Reception
After the initial reading of the quartet in 1826, the quartet was played again at a house concert in the home of composer Franz Lachner, with violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh leading. Schuppanzigh, one of the leading violinists of the time, who debuted many of Beethoven's and Schubert's quartets, was reportedly unimpressed. "Brother, this is nothing at all, let well alone: stick to your Lieder," the aging Schuppanzigh is reported to have said to Schubert.
Schuppanzigh's impressions notwithstanding, Schubert's quartet soon won a leading place on the concert stage and in the hearts of musicians. "Only the excellence of such a work as Schubert's D minor Quartet... can in any way console us for the early and grievous death of this first-born of Beethoven; in a few years he achieved and perfected things as no one before him," wrote Robert Schumann of the quartet.
The quartet has been honored by several transcriptions. In 1878, Robert Franz transcribed it for piano duet, and in 1896 Mahler planned an arrangement for string orchestra and notated the details in a score of the quartet (the work was never completed, however, and only the second movement was written out and played; the modern revival of the arrangement is in a version edited by David Matthews).
In the 20th century, British composer John Foulds and American composer Andy Stein made versions for full symphony orchestra.
At Fridtjof Nansen's state funeral in 1930, "Death and the Maiden" was performed instead of speeches.
The quartet has also inspired other works. Ariel Dorfman's 1991 play Death and the Maiden, adapted for film in 1994 by Roman Polanski, is about a woman tortured and raped in a South American dictatorship, to the strains of the quartet. It has also appeared as incidental music in numerous films: The Portrait of a Lady (Jane Campion, 1996), What? (Roman Polanski, 1972), Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (BBC production), and in Samuel Beckett's radio play All That Fall (1962).
Read more about this topic: String Quartet No. 14 (Schubert)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
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