Opus13 Performs Schubert's 'Death and the Maiden'

String Quartet Opus 13 is conquering the world. The four musicians named themselves after the very first piece they played together: Mendelssohn's youthful and passionate String Quartet in A, Opus 13. Tonight, no Mendelssohn, but Schubert's impressive 'Death and the Maiden', in which death sounds like a cold, inescapable presence. Opus 13

It doesn't get any better: winning first prize at both the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition and the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition. Opus13 pulled it off. The quartet is named after Mendelssohn's youthful and passionate String Quartet in A minor, Opus 13 – the very first piece the musicians played together. That was in 2014, when they first came together as teenagers in Oslo. What they had in common: a passion for the string quartet repertoire. From Oslo and Stockholm, they perform in the most beautiful venues: the violinists are Norwegian, and the violist and cellist are from Sweden.

Schubert's 'Der Tod und das Mädchen'

In 1824, Schubert became seriously ill. In the years that followed, he worked on 'Der Tod und das Mädchen' ( Death and the Girl), one of his most impressive string quartets. The title refers to a song he had written himself, in which Death comes to fetch a young girl and reassures her: 'Bin Freund, sollst sanft in meinen Armen schlafen' (I am a friend, shall sleep gently in my arms). When friends recognized this theme in the quartet, they were shocked. Here, death sounds very different: not as a comforting friend, but as a cold, inescapable presence. The work was almost never performed at house concerts; Schubert could not bear the confrontation with mortality, which he had captured in music.