Concerto Budapest

This concert invites us to marvel at Franz Schubert’s instrumental chamber music – yet in a way that continually brings to mind the songs of his oeuvre. Opening the program is the String Quartet Movement in C minor, a renowned example of Schubertian fragments, followed by the Keller Quartet’s performance of the 1824 String Quartet in D minor. During the composition of this work, Schubert – already gravely ill – returned to the melody of his song Death and the Maiden, written seven years earlier. In doing so, he not only linked the quartet to the title of the song but also infused it with the atmosphere of Matthias Claudius’s poem, in which Death entices gently:

“Give me your hand, you lovely, tender creature.

I am your friend, and come not to chastise.

Be of good courage. I am not cruel;

you shall sleep softly in my arms.”

Also from 1824, the Octet in F major will be performed by the Keller Quartet alongside several outstanding musicians, including Csaba Klenyán. This six-movement piece features themes drawn from earlier Lieder, evoking both The Wanderer and Schubert’s setting of Schiller’s The Gods of Greece, particularly the line:

“Whither are you gone, O fair world?”