Franz Schubert [1797–1828] lived a short but amazingly prolific life, leaving behind a legacy of seven complete symphonies (plus one that remained unfinished upon his death), some 30 chamber music pieces, and more than 600 songs. He was born in a suburb of Vienna to middle-class parents—his father was a teacher and his mother had been a housekeeper prior to marriage—and was one of five children to survive infancy (nine others died). As with many composers of his era, Schubert showed an early affinity for music and was taking formal lessons as early as age six. A year later his vocal promise attracted the notice of composer Antonio Salieri, who was the most prominent musical figure in all of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until supplanted by a young W.A. Mozart. Although Schubert trained as a teacher to follow in his father’s footsteps, his remarkable facility to write vocal music set him on the path to live out his life as an impoverished composer rather than a more financially secure educator.
Schubert made friends with a cadre of young intellectuals who frequented Vienna’s coffeehouses, the site in those days of deep thought but also revolutionary concepts. Among his compatriots were several poets, whose written material provided significant fodder for the vast numbers of lieder (art songs) he wrote. Johann Vogl, a prominent Viennese singer, took the younger Schubert under his wing and subsequently enjoyed the fruits of much of the composer’s resulting song writing. Vogl’s influence is the primary reason that a number of Schubert’s song cycles were written for the baritone voice.
In addition to lieder, Schubert tried his hand at composing operas. However, the public’s fascination with the Italianate style as embodied by Rossini—in direct contrast to Schubert’s methodology, which was decidedly Germanic in tone and storyline—offered the composer no success whatsoever. Of the eight complete operas Schubert wrote—half a dozen other works for the stage are more accurately defined as singspiels in the Mozartean sense—only his three-act heroic opera Fierrabras is performed with any sort of frequency today. Interestingly, it did not receive its official premiere until 1897, nearly 70 years after the composer’s death. Schubert died after several years of deteriorating health. Although the official diagnosis was typhoid fever, there is a strong indication his demise was due instead to mercury poisoning, which was a common “cure” in those days to combat the effects of syphilis.
Much of Schubert’s music remains a strong part of the classical lexicon. His songs are especially popular with vocal students and professional singers alike. You can find MP3 examples of Schubert lieder as well as sheet music by this composer and numerous others in the classical realm at mFiles.
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