Patricia Kopatchinskaja, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra - Schubert: Death and the Maiden (2016) CD-Rip

This "collaborative exploration" of Schubert's String Quartet in D minor, D. 810 ("Death and the Maiden"), is experimental even by the standards of violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. It offers the Schubert quartet itself, in an arrangement for string orchestra by Kopatchinskaja herself, that preserves the original quartet forces in some passages; between its movements come other works by Augustus Nörmiger, John Dowland, Carlo Gesualdo, and György Kurtág, along with a piece of Byzantine chant, all of them on the theme of death and often making specific musical reference to the content of the Schubert. Sample Dowland's Pavana Lachrimae and the Andante of the Schubert for an idea of what Kopatchinskaja is up to. Obviously, Schubert's work here serves merely as a stimulus for further creative activity, and your response to Kopatchinskaja's work may depend on your general attitude toward this class of idea. But what she does would not have been totally foreign to the Romantics, who thought nothing of breaking up multi-movement works. Too, the album has something of the flavor of Renaissance masses as they were meant to be performed, with the movements separated by other works relevant to the occasion. For most, Kopatchinskaja's collaborative exploration will intrigue.