Many people who are only mildly familiar with Schubert’s famous lied and the equally magnificent quartet after which it is named often mistakenly refer to the title as “Death of the Maiden.” The correct name is “Death and the Maiden,” and that one little difference makes all the difference in the world.

First off, with the use of the preposition “of,” the meaning of Death would suggest that the maiden is in the process dying. In fact, in the two-stanza song, Death is not a mere condition. Death is as much a three-dimensional character as the Maiden, singing the entire second stanza, while the Maiden sings the first.

Secondly, and perhaps more important, by thinking of the title with the “of” instead of the “and,” one would assume that the Maiden dies, when in reality no such things happens. Rather, there is an argument: the Maiden insists she is too young to die, whereas, in response, Death gently beckons her to take his hand. What makes Schubert’s song so powerful is that it ends with no resolution. What happens to the Maiden? One can hazard a guess, but one can’t be sure.

Why does this absence of resolution make it more powerful? Because it inevitably leads to the question that Schubert forces every serious listener of “Death and the Maiden” to ponder, a question that will eventually affect everybody: When Death comes to my doorstep, am I going to gracefully bow to the inevitable or will I struggle mightily until my last breath? Will I reach out and calmly accept Death’s outstretched hand, or am I going to spurn his invitation until the bitter end.

This is the question at the core of my Daniel Jacobus mystery, Death and the Maiden. Many of the characters in the book are forced to confront the issue; some have time to consider it philosophically, others are not given the luxury and are cut down before they know it. The “Maiden” in the story is Jacobus’s protégée, the concert violinist Yumi Shinagawa. Jacobus asks her that question theoretically at a violin lesson, but it is only when the situation is all too real that she finds her answer.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading Death and the Maiden. But by all means, listen to Schubert’s heart-churning lied and his dramatically riveting string quartet.