Death and the Maiden

When most people talk about classical music in respect to metal, they’re usually talking about neo-classical metal which borrows a lot from Baroque and Classical-era music.

But I hear a lot of commonalities between metal and classical music from the 20th century. Especially when you get into the more extreme/experimental bands. I’m surprised this connection hasn’t been look into more.

I remember when I first heard Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring…the first thought that popped into my head was “Damn, this is HEAVY!” And since then I’ve been on the lookout for other composers with dark aggressive music.

One of my favorites is Shostakovich, who seemed to have the perfect balance of romantic melody and dissonance. Another one is Bartok, whose string quartets have quite a bit of (as one of my composition teachers put it) testicular fortitude.

I intend to dedicate a full post to each of these composers along with a few others. For now, I leave you with a little Bartok.

I’ve been reading Schubert’s biography these last few weeks.  Originally, I just wanted to learn more about the ‘Death and the Maiden’ string quartet and any information surrounding it. But in the end, I just ended up reading the whole thing.  I’ve come to the conclusion that I just really like to read musician biographies…I don’t know why I don’t read more of them (laziness…).

 

Anyway, there’s a lot of hoopla about Schubert’s final years and how his disease (most people agree he had syphillis…pretty much a terminal disease back then) affected his music.  The Quartet is a perfect example of this, not only because of the title and any sad and depressing qualities it may have, but also because it was written about a year or two after he found out he was sick.

 

But I’m generally skeptical about finding autobiographical qualities in a composer’s work, and this is no exception.  Schubert’s music almost always had an underlying nostalgia and sadness to it, and he was a master of switching in and out of it without one even noticing it.  This, in my opinion, is what makes his music so special and unique…well, one of the things.

 

That being said, Schubert did seem to be pretty down during this time.  Here’s a quote from a letter he wrote to one of his friends, written the same year as the ‘Maiden’ quartet:

 

“In a word, I feel myself the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world.  Imagine a man whose health will never be right again, and who in sheer despair over this ever makes things worse and worse, instead of better; imagine a man, I say, whose most brilliant hopes have perished, to whom the happiness of love and friendship have nothing to offer but pain, at best, whose enthusiasm (at least of the stimulating kind) for all things beautiful threatens to disappear, and I ask you, is he not a miserable, unhappy being?”

 

Woah. It’s hard to argue that those kinds of feelings didn’t affect his work in some way, at least indirectly.  I would imagine that finding out he was sick made him rethink his priorities, and that it’s no coincidence that his final years are filled with his most amazing and powerful works.

 

Oh yeah, the book I’m reading is called “The Life of Schubert” by Christopher Gibbs.  I would imagine there are more extensive biographies, but this one is well written and gets to the point…qualities I like in a book.

One of the side-effects I’ve noticed from playing classical music on the guitar, is that it has greatly improved my chops.  I don’t just mean in the sense that I’m playing difficult stuff, but also that I’m playing things that aren’t meant for the guitar and sometimes I need to find creative ways to play them.

 

Let’s face it, we guitarists tend to play “guitaristic” things that fall easily on the guitar.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  It’s perfectly natural to play what feels more comfortable on an instrument because it tends to sound better; taking the path of least resistance, so to speak.  However, it’s nice to break out of one’s comfort zone every once in a while to expand one’s technique.

 

For example, look at his run from Bach’s Sinfonia in B Minor:

 

Now those are the notes, but it would be pretty tough to play that up to speed.  It was pretty obvious from the beginning that I needed to find a different way to play this. How about sweep/alternate picking?

Ok, that’s better.  An added bonus is that musically it sounds a lot more interesting this way. But the constant back-and-forth still makes it difficult and somewhat uncomfortable.  Maybe if I practiced enough, but I opted for the tapping route: 

Now we’re talking.  This is much easier to play, and sounds even better in my opinion.  Still, it’s not a very common tapping pattern, so it took me while to get it down.  Keep in mind this is the easiest run of many to come in this piece.  It took me a lot of experimenting to find the best way to play each of them.  Maybe I’ll get into more specifics in future posts.

Check out this video to see me play the whole thing. 

I thought it’d be interesting to post the original versions of the pieces I’m doing in this project. Here’s the first movement from Schubert’s "Death and the Maiden" quartet, String Quartet #14 in D Minor:

 

And here’s the Presto movement from Beethoven’s Op. 131, String Quartet No. #14 in C# Minor (Yes, both quartets are #14. Just a coincidence…):

 

And finally, Glenn Gould playing Bach’s Sinfonia No. 15 in B Minor:

The short answer: because it’s fun.

 

The long-winded answer?

 

Well, there are a few reasons, but it all came together one day when I was listening to Schubert’s "Death and the Maiden" Quartet.  I had been into this piece for a few weeks, but one particular day when I heard this:

 

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In my head I imagined this:

 

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And the whole idea of forming a band to play string quartets came crashing in.

 

The beauty of playing string quartets, as opposed to any type of classical music, is that they’re so easily adapted to a rock band; the the bass is the cello, and the two guitars are the violins.  Just add a 7-string or baritone guitar to cover the viola and your set.  And transposing the parts for guitar is just a matter of playing them an octave lower.

 

Of course, that’s all fine hearing it in your head, but will it work? Will it be possible to play all the parts? Can I think of a drum part for the whole thing? Will it sound good? All these concerns were bouncing around in my head, so I decided to do a small test.

 

At the time I was also listening a lot to Glenn Gould performing the Bach Inventions, and his rhythmic drive got me imagining drums on a few thing.  It was a perfect way to test, since they are very short pieces.  So I arranged the 4th Invention in D Minor as a power trio, and, well…I liked it!

 

So I moved on to tackling the first movement of Schubert’s quartet, but this proved a bit more difficult.  First of all, the process was pretty grueling.  I would sequence the bass for a few bars, record the three guitars and then figure out a drum part and sequence that as well.  Repeat.

 

Not only that, but it was also much more difficult to play.  I realized I really needed to get my chops into shape. But I finally managed to get the first part of the movement done, and I was REALLY diggin’ it.  So as soon as I settled in Berlin and set up my small home studio, I got to work right away.

 

An added benefit to playing these pieces is that you really get close to them, in a way that you never do by just listening.  Playing one of the parts and listening to the others harmonizing with you, answering you in perfect counterpoint, or forming a perfect harmonic bed for you to play the melody over, is a thrilling experience; which is why I can’t wait to play them live!

 

But that’s for the future.  For now, I’m just happy to have completed this set of songs.  Hope you like them as much as I do.