Music

Franz Schubert

1797–1828 · Austrian

Early Romantic

Schubert was a Viennese composer who died at just 31 yet left over 600 songs (Lieder), nine symphonies, piano sonatas and chamber music. He raised the art song to the level of great art and brought lyrical Romantic melody to Classical forms, though much of his music became famous only after his death.

How to spot them

▸Endlessly lyrical, song-like melody, with sudden shifts between major and minor that turn sunny music wistful
▸German Lieder for voice and piano, where the piano paints the scene – galloping hooves, a spinning wheel, a leaping trout
▸Quiz clues: Vienna, Schubertiads, Goethe and Wilhelm Müller settings, song cycles, 'Unfinished', D. numbers

Key works — listen

Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759, 'Unfinished' (1822)

Only two movements completed; first performed in 1865, decades after his death

Recording: Franz Schubert · EEF OAL-1, Wikimedia Commons

Erlkönig, D. 328 (1815)

Setting of Goethe's ballad; relentless piano octaves depict a father's gallop as the Erl-King claims his son

Recording: Concert Films Corporation/Paul Gordon · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Ellens dritter Gesang ('Ave Maria'), D. 839 (1825)

Song from Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake, now usually sung to the Latin Ave Maria

Recording: Composed by Franz Schubert · CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667, 'Trout' (1819)

Fourth movement varies his song 'Die Forelle'; scored with double bass instead of a second violin

Winterreise, D. 911 (1827)

Bleak cycle of 24 songs to poems by Wilhelm Müller

String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D. 810, 'Death and the Maiden' (1824)

Slow movement varies his song 'Der Tod und das Mädchen'

Quick-fire facts

•Schubert was born in Vienna in 1797 and died there in 1828, aged 31; he is now buried near Beethoven in the Zentralfriedhof.
•D. numbers come from the catalogue by Otto Erich Deutsch, published in 1951.
•He wrote Erlkönig in 1815 aged 18; Gretchen am Spinnrade, D. 118 (1814), is often called the first great German Lied.
•His other Müller song cycle is Die schöne Müllerin, D. 795 (1823).
•Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, is nicknamed 'The Great'; Schumann found the manuscript and Mendelssohn premiered it in 1839.
•Informal gatherings of friends to hear his music were called Schubertiads.
•Schwanengesang, D. 957, is a posthumously published collection of his last songs.

Drill it — 10 cards

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Sources

Encyclopaedia Britannica — Franz Schubert
Richard Taruskin — The Oxford History of Western Music