Take a look at our current subscription offers.
Franz Schubert
1797 – 1828
When considering Schubert's colossal achievement as a composer, it defies belief that he died two-and-a-half months short of his 32nd birthday.
Life and Music
- Unbelievably, his groundbreaking song cycle Winterreise, a deeply introspective collection that bears all the hallmarks of a valedictory 'late' style, was the work of a mere 30-year-old.
- Aged 10, the young Schubert won a place in the Vienna Imperial Court chapel choir and quickly gained a reputation as a budding composer with a set of facile string quartets, yet it was as a conductor that he appears to have really made his youthful mark at this time.
- After leaving chapel school and having completed the year's mandatory training, Schubert followed his father into the teaching profession. This was at once a calamitous move and a blessing, for it was Schubert's deep loathing of the school environment that finally lit the touchpaper of his creative genius.The same year he began teaching - 1814 - he produced his first indisputable masterpiece, 'Gretchen am Spinnrade' ('Gretchen at her spinning wheel').
- While Schubert was still struggling to hold down his full-time teaching post, he not only composed 145 Lieder (songs), but the Second and Third Symphonies, two sonatas and a series of miniatures for solo piano, two mass settings and other shorter choral works, four stage works, and a string quartet, in addition to various other projects. This period of intense creative activity remains one of the most inexplicable feats of productivity in musical history.
- Musical soirees known as Schubertiads became all the rage, during which Schubert might sing some of his own songs while accompanying himself at the piano. Well-meaning supporters arranged for productions of his theatrical works during the early 1820s, yet once again the lack of obvious dramatic flair in Schubert's music prevented even the likes of Rosamunde from having any impact.
- With little money and nothing much more than his 'groupies' to support him, Schubert began to produce a seemingly endless stream of masterpieces that for the most part were left to prosperity to discover, including the two great song cycles, Die schone Mullerin and Winterreise, the Eighth ('Unfinished') and Ninth ('Great') Symphonies, the Octet for wind, the last three string quartets, the two piano trios, the String Quintet, the 'Wanderer' Fantasy and the last six sonatas for solo piano.
- Although Franz's music has suffered its fair share of detractors down the years, it is reasonable to say that his rise in popularity has witnessed a steady crescendo that started almost immediately after his death with the first generation of Romantic composers. Franz Liszt declared him "the most poetic musician who ever lived", but it was Robert Schumann who did more than anyone to put his instrumental works on the musical map.
- On New Year's Day, 1837, Schumann inspected the contents of a black chest that contained some of Schubert's greatest works - many unknown. "The riches that lay here piled up made me tremble with excitement."
- By the second half of the 19th century, Schubert's intentioned 'secret' was out. As piece by piece was slowly disinterred, discovered and taken up by performers, so the picture began to emerge not of a gifted drawing-room dilettante, but of a Viennese master worthy to rank alongside Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.
- Brahms was among those devoted admirers who worked assiduously for many years as devoted editors of Schubert's music. Gradually more and more masterworks appeared in print: the 'Great' Symphony had been rushed out in 1840, the 'Unfinished' in 1867, and during the 1880s the rest followed.
- It was not until 1889 that the full six-movement version of the wind Octet was published. Rosamunde appeared in 1891, and by the turn of the century most of Schubert's prodigious output had been seen safely through the presses.
Did you know?
During 1815 alone, Schubert composed over 140 masterly song settings - including the unforgettable 'Erlkonig' - although he was still only 18 at the time.
