Composer, born in Vienna, Austria. At 11 he became a member of the chapel choir at the imperial court, and with little formal training began to compose. From 1817 he lived precariously as a composer and teacher, until he formed an association with the operatic baritone, Johann Michael Vogl (17681840), with whom he founded the successful Schubertiads - private and public accompanied recitals of his songs - which made them known throughout Vienna. His major works include the Trout Piano Quintet (1819), his C major symphony (1825), and his B minor symphony (1822), known as the Unfinished. He is particularly remembered as the greatest exponent of German songs (Lieder), which number c.600. He also wrote a great deal of choral and chamber music.
| Franz Peter Schubert | |
|---|---|
| Franz Schubert | |
| Born |
January 31, 1797 Vienna |
| Died |
November 19, 1828 Vienna |
| Occupation | Composer |
Franz Peter Schubert (January 31, 1797 – November 19, 1828) was an Austrian composer considered to be both the last master of the Viennese Classical school and one of the earliest proponents of musical Romanticism.
Although he died at the young age of 31, he managed to write some six hundred songs (Lieder) in addition to nine symphonies, various sonatas, string quartets, and other works. Schubert has been noted particularly for his genius for original melodic and harmonic writing.
Yet, during his lifetime, public appreciation for his work was for the most part, limited at best. However, interest in Schubert's work increased dramatically following his death in 1828, at which time over 100 of his compositions were published posthumously.
Early life and education
Schubert was born in the Himmelpfortgrund, a small suburb of Vienna.
At the age of five, Schubert began receiving regular instruction from his father and a year later was enrolled at the Himmelpfortgrund school where, as he later recalled, he spent some of the happiest years of his life. At seven, having exceeded the abilities of his music teachers, Schubert was placed under the instruction of Michael Holzer, the Kapellmeister of the Lichtenthal Church. The unsatisfactory nature of Schubert's early training was even more pronounced during his time given that composers could expect little chance of success unless they were also able to appeal to the public as performers. To this end, Schubert's meager musical education was never entirely sufficient.
In October 1808, he was received as a scholar at the Convict, which, under Antonio Salieri's direction, had become the most distinguished music school in Vienna, offering the special office of training the choristers for the Court Chapel. Schubert remained here until about the age of seventeen where he profited less from direct instruction than by the practices of the school orchestra and by association with congenial classmates. It was at the Convict, too, that Schubert was introduced to the overtures and symphonies of Mozart.
Meanwhile, his genius was already beginning to show itself in his compositions. It was then followed in 1811 by three long vocal pieces (D.5 - D.7) written upon a plan which Zumsteeg had popularized, together with a "quintet-overture" (D.8), a string quartet (D.2), a second pianoforte fantasia, and a number of other songs. Through these early works Salieri became aware of the talented young man and decided to train him in musical composition and music theory. Schubert's early essay in chamber music is noticeable, since we learn that at the time a regular quartet-party was established at his home "on Sundays and holidays," in which his two brothers played the violin, his father the cello and Franz himself the viola. During the remainder of his stay at the Convict he wrote a good deal more chamber music, several songs, some miscellaneous pieces for the pianoforte and, among his more ambitious efforts, a Kyrie (D.31) and Salve Regina (D.27), an octet for wind instruments (D.72/72a) - said to commemorate the death of his mother, which took place in 1812 - a cantata (D.110), words and music, for his father's name-day in 1813, and the closing work of his school-life, his first symphony (D.82).
Teacher at his father's school
At the end of 1813 he left the Convict and entered his father's school as teacher of the lowest class. As Salieri was one of the first composers to add the specific sonority of the Biedermeier period to Viennese church music, it is not surprising that Schubert's early sacred works are directly linked to his teacher's church music of these days. Also, Salieri's great amount of songs in several languages echo in Schubert's early song output.
His first completed opera - Des Teufels Lustschloss (D.84) - and his first Mass - in F major (D.105) - were both written in 1814; and to the same year belong three string quartets, many smaller instrumental pieces, the first movement of the Symphony No. In this year, despite his schoolwork, his lessons with Salieri and the many distractions of Viennese life, he produced an amount of music the record of which is almost incredible. Schubert's second symphony in B-flat (D.125) was finished, and a third, in D major (D.200), added soon afterwards. The composer also completed two Masses, in G (D.167) (the Mass in G, written within six days) and B-flat (D.324), a new Dona nobis pacem movement for the Mass in F, a Stabat Mater (D.175) and a Salve Regina (D.223).
Opera was represented by no less than five works, of which three were completed-- Der vierjährige Posten (D.190), Fernando (D.220) and Claudine von Villabella (D.239)-- and two, Adrast (D.137) and Die Freunde von Salamanka (D.326), apparently left unfinished. Besides these the list includes a string quartet in G minor, four sonatas and several smaller compositions for piano, and, by way of climax, 146 songs, some of which are of considerable length, and of which eight are dated October 15, and seven October 19.
In December 1814 Schubert made acquaintance with the poet Johann Mayrhofer: an acquaintance which, according to his usual habit, soon ripened into a warm and intimate friendship. They were singularly unlike in temperament: Schubert frank, open and sunny, with brief fits of depression, and sudden outbursts of boisterous high spirits; The friendship, as will be seen later, was of service to Schubert in more than one way.
Supported by friends
As 1815 was the most prolific period of Schubert's life, 1816 saw the first real change in his fortunes. A few weeks later Franz von Schober, a student of good family and some means, who had heard some of Schubert's songs at Spaun's house, came to pay a visit to the composer and proposed to carry him off from school-life and give him freedom to practice his art in peace. The proposal was particularly opportune, for Schubert had just made an unsuccessful application for the post of Kapellmeister at Laibach (the German name for Ljubljana), and was feeling more acutely than ever the slavery of the classroom.
The works of 1816 include three ceremonial cantatas, one written for Salieri's Jubilee on June 16 (D.407/441); 5 in B-flat (D.485), as bright and fresh as a symphony of Mozart: some items of church music, fuller and more mature than any of their predecessors, and over a hundred songs, among which are some of his finest settings of Goethe and Schiller.
All this time his circle of friends was steadily widening. No doubt Schubert was entirely penniless, for he had given up teaching, he could earn nothing by public performance, and, as yet, no publisher would take his music at a gift; Schubert was always the leader of the party, but more often than not, was penniless. Another nickname was "The Little Mushroom" as Schubert was only five feet, one and one-half inches tall, and tended to corpulence.
1818, though, like its predecessor, comparatively unfertile in composition, was in two respects a memorable year. It saw the second public performance of a work of Schubert's (the first one had been the performance of the Mass in F-major in September 1814 in Lichtental) -- an overture in the Italian style written as an avowed burlesque of Rossini, and played in all seriousness at a Jail concert on March 1. The compositions of the year include a symphony in C major (D.589), a certain amount of four-hand pianoforte music for his pupils at Želiezovce (including the well known "Marche Militaire in D") and a few songs, among which are Einsamkeit (D.620), Marienbild (D.623) and the Litaney.
The compositions of 1820 are remarkable, and show a marked advance in development and maturity of style. But of almost more biographical interest is the fact that in this year two of Schubert's operas appeared at the Kärntnerthor theatre, Die Zwillingsbrüder (D.647) on June 14, and Die Zauberharfe (D.644) on August 19.
The production of his two dramatic pieces turned Schubert's attention more firmly than ever in the direction of the stage; Of these works the two former are written on a scale which would make their performances exceedingly difficult (Fierabras, for instance, contains over 1000 pages of manuscript score), but Die Verschworenen is a bright attractive comedy, and Rosamunde contains some of the most charming music that Schubert ever composed. In 1822 he made the acquaintance both of Weber and of Beethoven, but little came of it in either case, though Beethoven cordially acknowledged his genius, the quote attributed to Beethoven being: "Truly, the spark of Divine genius resides in this Schubert!"
In 1997 musicologist Rita Steblin discovered Schubert's marriage petition in the archives of the Lichtental church.
Last years and masterworks
In 1823 appeared Schubert's first song cycle, Die schöne Müllerin, D. 911, (also written to texts of Müller) is widely considered one of the pinnacles of Schubert's work and of the German Lied in general.
In the spring of 1824 he wrote the magnificent Octet in F (D.803), "A Sketch for a Grand Symphony";
Despite his preoccupation with the stage and later with his official duties he found time during these years for a good deal of miscellaneous composition.
The mishaps of the recent years were compensated by the prosperity and happiness of 1825. in the summer there was a pleasant holiday in Upper Austria, where Schubert was welcomed with enthusiasm. This cycle contains his famous and beloved Ellens dritter Gesang, D.839, today more popularly though mistakenly referred to as "Schubert's Ave Maria", for while he had set it to Adam Storck's German translation of Scott's hymn from The Lady of the Lake that happens to open with the greeting Ave Maria and also has it for its refrain, subsequently the entire Scott/Storck text in Schubert's song came to be substituted with the complete Latin text of the traditional Ave Maria prayer; and it is in this adaptation that this song of Schubert's is commonly sung today.
From 1826 to 1828 Schubert resided continuously in Vienna, except for a brief visit to Graz in 1827. Later in the year came the string quartet in G major, the "Rondeau brilliant" for piano and violin (D.895, Op.70), and the Piano Sonata in G (D.894, Op.78) (first published under the title, Fantasia in G).
In 1827 Schubert wrote the song cycle Winterreise (D.911), a colossal peak of the art of art-song, the Fantasia for piano and violin in C (D.934), and the two piano trios (B flat, D.898; and E flat, D.929): in 1828 the Song of Miriam, the Mass in E-flat (D.950), the exceedingly beautiful Tantum Ergo (D.962) in the same key, the String Quintet in C (D.956), the second Benedictus to the Mass in C, the last three piano sonatas, and the collection of songs published posthumously under the fanciful name of Schwanengesang ("Swan-song", D.957), which whilst no true song cycle, retains a unity of style amongst the individual songs, touching unwonted depths of tragedy and the morbidly supernatural. 9 (D.944) is dated 1828, and many modern Schubert scholars (including Brian Newbould) believe that this symphony, written in 1825-6, was revised for performance in 1828 (a fairly unusual practice for Schubert, for whom publication let alone performance, was rarely contemplated for many of his larger-scale works during his lifetime). In the last weeks of his life he began to sketch three movements for a new Symphony in D (D.936A)
The works of his last two years reveal a composer increasingly meditating on the darker side of the human psyche and human relationships, and with a deeper sense of spiritual awareness and conception of the 'beyond', reaching extraordinary depths in several chillingly dark songs of this period, especially in the larger cycles, (the song Der Doppelgaenger reaching an extraordinary climax conveying madness at the realization of rejection and imminent death) and yet able to touch repose and communion with the infinite in the almost timeless ebb and flow of the String Quintet. Tragic as Schubert's early death was, (and Schubert expressed the wish, were he to survive his final illness, to further and develop his knowledge of harmony and counterpoint), Schubert still left a vast corpus of truly wonderful music, almost more than the world has time to know and hear. : Grillparzer wrote this inscription on Schubert's tomb:"The art of music here entombed a rich possession but far fairer hopes".
Death
In the midst of this creative activity, his health deteriorated. In 1888, both Schubert's and Beethoven's graves were moved to the Zentralfriedhof, where they can now be found next to those of Johann Strauss Junior and Johannes Brahms.
In 1872, a memorial to Franz Schubert was erected in Vienna's Stadtpark.
Posthumous history of Schubert's music
Some of his smaller pieces were printed shortly after his death, but the more valuable seem to have been regarded by the publishers as waste paper. 7, the revised Deutsch catalogue (the standard catalogue of Schubert's works, compiled by Otto Erich Deutsch) listing it as No.
50 of his songs were transcribed for piano and then popularised by Franz Liszt.
The most important step towards the recovery of the neglected works was the journey to Vienna which Sir George Grove (of "Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians" fame) and Sir Arthur Sullivan made in the autumn of 1867. The travellers rescued from oblivion seven symphonies, the Rosamunde incidental music, some of the Masses and operas, some of the chamber works, and a vast quantity of miscellaneous pieces and songs. This led to more widespread public interest in Schubert's work.
Another controversy, which originated with Grove and Sullivan and continued for many years, surrounded the "lost" symphony. Immediately before Schubert's death, his friend Eduard von Bauernfeld recorded the existence of an additional symphony, dated 1828 (although this does not necessarily indicate the year of composition) named the "Letzte" or "Last" symphony.
Franz Liszt declared Schubert to be "the most poetic musician who has ever lived". Schubert's compositional style progressed rapidly throughout his short life, and he left many stunning masterpieces when he died, at 31. It is hard to imagine what magnificent music might have come from Schubert had he lived a normal lifetime.
Schubert's Piano Trio in E Flat was used throughout the Stanley Kubrick film, Barry Lyndon.
Media
Mass in G, movement 1 (file info) — play in browser (beta) Mass in G, movement 2 (file info) — play in browser (beta) Mass in G, movement 3 (file info) — play in browser (beta) Mass in G, movement 4 (file info) — play in browser (beta) Mass in G, movement 5 (file info) — play in browser (beta) Mass in G, movement 6 (file info) — play in browser (beta) Impromptu in B-flat, movement 1 (file info) — play in browser (beta) Impromptu in B-flat, movement 2 (file info) — play in browser (beta) Impromptu in B-flat, movement 3 (file info) — play in browser (beta) Impromptu in B-flat, movement 4 (file info) — play in browser (beta) Impromptu in B-flat, movement 5 (file info) — play in browser (beta) Impromptu in B-flat, movement 6 (file info) — play in browser (beta) Impromptu in B-flat, movement 7 (file info) — play in browser (beta) Impromptu in A-flat, D. 2) (file info) — play in browser (beta) Problems playing the files? See media help.See also:
Lists of works by Franz Schubert By Deutsch number: D 1 to 504 - D 505 to 998 List of compositions by Franz Schubert — by musical genre Alphabetical list of Schubert's compositions (insofar as described in separate articles)
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