Schubert: String Quartet No.9, D.173

Introduction

The String Quartet No. 9 (D 173) in G minor was composed by Franz Schubert in 1815.

Movements

1. Allegro con brio (G minor)
2. Andantino (B-flat major)
3. Menuetto: Allegro vivace (G minor, with Trio in B-flat major)
4. Allegro (G minor)

Between 1813 and 1816, Franz Schubert composed five string quartets (four of which survive), an impressive feat in and of itself given the fact that the composer had not yet turned 20. The work under consideration here, the String Quartet in G minor No. 9, D. 173, was penned in a scant eight days in the spring of 1815, a year that also saw the completion of two symphonies, two piano sonatas, numerous songs, and a considerable amount of music for the stage. The piece seems to have been conceived with a more domestic inclination; however, members of the Schubert family frequently played string quartets together in their own home for their own pleasure. In fact, after the piece's private "premiere" shortly after its composition, the piece remained more or less neglected until its public premiere half a century later at a concert in the fall of 1863 (it was finally published eight years after that).

Despite the piece's early date, it bears a number of features that speak to the composer's maturity and innovation. The first movement seems at first glance to disrupt the traditional sonata form in a rather blatant way, with the briefest of development sections (if it can even be called such) and the highly unusual use of the relative major key of B flat at the beginning of the recapitulation. As is the case whenever Schubert alters the expected key structures, this unusual modal shift articulates a broader structural principle: by moving to B flat major, then returning to G minor during the recapitulation, Schubert creates a tonal symmetry with the G minor/B flat major key scheme of the exposition's two theme areas. The formal trajectory of the Andantino second movement is equally clever. Again, a short quasi-developmental passage separates the end of the exposition from the beginning of the recapitulation by only a few bars. And here again, the recapitulation begins in an unusual key: E flat, the subdominant key, rather than the B flat tonic. The modulating harmonic contour of the traditional sonata form exposition is thus mirrored in the recapitulation's shift from E flat to B flat. The third movement is widely recognized as a nod to the minuet of Mozart's Symphony in G minor No. 40, while the finale articulates a kind of rondo form with almost unceasing rhythmic energy.