ABSTRACT
Schubert's ingenuity lies in the constant variety of ways in which the song variations are prefigured. The links between Matthias Claudius's poem Der Tod und das Mdchen', together with Schubert's musical setting of it, and his String Quartet in D minor, D 810, are similarly spread through the movements of the chamber work that surround the variations on the song. The minor major trajectory of the song D 531, evoking final transcendence, lends a particular meaning in Schubert's quartet to the convention of including a variation in the opposite mode within a set. The majority of Schubert's variations, however, are not of this type, but are generated from within the outlines of the sonata' movements that predominantly make up his larger instrumental works. And the logic they create is of an intricacy and referentiality that can be almost overwhelming. Apart from its sonic beauty, this music has intense constructional beauty.
