Musicians - Franz Schubert

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	Musicians - Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert (January 31, 1797 – November 19, 1828), was an Austrian composer, considered 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 wrote some six hundred romantic songs (lieder) as well as many symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, some operas and many other works. With a natural flair for melodies and lyricism, Schubert is counted among the most gifted composers of the 19th century.

Public appreciation of his work during his lifetime for a long time was thought to be limited, but when he died at the age of 31 over 100 of his compositions had already appeared in print. He was never able to secure adequate permanent employment and for most of his life was supported by friends or employed by his father.

Early life and education

Schubert was born in the Himmelpfortgrund, a small suburb of Vienna. His father, Franz, son of a Moravian peasant, was a parish schoolmaster; his mother, Elizabeth Vietz, had before her marriage been a cook in a Viennese family. Of their fifteen children (one illegitimate child was already born in 1783) ten died in infancy; the others were Ignaz (b. 1785), Ferdinand (b. 1794), Karl (b. 1796), Franz, and a daughter Theresia (b. 1801). The father, a man of worth and integrity, possessed some reputation as a teacher, and his school, on the Himmelpfortgrund, was well attended. He was also a fair amateur musician, and transmitted his own measure of skill to his two elder sons, Ignaz and Ferdinand.

At the age of five Schubert began to receive regular instruction from his father. At six he entered the Himmelpfortgrund school where he spent some of the happiest years of his life. His musical education began about the same time. His father taught him the rudiments of the violin, his brother Ignaz the rudiments of the pianoforte. At seven, having outstripped these simple teachers, he was placed under the charge of Michael Holzer, the Kapellmeister of the Lichtenthal Church. Holzer's lessons seem to have consisted mainly in expressions of admiration, and the boy gained more from a friendly joiner's apprentice, who used to take him to a neighboring pianoforte warehouse and give him the opportunity of practicing on a better instrument than the poor home could afford. The unsatisfactory character of his early training was the more serious as, at that time, a composer had little chance of success unless he could appeal to the public as a performer, and for this the meagre education was never sufficient.

In October 1808 he was received as a scholar at the Convict, which, under Antonio Salieri's direction, had become the chief music school of Vienna, and which had the special office of training the choristers for the Court Chapel. Here he remained until nearly seventeen, profiting little by the direct instruction but much by the practices of the school orchestra and by association with congenial comrades. Many of the most devoted friends of his life were among his schoolfellows: Spaun and Stadler and Holzapfel, and a score of others who helped him out of their slender pocket-money, bought him music-paper which he could not buy for himself, and gave him loyal support and encouragement. It was at the Convict, too, that he first made acquaintance with the overtures and symphonies of Mozart and between them and lighter pieces, and occasional visits to the opera, he began to lay for himself some foundation of musical knowledge.

Meanwhile his genius was already showing itself in composition. A fantasia for piano duet (D.1, using the catalogue numbers by Otto Erich Deutsch), thirty-two close-written pages, is dated April 8-May 1, 1810: then followed, in 1811, 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 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. It was the first germ of that amateur orchestra for which, in later years, many of his compositions were written. 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).

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