Franz Peter Schubert (; January 31, 1797 – November 19, 1828) was an
Austrian
composer.
Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies (including the famous "Unfinished Symphony"), liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music. Appreciation of his music during his lifetime was limited, but interest in Schubert's work increased dramatically in the decades following his death at the age of 31. Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Felix Mendelssohn, among others, discovered and championed his works in the 19th Century. Today, Schubert is admired as one of the leading exponents of the early Romantic era in music and he remains one of the most frequently performed composers.
, D. 960]] (composed in 1828)
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Biography
Early life and education
Schubert was born in
Himmelpfortgrund (now a part of
Alsergrund),
Vienna on January 31, 1797. His father, Franz Theodor Schubert, the son of a
Moravian
peasant, was a
parish schoolmaster; his mother, Elisabeth Vietz, was the daughter of a
Silesian master
locksmith, and had also been a housemaid for a Viennese family prior to her marriage. Of Franz Theodor's fourteen children (one illegitimate child was born in 1783), and his brother Ignaz gave him piano lessons. In October 1808, he became a pupil at the Stadtkonvikt (Imperial seminary) through a choir scholarship. At the Stadtkonvikt, Schubert was introduced to the
overtures and symphonies of
Mozart. One important musical influence came from the songs of
Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg, who was an important
Lied composer of the time, which, his friend Joseph von Spaun reported, he "wanted to modernize".
In 1814, Schubert met a young soprano named Therese Grob, the daughter of a local silk manufacturer. Several of his songs (Salve Regina and Tantum Ergo) were composed for her voice, and she also performed in the premiere of his first Mass (D. 105) in September Schubert intended to marry Grob, but was hindered by the harsh marriage consent law of 1815, However, he began to gain more notice in the press, and the first public performance of a secular work, an overture performed in February 1818, received praise from the press in Vienna and abroad. Publishers, however, remained distant, with Anton Diabelli hesitantly agreeing to print some of his works on commission.
—A pupil of Galt's; in desperate case
Young Schubert surrenders himself to another,
And fain would avoid such affectionate pother
In 1872, a memorial to Franz Schubert was erected in Vienna's Stadtpark. Even some of Schubert's friends were unaware of the full scope of what he wrote, and for many years he was primarily recognized as the "prince of song", although there was recognition of some of his larger-scale efforts.
In 1897, the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel released a critical edition of Schubert's works, under the general editing of Johannes Brahms, enabling a wider dissemination of his music. In the 20th century, composers such as Benjamin Britten, Richard Strauss, and George Crumb either championed or paid homage to Schubert in their work. Britten, an accomplished pianist, accompanied many of Schubert's Lieder and performed many piano solo and duet works. believes that the "Last" symphony refers to a sketch in D major (D. 936A), identified by Ernst Hilmar in 1977, and which was realised by Newbould as the Tenth Symphony. The fragment was bound with other symphony fragments (D. 615 and D. 708a) that Schubert had apparently intended to combine.
Commemorations
In 1897, the 100th anniversary of Schubert's birth was marked in the musical world by festivals and performances dedicated to his music. In Vienna, there were ten days of concerts, and the Emperor
Franz Joseph gave a speech recognizing Schubert as the creator of the art song, and one of Austria's favorite sons. The winning entry was
Kurt Atterberg's sixth symphony.
In 1977, the German electronic band Kraftwerk recorded a tribute song called "Franz Schubert", which can be found on the album Trans-Europe Express.
Catalogue
Since relatively few of his works were published in Schubert's lifetime, only a small number of them have
opus numbers assigned, and, even in those cases, the sequence of the numbers does not give a good indication of the order of composition. In 1951, musicologist
Otto Erich Deutsch published a "thematic catalogue" of Schubert's works that lists his compositions numerically by their composition date.
Catalogue by Deutsch number: D 1 to 504 — D 505 to 998
List of compositions by Franz Schubert — by musical genre
Wikipedia articles about Schubert's compositions
Notes
References
The first significant biography of Schubert. This edition is available at
German Google Books. English translations and abridgements of this biography from the 1860s are available at
Google Books. The second volume is notable in that it contains Sir George Grove's description of the trip to Vienna in which he recovered a number of Schubert's works.
(roughly, volume 1 of Kreissle)
(roughly, volume 2 of Kreissle)
Nineteenth and early 20th-century scholarship
Modern scholarship
Symphony numbers
The following citations illustrate the confusion around the numbering of Schubert's late symphonies. The B minor
Unfinished Symphony is variously published as Number 7 and Number 8, in both German and English. All of these editions appeared to be in print (or at least somewhat readily available) in 2008.
German-language publication of the
Unfinished Symphony score as Number 7.
English-language publication of the
Unfinished Symphony score as Number 7.
English-language publication of the
Unfinished Symphony score as Number 8.
Further reading
Otto Erich Deutsch, working in the first half of the 20th century, was probably the preeminent scholar of Schubert's life and music. In addition to the catalog of Schubert's works, he collected and organized a great deal of material about Schubert, some of which is still in print.
Elizabeth Norman McKay and Brian Newbould have done a great deal of research on the life and music of Schubert in recent years, including scholarly journal articles and books. Newbould made a completion of Schubert's fragmentary 10th symphony.
Additional readings (sources from German Wikipedia article):
Walther Dürr, Andreas Krause (Hrsg.): Schubert-Handbuch. Metzler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-01418-5
Ernst Hilmar: Verzeichnis der Schubert-Handschriften in der Musiksammlung der Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek. Kassel u. a. 1978 (Catalogus Musicus 8).
Ernst Hilmar, Margret Jestremski (Hrsg.): Schubert-Enzyklopädie. 2 Bände. Hans Schneider, Tutzing 2004, ISBN 3-7952-1155-7
H.-J. Hinrichsen: Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts. Tutzing 1994
Elizabeth Norman McKay: Franz Schubert's Music for the Theatre. Foreword by Claudio Abbado. (Veröffentlichungen des IFSI, 5), Tutzing 1991
Christian Pollack (ed.): Franz Schubert: Bühnenwerke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Texte. Tutzing 1988
Ernst Hilmar, Otto Brusatti (Hrsg., mit einer Einleitung von Walter Obermaier): Franz Schubert. Ausstellung der Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek zum 150. Todestag des Komponisten. Katalog. Wien 1978.
Ernst Hilmar: Schubert. Graz 1989
Till Gerrit Waidelich (ed., together with R. Hilmar-Voit, A. Mayer): Franz Schubert. Dokumente 1817–1830. Erster Band: Texte. Programme, Rezensionen, Anzeigen, Nekrologe, Musikbeilagen und andere gedruckte Quellen (Veröffentlichungen des IFSI, 10/1), Tutzing 1993
Ernst Hilmar (Hrsg.): Franz Schubert. Dokumente 1801–1830. Erster Band. Addenda und Kommentar. (Veröffentlichungen des IFSI, 10/2), Tutzing 2003
Ernst Hilmar (ed.): Schubert durch die Brille. Mitteilungen des Internationalen Franz Schubert Instituts. Wien/Tutzing 1988–2003
Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen, Till Gerrit Waidelich (ed.):
Schubert:Perspektiven Stuttgart 2001ff. (
content since 2001)
External links
The Lied and Arts Song Texts Page
Catalogue of Works by Franz Schubert
Digital reproductions of score manuscripts and letters by Franz Schubert
Notes on Franz Schubert by pianist Bart Berman
The Schubert Institute (UK), detailed time-line, biography, work list and (flawed) family tree
The Schubert Society of the USA
The Franz Schubert Society of Victoria
Franz-Schubert-Institut in Baden bei Wien
Recordings and MIDI files
www.schubertsongs.com – free Recordings of all works by Schubert for voice and piano (mp3)
Schubert cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
Sheet music
www.kreusch-sheet-music.net Schubert's Piano Works
http://www.schubertline.co.uk – about 250 of Schubert's Songs (Schubertline edition)
Schubert's Sheet Music by Mutopia Project
Lieder sheet music
Category:1797 births
Category:1828 deaths
Category:People from Alsergrund
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Category:19th-century Austrian people
Category:19th-century composers
Category:Austrian composers
Category:Austrian expatriates in Hungary
Category:Austrian Roman Catholics
Category:Austrian people of Moravian German descent
Category:Austrian people of Silesian German descent
Category:Burials at the Zentralfriedhof
Category:Child classical musicians
Category:Classical era composers
Category:House of Esterházy
Category:Opera composers
Category:Romantic composers
Category:Viennese composers
