Franz schubert biography symphony of the seas

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As products of a culturally complex moment, they perhaps cannot be easily slotted within Schubert’s other contributions to music. He continued to focus on instrumental music, while not ignoring Lieder, religious music, and even further dramatic projects. Because of his health crisis in his mid-20s, Schubert lived his remaining years as a marked man, well aware that he would probably die young, perhaps painfully.

The discovery of his wider output began in 1839, when Robert Schumann came across the manuscript of the ‘Great’ C major Symphony, then unperformed. But they still breathe the spirit of the late 18th century. During the 20 months of his life remaining after Beethoven’s death, Schubert wrote an astonishing quantity of music of staggering quality.

What must have Schubert made of the poet’s challenging question: “He was an artist—and who shall arise to stand beside him?” But not long after, Grillparzer was enlisted to write the epitaph for Schubert’s grave: THE ART OF MUSIC HERE ENTOMBED A RICH POSSESSION, BUT EVEN FAR FAIRER HOPES. By the time of his death he was negotiating with several publishers eager to acquire his works.

His elder brother Ignaz taught him piano, but Schubert quickly surpassed him. But from around 1820 his reputation as a composer of songs and piano pieces grew rapidly. Yet there were periods of remission. The springing rhythms and rippling water music of the earlier cycle have given way to the sparest harmonies and images of cold and stasis. While his later symphonies—in particular the famous “Great” Symphony—show an affinity with burgeoning Romantic expressions of the genre, the earlier ones such as Symphony No.

1 owe more to Classicists Mozart and Haydn, perhaps in a self-conscious attempt to avoid comparison with or overt influence from the more contemporary Beethoven. These early works are charming and show signs of individuality. He sang in the choir of St Stephen’s Cathedral, where he was a star treble. An image of a happy-go-lucky bohemian lingered well into the twentieth century.

Schubert was acutely conscious of his unusual gifts as a child. He also began to enjoy some success in prominent public performances presented by the leading instrumentalists of the day—mostly Beethoven’s musicians. By now he had become seriously ill with syphilis. His early symphonies, masses and string quartets were composed as a teen, at college and, later, as a reluctant teacher in his father’s school.

Then, in 1817, he touched a new note of terrible grandeur, turning to the sombre neo-Classical verse of Schiller and Mayrhofer in ‘Freiwilliges Versinken’ and ‘Gruppe aus dem Tartarus’, an astonishing vision of souls writhing in Hades. This captures a sentiment many have felt at the time and ever since: what more might Schubert have accomplished had he lived longer?