SCHUBERT  String Quartet in D Minor, D. 810, “Death and the Maiden”

Toward the end of his short life, Schubert became fixated on the idea of writing a “grand symphony” on the scale of Beethoven’s Ninth. Although that project never got off the drawing board, he hinted at its nature in the three great string quartets he produced between 1824 and 1826. Like its two companions, the D-Minor Quartet—which draws on thematic material from Schubert’s song “Death and the Maiden”—is characterized by majestic proportions and elaborate thematic development.

MOZART  Piano Sonata in C Minor, K. 457

Often paired with Mozart’s C-Minor Fantasia, K. 475, the Piano Sonata in C Minor is distinguished by its dark, agitated, and often tragic atmosphere. Like many other works dating from the last decade of the composer’s life, the sonata illustrates his determination to expand the range of piano technique and expression, even as he breathed new life into forms and genres associated with his 18th-century predecessors.

MOZART  Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major, K. 414

The Piano Concerto in A Major is the first of 17 concertos that Mozart wrote after relocating to Vienna from his native Salzburg in 1781. The music’s surprisingly intimate and low-keyed character is enhanced in the alternate version for piano and string quartet. Mozart observed that K. 414 and its two companion concertos represented “a happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult; they are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, natural without being vapid.”