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Schubert's Death and the Maiden

Give me your hand, you lovely, tender creature!
I am a friend, and come not to chastise.
Be of good courage. I am not cruel,
You shall sleep softly in my arms!

So says Death in  Matthias Claudius's poem "Der Tod und das Madchen," the poem that inspired Schubert's song of the same name, composed in 1817. Seven years later the composer would revisit the song, extending the theme and tenor into String Quartet No. 14, D 810. The seven years that passed were not happy ones. Schubert had lost what little of his health remained, and he was without money, thanks in part to Anton Diabelli, the music publisher whose name has been immortalized by Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. 

Mark Munger first began listening to public radio as a child in the back of his Mom's VW Vanagon, falling in love with the stories on Morning Edition and Prairie Home Companion and the laughter of Click and Clack on Car Talk. Through KWIT, he was introduced to the great orchestras and jazz artists, the sounds of folk and blues, and the eclectic expressions of humanity. This American Life and Radiolab arrived in his formative college years and made him want nothing more than to be a part of the public radio world.
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