death.
Variation 2: The violin continues to express uneasiness, and the cello plays a soothing melody to comfort the violin. The girl was terrified and tearful, and the god of death seduced the girl with a deep voice of love.
Variation 3: The rhythmic melody of the whole ensemble and the helpless weak melody take care of each other, reflecting the irrefutable fate. The girl tries to resist and pulls at death, but the girl can never escape death.
Variation 4: The violin melody is lyrical and beautiful, and the rest of the instruments give a warm foil, appearing a touch of beauty in the gray and dark environment. Death soothed the struggling maiden with a deep voice of love.
Variation Five: Recreates the theme and becomes stronger and stronger, and the little notes of the violin panic become more and more stubborn, but eventually annihilated. Finally ends in the intermittent breath of the theme. After repeated attempts to escape, the girl gradually gave up her resistance.
The third movement, Allegro, Harmonic, is a trilogy with three voices. The first section is wild and clumsy, the rhythm of the split is constantly trembling, and the light is suddenly bright and dim, like the dance of the god of death, with strangeness in the heat. The second section is beautiful and smooth, occasionally adding the brisk music of the violin. The third paragraph returns to bleakness. The maiden talks to death and makes a final dying struggle. In the end, the girl could not escape the arrangement of fate, and lay in the arms of the god of death and slept peacefully.
Fourth movement, rush plate, sonata style. The majestic main melody and soothing interlude, like the first movement, also highlight the theme of the irresistible fate. At this moment, the girl was dead and walked to the other shore in the arms of the god of death. The girl's soul has been snatched away by the god of death, and the fiery life has returned to peace.
Through the dialogue between the "maiden" and the "god of death", the whole song explores the attitude towards "life" and "death". Schubert's life is hovering between disappointment and hope, darkness and light, pain and happiness, life and death, and the final death of the song reflects the helplessness and criticism of the era in which Schubert lived, and also reflects the helplessness and dissatisfaction with his own living conditions. At the same time, death becomes not terrible in the eyes of the composer, but the embodiment of tranquility and peace, which also expresses his desire for light and beauty on another level.