Austrian composer, who left a colossal lifework of nearly 1,000 compositions, more remarkable considering that he died at age 31. His works included “Death and the Maiden,” The Erkling” and “Do You Know the Land.” He also composed chamber music and many symphonies.
Schubert was the 12th child of an elementary school teacher, Franz Schubert (1763-1839) and his wife Maria (1756-1812). The family had moved to Vienna from what is now the Czech Republic. Only five of the family of 14 children lived to see their first birthday, among them young Franz. The Schubert family liked music, and the father, an amateur cellist, soon formed a string quartet, with eldest sons playing the violin and Franz the viola. The choir master of the parish church took over Franz’ musical development, and he proved to be a talented student. He wrote his first composition when he was eight years old.
Within ten years, Schubert was choirboy and violinist during High Masses at the parish church. On 5/28/1808, two places opened in the Imperial chapel choristers. Among those examining applicant qualifications was Antonio Salieri, a formidable figure in Vienna music. Schubert was selected, and by October 1808, he was a choirboy in the Viennese court music orchestra, which gave him a place at the Konvikt, a former Jesuit school, and one of the best general education institutions in Vienna.
In 1811 and 1812, Schubert produced a rich harvest of music, ranging from sonatas for piano, violin and cello, and a quartet-overture and quintet-overture. He also composed two chamber works for wind instruments, and wrote 30 minuets for strings.
On 5/28/1812, his mother died from typhus, which would later claim Franz. Because of his academic problems, he had been forbidden to return home, but his father’s heart softened with the death of his wife. On 4/25/1813, his father re-married.
Schubert’s voice was changing in 1812, which meant that his days at the Konvikt and the choir were numbered. His last work written there is dated 10/28/1813. By the time he had to leave the institution, he had already composed at least 30 major pieces, including a symphony, and numerous fantasias and dances for the piano. He went on to become Antonio Salieri’s student. Primarily to avoid Army service, he began a ten-month training to be a school assistant in November 1813, graduating from the teacher’s preparatory with mediocre results. He worked for two years at the school where his father taught, during which time he composed his first complete Mass and his first opera.
During 1815, he produced 144 of the 600 songs he would write during his lifetime. Writing as many as eight songs in one day (on 10/15/1815 for example) was not unusual for him.
On 6/17/1816, Schubert recorded in his diary that “on this day I composed for the first time for money.” In 1817, the danger of army induction passed, he gave up school teaching. The first public performance in Vienna of his works other than church music occurred in 1818.
Since he did not have a fixed dwelling place, he lived for long and short periods of time with a wide range of friends. He composed anywhere and everywhere.
Schubert’s greatest work is considered to be his “Unfinished Symphony,” his sixth symphony, in B minor. The date on the symphony is 10/30/1822. Recognized as a masterwork, it was not heard until 17 years after Schubert’s death, when it was produced in Vienna on 12/17/1865.
In 1826, he composed some of his most significant works, including the Trio in B-Flat Major, the Rondo Brillant, the G Major Piano Sonata, and several songs.
Between 1823 and 1828, Schubert moved around frequently. It was in 1823 that he acquired a number of illnesses. At the end of February 1823, Schubert mentioned that he had a disease (syphilis, which he had contacted when he was 25) in a letter to a friend, for which he had been hospitalized. The treatment, likely to have been mercury, left him bald for over a year, and until his death he suffered headaches and vertigo.
On 9/01/1828, Schubert went to live with his brother. On 10/31/1828, he had supper with some friends, ordered fish, and declared after tasting it that he had been poisoned. He had probably contracted a typhoid infection. On 11/11/1828, he was confined to bed, became wildly delirious and had to be held in bed by force. He died at 3:00 p.m. of “nerve fever” on 11/19/1828 in Vienna.
(In a 1958 study, “nerve fever” was disputed as the cause of Schubert’s death, since it was not consistent with the symptoms. Those clinical symptoms — headache, giddiness, vomiting, terminal signs of confusion, lack of appetite–seemed to be more indicative of an occlusion of a cerebral artery, which may have been syphilitic in origin. )
In 1888, the bodies of Schubert and his inspiration and friend, Beethoven, were transported in ceremony to be laid to rest in “graves of glory” in the Central Cemetery.
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Link to Wikipedia biography