At the Solivita Club in Kissimmee, FL, The Fernwood Quartet will perform a program centered around Franz Schubert’s famous string quartet in D minor, “The Death and the Maiden”.

Composed in 1824, Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, famously known as “Death and the Maiden,” is one of the towering achievements of the string quartet repertoire. Written during a period of personal despair and declining health, the work captures Schubert’s profound confrontation with mortality.

The quartet takes its nickname from the second movement, a set of variations on Schubert’s 1817 song “Der Tod und das Mädchen,” in which a terrified young woman pleads with Death, who responds with calm reassurance. This haunting theme becomes the emotional and structural centerpiece of the quartet.

Across its four movements, the work is a gripping blend of intensity, lyrical beauty, and dramatic contrast. The first movement opens with fierce urgency, while the slow second movement provides poignant reflection. The scherzo is darkly energetic, and the finale—a tarantella—races with a wild, almost defiant energy.

“Death and the Maiden” stands as both a deeply personal expression and a universal meditation on life, death, and the fragile line between them.