Franz Schubert (b. Vienna 1797 - d. Vienna 1828) Formal training began with Antonio Salieri, who encouraged him to use Italian opera as models. In 1808, he began singing with the Hofkapelle receiving in exchange free tuition and board at the Stadtkonvikt. This was the start of his love affair with the human voice and its capacity to present poetry in increasingly emotional and expressive ways. Ultimately, he composed over 600 songs and set texts by 90 poets, only 187 of which were published during the composer’s lifetime. His first surviving works are from this period of his life and include the Fantasie in G, duo D. 1 and Hagarsklage, D.5.
In 1813, he began teaching at his father’s school in Säulengasse. In addition to teaching full time, Schubert composed an average of 65 bars of music a day, completing nearly 150 songs in 1815. In fall of 1816, he moved into the home of Franz von Schober in Vienna. Despite his considerable output, Schubert was yet to see his works performed publicly in Vienna, or published.
Schubert’s interest in opera persisted throughout his life though never to any major critical acclaim. Des Teufels Lustschloss, Die Zwillingsbrüder, Alfonso und Estrella, are just a few of his operas, all of which, with the exception of Die Zwillingsbrüder, premiered in 1820, were not premiered until after the composers death.
He spent the summer of 1818 in Zseliz, Hungary teaching Count Esterhazy’s daughters. It is his work as piano teacher that, years later, inspired him to compose piano duos, presumably for the Esterhazy girls, including the Sonata in C, D.812, Grand Marches, D.819, and the Fantasy in F-minor, D. 940. Schubert wrote of this period, "I am alone with my beloved and have to hide her in my room, in my pianoforte, and in my breast." Later, it is Moritz von Schwind (the painter and philosopher) whom Schubert would name his beloved--contributing to assumptions by some that if not homosexual, Schubert at least exhibited some of these tendencies.By the end of 1821 Schubert’s music was widely performed and published and he found himself a central figure in Vienna. Sometime in late 1822 - early 1823, Schubert contracted syphilis, a condition which shaped the remaining years of his short life. This presumable death sentence did not diminish Schubert’s output. His Piano Sonatas composed after 1823 are mammoth works of emotional and harmonic depth, cathartic in character.
In 1828, at a concert memorializing the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death, Schubert composed "Auf dem Strom," D.943, a song for tenor, horn and piano whose horn call was to recall the Funeral March of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. The Mass in E-flat, D.950, and the song cycle, Schwanengesang, D.957, followed. These emotional settings typify the maturity with which Schubert was now writing.
On the afternoon of November 19, 1828, Schubert died. He is interred near Beethoven at Wahring cemetery. The following engraving accompanies his bust: “The art of music has entombed here a rich treasure but even fairer hopes.”
Posted 18 October 2007