Der Jüngling, Das Mädchen, und der Tod (The Youth, The Maiden, and Death) for Trombone Quartet is an arrangement based on two of Franz Schuberts songs: Der Tod und das Mädchen and Der Jüngling und der Tod (2nd version).

This trombone quartet was originally written by Dr. Jose L. Leon as a performance/writing assignment for a Franz Schubert Seminar class at the University of Colorado Boulder, and then premiered as part of his second Doctoral Chamber Recital at Grusin Music Hall in Boulder, Colorado USA in the spring of 2017.

The piece contextualizes two different human approaches facing imminent death. Der Tod (Death), one of the main characters in both stories, is presented, metaphorically, as an understanding and compassionate figure. Deaths lyric is written in a warm and gentle dialog musically written in the bass trombone part throughout the entire work. In the original Schuberts songs and poems, both writers Claudius and Spaun described death as a kind and embracing character. The human characters: Der Jüngling (The Youth), and Das Mädchen (The Maiden), are both represented by the tenor trombone parts describing sorrow, romanticism, or desperation, as part of the dramatic plot of this work.

Dr Jose L. Leon
2019