Franz Peter

Schubert
Claire Gui Band V
 Personal
Information
31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828 （ d i e d before his 32nd birthday ）

over six hundred secular vocal works , seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music and a large body of chamber and piano music.

His works were limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna

when he was alive, but interest in his work increased significantly in the
decades following his death.

1.52 m height was nicknamed "Schwammerl" (Austrian dialect for mushroom)

S o m e other composers discovered and championed his works after his death

one of the greatest composers of the late Classical and early Romantic eras

one of the most frequently performed composers of the early nineteenth

century
 Youth &
Fami l
y
was born in Himmelpfortgrund , Vienna, Archduchy of Austria

His father, Franz Theodor Schubert, the son of a Moravian peasant, was a
parish schoolmaster

His mother, Elisabeth was the daughter of a master locksmith

His parents gave birth to fourteen children, nine died in infancy.

Their father was a well-known teacher, and his school

in Lichtental had numerous students in
attendance. Though he was not recognized or even
formally trained as a musician, he passed on certain
musical basics to his gifted son.
 Music
Enlightenment Franz began to receive regular instruction
1 from his father at the age of 6

His father taught him basic violin technique,

2 his brother Ignaz taught him piano.

played viola in the family string quartet with

brothers and and his father.
3
wrote his earliest string quartets

first came to the attention of Antonio Salieri,

4
then Vienna's leading musical authority
from his
family
5 his vocal talent was recognized in 1804
 Early Life &
Education
In October 1808, became a pupil at the Stadtkonvikt

He was introduced to the overtures and symphonies of Mozart and Haydn there.

His exposure to these and lesser works, combined with occasional visits to the
opera, laid the foundation for a broader musical education.

He met Joseph von Spaun in Stadtkonvikt. Schubert's friendship with Spaun

began at the Stadtkonvikt and lasted throughout his short life.

In the meantime, his genius began to show in his compositions. Schubert was
occasionally permitted to lead the Stadtkonvikt's orchestra, and Salieri decided to
start training him privately in music theory and even in composition.

It was the first orchestra he wrote for, and he devoted much of the rest of his
time at the Stadtkonvikt to composing chamber music, piano pieces and liturgical
choral works
 Being a Teacher at his father's
school
At age 16, he left the Stadtkonvikt and returned home for teacher training.

In 1814, he entered his father's school as teacher of the youngest pupils.

Schubert met a young soprano named Therese Grob. Schubert wanted to marry
her, but was hindered by the harsh marriage-consent law of 1815 requiring an
aspiring bridegroom to show he had the means to support a family. In November
1816, after failing to gain a musical post in Laibach, Schubert sent Grob's brother
Heinrich a collection of songs retained by the family into the twentieth century.

One of Schubert's most prolific years was 1815.

He composed over 20,000 bars of music, more than half of which was for
orchestra, including nine church works, a symphony, and about 140 Lieder.
 Supported by
Friends
Schober invited Schubert to room with him at his mother's house. The
proposal was particularly opportune, and he had also decided not to resume
teaching duties at his father's school.

By the end of the year, he became a guest in Schober's lodgings. For a time, he
attempted to increase the household resources by giving music lessons, but they
were soon abandoned, and he devoted himself to composition.
During this year, he focused on orchestral and choral works,
although he also continued to write Lieder. Much of this
work was unpublished, but manuscripts and copies circulated
among friends and admirers.

The increasing circle of friends and musicians, became

responsible for promoting, collecting, and, after his death,
preserving his work.
 Musical
maturity
The compositions of 1819 and 1820 show a marked advance in development and
maturity of style.

In 1822, he made the acquaintance with both Weber and Beethoven, but little
came of it in either case.

Beethoven is said to have acknowledged the younger man's gifts on a few

occasions, but some of this is likely legend and in any case he could not have
known the real scope of Schubert's music, especially not the instrumental works,
as so little of it was printed or performed in the composer's lifetime.
 Later
In 1826,Years applied for the job of deputy musical director at the
Schubert
Stadtkonvikt. While certainly a top candidate, he failed to land the job. Still, his
fortunes during this period began to improve. His impressive musical output
continued, and his popularity in Vienna increased. He was even in negotiations
with four different publishers.
In 1828, the last year of his life, Schubert, though obviously ill, stayed committed
to his craft.
The cause of his death was officially diagnosed as typhoid fever, though other
theories have been proposed, including the tertiary stage of syphilisSome of his
symptoms matched those of mercury poisoning.
Oddly enough, Schubert's first and final public concert took place on March 26,
1828, and it proved successful enough that it allowed the great composer to
finally buy himself a piano.
Exhausted, and with his health continuing to deteriorate, Schubert moved in with
his brother, Ferdinand. He died on November 19, 1828, in Vienna, Austria.
 Mu
sic
over 1,500 works in his short career.
songs for solo voice and piano (over 600).
a considerable number of secular works for two or
more voices, namely part songs, choruses and
cantatas.
eight orchestral overtures
seven complete symphonies, in addition to
fragments
of six others.
three concertante works for violin and orchestra.
a relatively large set of works for piano duet.
over fifty chamber works, including some
fragmentary works.
only eleven of his twenty-stage works.
 6 of the best Schubert's
Dersongs
Erlkönig, D328 (1815)
Nacht und Träume, D827
(1825)
Ich wollt, ich wär ein Fisch,
D558 (1817)
Gute Nacht, D911 (1828)
Licht und Liebe, D352
(1816)
Gretchen am Spinnrade,
D118 (1814)
 St
yle
Schubert's music doesn't seem to be particularly influenced by Beethoven.
Instead his style seems closer to the works of Haydn and Mozart but he also
anticipates later classical composers such as Brahms.
In July 1947 the 20th-century composer Ernst Krenek discussed Schubert's
style, abashedly admitting that he had at first "shared the wide-spread
opinion that Schubert was a lucky inventor of pleasing tunes ... lacking the
dramatic power and searching intelligence which distinguished such 'real'
masters as J.S. Bach or Beethoven".
"ample evidence that Schubert was much more than an easy-going tune-
smith who did not know, and did not care, about the craft of composition."
Each sonata then in print was "a great wealth of technical finesse" and
revealed Schubert as "far from satisfied with pouring his charming ideas into
conventional molds; on the contrary he was a thinking artist with a keen
appetite for experimentation."
 Imp
act
His talent lay in is ability to adapt to almost any kind of musical form. His vocal
contributions, more than 500 in all, were written for male and female voices, as
well as mixed voices.

Schubert was an unrivaled master of lyrical beauty.

Schubert produced masterful works with rich harmonies and legendary melodies
for a variety of genres, and his influence proved considerable with later
composers like Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Hugo Wolf.

In 1888, his grave, along with Beethoven's, was relocated to Zentralfriedhof, the
Viennese cemetery that is among the largest in the world.
 Recognitio
n
“You have to love the guy, who died at 31, ill,
impoverished and neglected except by a circle of friends
who were in awe of his genius. For his hundreds of
songs alone – including the haunting cycle Winterreise,
which will never release its tenacious hold on singers
and audiences – Schubert is central to our concert life....
Schubert's first few symphonies may be works in
progress. But the Unfinished and especially the Great C
major Symphony are astonishing. The latter one paves
the way for Bruckner and prefigures Mahler.”

---The New York Times music critic, Anthony

Tommasini
Portrayal in film

Schubert's Dream of
Spring (1931),
Gently My Songs
Entreat (1933),
Serenade (1940),
The Great
Awakening (1941),
It's Only Love
(1947),
Franz Schubert (1953),
Das
Dreimäderlhaus
(1958),
Notturno (1986).