String Quartet No. 15 (Schubert)

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The String Quartet No. 15 written by Franz Schubert in 1826, work 887 in Otto Erich Deutsch's thematic catalogue of Schubert's music, is a piece in four movements, and is about 45 minutes long:

Allegro molto moderato in G, in 3/4 time, 15 minutes long
Andante un poco moto in E minor, in common time, 8 minutes long
SCHERZO: Allegro vivace in B minor, in 3/4 time, with a trio: Allegretto in G, 8 minutes long
Allegro assai in G major, in 6/8 time, 13 minutes long

The above terms, allegretto, allegro and andante are explained in the article tempo.

The first and last, often called the outer, movements are the more interesting of the four. They are more complicated structurally, cover a wider range of moods; along with the corresponding movements in last piano sonatas, the string quintet, the last two symphonies, and the other last quartets they are among Schubert's best. They deserve close consideration.

As the first movement's Allegro molto moderato begins alternate major and minor chords (in a characteristic dotted rhythm many forms of which will be heard throughout the quartet) and modes dizzyingly, a few bars for each at a time, and the movement becomes more stable only with the introduction of the main lyrical theme at bar fourteen. The first movement is riddled with (prophetic, for not only Bruckner among later composers would use these in this way, though this was not unknown in earlier music) tremolandi, which also lead into the repeat of the exposition, and contains several other new departures for the composer.

This may include the use of a motive in triplets to connect the first and second main groups of this sonata form; the second group opens, exactly as happens in the later-written string quintet and similar to the technique in some works by Beethoven — not in the dominant key (which is the key we will arrive in, which is not always true with Beethoven!) but with a quiet theme in the mediant, B-flat, with rhythm not quite the same as that of the lyrical theme that slowed matters down early on (bar fourteen, again), and with pizzicato accompaniment. There is a triplet-dominated, agitated transition and the same theme is heard, now in D, with triplet accompaniments; the triplets, not the theme, continue to the end of the exposition, and descend gradually from D down to G major for the repeat, or for the second ending and the beginning of the development, where continuity means the continued rustling of quiet strings, building for a bit by exchanging with more energetic passages, then bringing in faster versions of the dotted rhythms of the main themes. The climax of the development leads to a particularly quiet recapitulation, much varied at its opening from what we had heard originally. In the coda the opening of the quartet, both its rhythm and its major/minor exchanges, get a further chance to play themselves out.

The dramatic slow movement contains much in the way of march rhythm and sudden upward violin glides followed by drops to the lowest string, and again much use of tremolo.

The scherzo is light-textured, fleet for much of its span, suggesting Mendelssohn's trademark scherzi. The scherzo’s trio is a mild accompanied duet, first between cello and first violin, then first violin and viola, then again cello and first violin.

The finale continues the preoccupation of the first movement in an extended and ambiguous movement that might be sonata or rondo, might be G major or minor. The opening theme is more extreme, more rapid, in its exchanges of major and minor chords than was that of the first movement; its rhythms are tarantellaish, as with that of the previous quartet — which the movement resembles but only in some ways, and the movement has a capricious quality. The rhythms drag everything along with them, if not in all voices than constantly in the background, with such compulsion and for so long that when, in the second half of the first episode — or in the third theme group of the sonata form (which is it..?), which starts in B minor (and returning in E minor in what is effectively a recapitulation) ... things come to a screeching halt, the playful 6/8 being partially superseded by an imposing theme in dotted halfs and quarters in 3/4 — the effect is immediate (and at the least, attention-grabbing).

This could be a rondo with a lengthy first episode (wandering through D major and B minor, then G major and E minor when it returns) and a developmental central episode, as in the preceding quartet; or a sonata form whose main theme returns before the development and not after it, as in Brahms' first symphony. The second makes more sense, but the question, if it even matters, remains open! The structure is (for all that) tight, the central section acting — again as with the previous quartet — much more as a development than as an occasion for further episodic material, with much development of the third theme in particular — and after the recapitulation of part of the main theme and of the first episode, in the coda, the opening, fff, increasingly frenetic, seems to decide on a mode and to stay there.

[edit] In Film

This is the piece that Woody Allen uses in the film Crimes and Misdemeanors to accompany the imminent death and discovery of the body of the character Dolores, played by Anjelica Huston.