András Keller photo: Csilla Cseke

In this concert, we can marvel at Franz Schubert’s instrumental chamber music – as you listen, however, you may find yourselves recalling the songs from his oeuvre. After the allegro assai movement in C minor from one of Schubert’s string quartets – revered as a famed example of Schubert’s unfinished works – the Keller Quartet will also perform String Quartet No. 14 in D minor from 1824. During its composition, Schubert, whose health was rapidly deteriorating, returned to the melody of Der Tod und das Mädchen (Death and the Maiden), which he wrote seven years previously. It is not only the title that links the string quartet to the atmosphere of Matthias Claudius’s poem of the same name, in which we hear the temptation of death: “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 is the Octet in F major, which the Keller Quartet will perform in the company of other fine musicians, including Csaba Klenyán. Several themes from this six-movement composition are taken from earlier Lieder. The work borrows from Schubert’s song Der Wanderer, as well as the melody from Die Götter Griechenlands – Schubert’s setting of Schiller to music – composed for the line, “Beautiful world, where have you gone?”