Mystique of Aurae and String Quartets

Images and sounds which I am currently in love with. The elegantly enchanting series Displaced Auras by photographer and artist Jessica Langley, Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, opus 131, and Schubert's Death and the Maiden String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D. 810.






Beethoven's heartrendingly beautiful and yet profoundly transcendent String Quartet No. 14, performed by The Lindsay String Quartet. Richard Wagner remarked upon the first movement, "...the most melancholy sentiment ever expressed in music. (...) he hastily turns from material reality, and slips into the harmonious cosmos of his soul."



The String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, opus 131, by Ludwig van Beethoven was completed in 1826. (The number traditionally assigned to it is based on the order of its publication; it is actually his fifteenth quartet by order of composition.) About 40 minutes in length, it consists of seven movements to be played without a break, as follows:
1. Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo
2. Allegro molto vivace
3. Allegro moderato
4. Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile — Più mosso — Andante moderato e lusinghiero — Adagio — Allegretto — Adagio, ma non troppo e semplice — Allegretto
5. Presto
6. Adagio quasi un poco andante
7. Allegro
This work, which is dedicated to Baron Joseph von Stutterheim, was Beethoven's favourite from the late quartets. He is quoted as remarking to a friend: "thank God there is less lack of imagination than ever before". The work was dedicated to von Stutterheim as a gesture of gratitude for taking his nephew, Karl, into the army after a failed suicide attempt in 1826. Together with the quartets op. 130 and 132, it goes beyond anything Beethoven had previously written. (Op. 131 is the conclusion of that trio of great works, written in the order 132, 130 with the Grosse Fugue ending, 131; they may be profitably listened to and studied in that sequence.) It is said that upon listening to a performance of this quartet, Schubert remarked, "After this, what is left for us to write?". The Op. 131 quartet is a monumental feat of integration. Beethoven composes the quartet in six distinct key areas, closing the quartet again in C-sharp minor. The choice of key is of specific importance: the only other work that Beethoven wrote in C-sharp minor is the Op. 27 No. 2 "Moonlight" sonata composed in 1801. The parallelism between the Moonlight sonata and the evocations of fantasia throughout the Op. 131 quartet is evident. The Finale directly quotes the opening fugue theme in the first movement, prompting Joseph Kerman to note that "blatant functional reference to the theme of another movement: this never happens." According to Michael Tusa's article "Structural Implications of Beethoven's C-minor mood," Tusa argues that many of these works that are imbued by the c-minor mood possess similar musical devices. For instance, the first movement of the work tends to open with a strong attack on the tonic and an upward leap. This is analogous to the Finale of the Op. 131. Kerman posits that the c-sharp minor quartet in fact resolves the pretensions aired by the c-minor mood. This in turn becomes another index of normality in the Op. 131. Since the Op. 131 string quartet is strongly end-weighted according to a similar mentality as the musical trajectory of the Op. 27, No.2, we may thus consider the Finale of the movement to be akin to the first movements of Tusa's article. Upon examination of the opening of the Op. 131, we indeed find a strong attack on the tonic.

Schubert's Death and the Maiden String Quartet performed by The Takács Quartet. A beautifully fluid, moving as well as passionate rendition reminiscent of the lyrics of Schubert's lied of the same name (the original music of this piece), which mention the soft embrace of death. "A stale tempo rids this piece of the lyrical phrasing and 'watery' feel that I think do the original lyrics proper justice, as well as giving the slightly more sprightly movements adequate phrasing and energy."*



The String Quartet in D minor was written in 1824 by Franz Schubert, just after the composer became aware of his ruined health. It is popularly known as the Death and the Maiden Quartet because the second movement is adapted from the piano accompaniment to Schubert's 1817 song (or Lied), Death and the Maiden. In the numerical order of his quartets it is his String Quartet No. 14, and is D. 810 in Otto Erich Deutsch's thematic catalogue of Schubert's works. The work is a string quartet in four movements:
1. Allegro, in D minor and common time
2. Andante con moto, in G minor and divided common (2/2) time
3. Scherzo: Allegro molto, in D minor and 3/4 time
4. Presto, in D minor and 6/8 time
The opening movement is, along with that of the preceding and next quartet and that of his string quintet, among the most extended and substantial in his chamber music output, if not in his output as a whole. It is a sonata form movement whose exposition encompasses three main key regions, D minor, F major and A minor.
The second movement is a theme — taken from his macabre song Der Tod und das Mädchen (D 531 in Deutsch's catalog) — and five variations, with coda.
The third movement's main theme can also be heard in one of a set of piano dances; its lyrical D major trio varies its 'repeats'.
The relentless finale-tarantella is a sonata-rondo in form — a rondo whose first episode returns as the last, and whose central section contains elements of development. Its coda promises major-mode triumph, and snatches it away.
*Quote from the original YouTube user who posted these wonderful recordings of Schubert's string quartet.
**Detailed information on these two pieces is taken from their respective Wikipedia entries here and here.