The A-minor Quartet by Franz Schubert was first performed in July of 1824 by the members of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, which had premiered most of Beethoven’s quartets. It would be the only one of Schubert’s chamber works published in his lifetime.
Schubert scholar Maurice Brown, writing in 1958, noted: “The Quartet in A minor is a beloved work; in some way we group it with the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony as giving us the heart of the composer. But with the quartet as with the symphony, it is doing him an injustice to let the emotional directness, the poetry, the sheer beauty of the musical sound… prevent admiration and appreciation of his technical power: power used with masterly ease in development and formal construction.”
“Rosamunde,” the nickname usually employed for the A-minor Quartet and the theme of its serene second movement, has its origins in a theme from Schubert’s incidental music for a play of the same name and which is again used for one of his D. 935 Impromptus for solo piano.
I have very fond memories of the Hagen Quartet, because I interviewed them in person when they gave a concert in Carmel, California. Veronika Hagen, their violist was particularly kind in that she showed me her Stradivari viola…
Here is the Hagen Quartet to perform this music for you:
