Schubert: Death and the Maiden

Remaining with Viennese repertoire after the success of The Mathilde Album - a programme of Schoenberg, Zemlinsky and Webern - the members of the Arod quartet turn to Schubert.

"Schubert is a complex figure," they explain. He looks towards the future by following Beethoven's example, but he is also marked by tradition in his use of form and elements of folk music. This album explores several stylistic phases in his life."

The centrepiece is his gripping Quartet No 14 ('Der Tod und das Mädchen'/'Death and the Maiden'), written in the final years of his short life and complemented here by the Quartets No 4 and No 12 ('Quartettsatz').

'Death and the Maiden' was written in 1824, when Schubert's health was already faltering: he was to die four years later, aged just 31. "'It was one of the first pieces we worked on as the Arod Quartet. It helped us grow up and define our artistic personality. Coming back to it after several years is very fulfilling for us. It has so much to offer - a tone poem that draws the audience in and keeps them on the edge of their seats."

The Quartet No 4, though a teenage work (written in 1813), is already distinctively Schubertian, while the Quartet No 12 (dating from 1820) is unfinished, but fascinating. Its single movement is one of the composer's first mature compositions for quartet.