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Franz Peter Schubert (January 31, 1797 –
November 19, 1828), was an Austrian composer. He
List of compositions by Schubert|wrote some six
hundred romantic songs as well as many symphonies,
sonata (music)|sonatas, some operas and many other
works. 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.
Today, with his imaginative, lyrical and melodical
style, he is counted among the most gifted
composers of the 19th century.  

==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 practising 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 Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart|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).

== Teacher at his father's school ==
At the end of 1813 he left the Convict, and, to
avoid military service, entered his father's
school as teacher of the lowest class.  His father
had remarried in the meantime, to Anna
Kleyenboeck, the daughter of a silk dealer from
the suburb Gumpendorf.  For over two years the
young man endured the drudgery of the work, which,
we are told, he performed with very indifferent
success.  There were, however, other interests to
compensate.  He received private lessons in
composition from Salieri, who did more for
Schubert´s training than any of his other
teachers. As Salieri was one of the first
composers to add the specific sonority of the
Biedermeier period to Viennese church music, it is
not surprising that Schubert´s early sacred works
are directly linked to his teacher´s church music
of these days. Also, Salieri´s great amount of
songs in several languages echo in Schubert´s
early song output.

His first completed opera-- Des Teufels
Lustschloss (D.84) -- and his first Mass -- in F
major (D.105) -- were both written in 1814, and to
the same year belong three string quartets, many
smaller instrumental pieces, the first movement of
the Symphony no.2 in B-flat major (D.125) and
seventeen songs, which include such masterpieces
as Der Taucher (D.77/111) and Gretchen am
Spinnrade (D.118, published as Op.2).  But even
this activity was far outpaced by that of the year
1815.  In this year, despite his schoolwork, his
lessons with Salieri and the many distractions of
Viennese life, he produced an amount of music the
record of which is almost incredible.  Schubert's
Symphony No. 2 (Schubert)|second symphony in
B-flat (D.125) was finished, and a third, in D
major (D.200), added soon afterwards.  The
composer also completed two Masses, in G (D.167)
and B-flat (D.324), the former written within six
days, a new Dona Nobis for the Mass in F, a Stabat
Mater and a Salve Regina (D.223).

Opera was represented by no less than five works,
of which three were completed-- Der vierjährige
Posten (D.190), Fernando (D.220) and Claudine von
Villabella (D.239)-- and two, Adrast (D.137) and
Die Freunde von Salamanka (D.326), apparently left
unfinished.  Besides these the list includes a
string quartet in G minor, four sonatas and
several smaller compositions for piano, and, by
way of climax, 146 songs, some of which are of
considerable length, and of which eight are dated
Oct. 15, and seven Oct. 19.

In December 1814 Schubert made acquaintance with
the poet Johann Mayrhofer: an acquaintance which,
according to his usual habit, soon ripened into a
warm and intimate friendship.  They were
singularly unlike in temperament: Schubert frank,
open and sunny, with brief fits of depression, and
sudden outbursts of boisterous high spirits;
Mayrhofer grim and saturnine, a silent man who
regarded life chiefly as a test of endurance.  The
friendship, as will be seen later, was of service
to Schubert in more than one way.

==Supported by friends==
As 1815 was the most-prolific period of Schubert's
life, so 1816 saw the first real change in his
fortunes.  Somewhere about the turn of the year
Spaun surprised him in the composition of Der
Erlkönig | Erlkönig (D.328, published as Op.1)
-- Goethe's poem propped among a heap of exercise
books, and the boy at white-heat of inspiration
"hurling" the notes on the music-paper.  A few
weeks later Franz von Schober, a student of good
family and some means, who had heard some of
Schubert's songs at Spaun's house, came to pay a
visit to the composer and proposed to carry him
off from school-life and give him freedom to
practice his art in peace.  The proposal was
particularly opportune, for Schubert had just made
an unsuccessful application for the post of
Kapellmeister at Laibach (now Ljubljana), and was
feeling more acutely than ever the slavery of the
classroom.  His father's consent was readily
given, and before the end of the spring he was
installed as a guest in Schober's lodgings.  For a
time he attempted to increase the household
resources by giving music lessons, but they were
soon abandoned, and he devoted himself to
composition.  "I write all day," he said later to
an inquiring visitor, "and when I have finished
one piece I begin another."

The works of 1816 include three ceremonial
cantatas, one written for Salieri's Jubilee on
June 16 (D.407/441); the "Prometheus" cantata
(D.451) eight days later, for students of
professor Heinrich Joseph Watteroth who paid the
composer an honorarium ("the first time," said the
journal, "that I have composed for money"), and
one, on a foolish philanthropic libretto, for Herr
Joseph Spendou "Founder and Principal of the
Schoolmasters' Widows' Fund" (D.472).  Of more
importance are two new symphonies, Symphony No. 4
(Schubert)|No. 4 in C minor (D.417), called the
"Tragic symphony", with a striking andante,
Symphony No. 5 (Schubert)|No. 5 in B-flat (D.485),
as bright and fresh as a symphony of Mozart: some
numbers of church music, fuller and more mature
than any of their predecessors, and over a hundred
songs, among which are some of his finest settings
of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe and Friedrich
Schiller|Schiller.  There is also an opera, "Die
Bürgschaft" (D.435), spoiled by an illiterate
libretto, but of interest as showing how
continually his mind was turned towards the
theatre.

All this time his circle of friends was steadily
widening.  Mayrhofer introduced him to Johann
Michael Vogl, a famous baritone, who did him good
service by performing his songs in the salons of
Vienna; Anselm Hüttenbrenner and his brother
Joseph ranged themselves among his most devoted
admirers; Joseph von Gahy, an excellent pianist,
played his sonatas and fantasias; the
Sonnleithners, a burgher family whose eldest son
had been at the Convict, gave him free access to
their home, and organized in his honor musical
parties which soon assumed the name of
Schubertiaden.  The material needs of life were
supplied without much difficulty.  No doubt
Schubert was entirely penniless, for he had given
up teaching, he could earn nothing by public
performance, and, as yet, no publisher would take
his music at a gift; but his friends came to his
aid with true Bohemian generosity-- one found him
lodging, another found him appliances, they took
their meals together and the man who had any money
paid the score.  Schubert was always the leader of
the party, and was known by half a dozen
affectionate nicknames, of which the most
characteristic is kann er 'was? ("Is he able?"),
his usual question when a new acquaintance was
proposed.

1818, though, like its predecessor, comparatively
unfertile in composition, was in two respects a
memorable year.  It saw the second public
performance of a work of Schubert's (the first one
had been the performance of the Mass in F-major in
September 1814 in Lichtental)-- an overture in the
Italian style written as an avowed burlesque of
Gioacchino Rossini|Rossini, and played in all
seriousness at a Jail concert on March 1.  It also
saw the beginning of his only official
appointment, the post of music-master to the
family of Count Johann von Esterhazy at Zelesz,
Austria|Zelesz, where he spent the summer amid
pleasant and congenial surroundings.  The
compositions of the year include a symphony in C
major (D.589), a certain amount of four-hand
pianoforte music for his pupils at Zelesz and a
few songs, among which are Einsamkeit (D.620),
Marienbild (D.623) and the Litaney.  On his return
to Vienna in the autumn he found that von Schober
had no room for him, and took up his residence
with Mayrhofer.  There his life continued on its
accustomed lines.  Every morning he began
composing as soon as he was out of bed, wrote till
two o'clock, then dined and took a country walk,
then returned to composition or, if the mood
forsook him, to visits among his friends.  He made
his first public appearance as a song-writer on
February 28, 1819, when the Schäfers Klagelied
was sung by Jager at a Jail concert.  In the
summer of the same year he took a holiday and
travelled with Vogl through Upper Austria.  At
Steyr he wrote his brilliant Trout Quintet|Piano
Quintet in A (The Trout) (D.667). In the autumn he
sent three of his songs to Goethe, but, so far as
we know, received little acknowledgment.

The compositions of 1820 are remarkable, and show
a marked advance in development and maturity of
style.  The unfinished oratorio "Lazarus" (D.689)
was begun in February; later followed, amid a
number of smaller works, the 23rd Psalm (D.706),
the Gesang der Geister (D.705/714), the
Quartettsatz (Schubert)|Quartettsatz in C minor
(D.703) and the great "Wanderer Fantasy" for piano
(D.760).  But of almost more biographical interest
is the fact that in this year two of Schubert's
operas appeared at the Kärthnerthor theatre, Die
Zwillingsbrüder (D.647) on June 14, and Die
Zauberharfe (D.644) on August 19.  Hitherto his
larger compositions (apart from Masses) had been
restricted to the amateur orchestra at the
Gundelhof, a society which grew out of the
quartet-parties at his home.  Now he began to
assume a more prominent position and address a
wider public.  Still, however, publishers held
obstinately aloof, and it was not until his friend
Vogl had sung Erlkönig at a concert in the
Kärnthnerthor (Feb. 8, 1821) that Anton Diabelli
hesitatingly agreed to print some of his works on
commission.  The first seven opus numbers (all
songs) appeared on these terms; then the
commission ceased, and he began to receive the
meagre pittances which were all that the great
publishing houses ever accorded to him.  Much has
been written about the neglect from which he
suffered during his lifetime.  It was not the
fault of his friends, it was only indirectly the
fault of the Viennese public; the persons most to
blame were the cautious intermediaries who stinted
and hindered him from publication.

The production of his two dramatic pieces turned
Schubert's attention more firmly than ever in the
direction of the stage; and towards the end of
1821 he set himself on a course which for nearly
three years brought him continuous mortification
and disappointment.  Alfonso und Estrella was
refused, and so was Fierabras (D.796); Die
Verschworenen (D.787) was prohibited by the censor
(apparently on the ground of its title); Rosamunde
(D.797) was withdrawn after two nights, owing to
the badness of its libretto.  Of these works the
two former are written on a scale which would make
their performances exceedingly difficult
(Fierabras, for instance, contains over 1000 pages
of manuscript score), but Die Verschworenen is a
bright attractive comedy, and Rosamunde contains
some of the most charming music that Schubert ever
composed.  In 1822 he made the acquaintance both
of Carl Maria von Weber|Weber and of Ludwig van
Beethoven|Beethoven, but little came of it in
either case, though Beethoven cordially
acknowledged his genius.  Schober was away from
Vienna; new friends appeared of a less desirable
character; on the whole these were the darkest
years of his life.

==Last years and masterworks==
In 1823 appeared Schubert's first song cycle, Die
schöne Müllerin, D. 795, after poems by Wilhelm
Müller.  This work, together with the later cycle
"Winterreise" D. 911, is widely considered one of
the pinnacles of Schubert's work and of the German
Lied in general.

In the spring of 1824 he wrote the magnificent
Octet (Schubert)|Octet in F (D.803), "A Sketch for
a Grand Symphony"; and in the summer went back to
Zelesz, when he became attracted by
Hungary|Hungarian idiom, and wrote the
Divertissement a l'Hongroise (D.818) and the
String Quartet No. 13 (Schubert)|String Quartet in
A minor (D.804).  He held a hopeless passion for
his pupil Countess Caroline Esterhazy; but
whatever may be said about this romance, its
details are not presently known.

Despite his preoccupation with the stage and later
with his official duties he found time during
these years for a good deal of miscellaneous
composition.  The Mass in A flat (D.678) was
completed and the exquisite "Unfinished Symphony"
(Symphony No 8 in B minor, D.759) begun in 1822.
To 1824, beside the works mentioned above, belong
the variations for flute and piano on Trockne
Blumen, the climactic song of "Die schöne
Müllerin".  There is also a sonata for piano and
"Arpeggione" (D.821), an interesting attempt to
encourage a cumbersome and now obsolete
instrument.  This wonderful music is nowadays
usually played by cello and piano, although a
number of other arrangements have been made.

The mishaps of the recent years were compensated
by the prosperity and happiness of 1825. 
Publication had been moving more rapidly; the
stress of poverty was for a time lightened; in the
summer there was a pleasant holiday in Upper
Austria, where Schubert was welcomed with
enthusiasm.  It was during this tour that he
produced his "Songs from Sir Walter Scott". This
cycle contains his famous and beloved Ellens
dritter Gesang, D.839, today more popularly known
as his "Ave Maria", which was originally set to
Adam Storck's German translation of Scott's
original poem, not to the Latin text of the Ave
Maria prayer that is commonly sung today. During
this time he also wrote the Piano sonata in A
minor (Schubert)|Piano Sonata in A minor (D.845,
op. 42).

From 1826 to 1828 Schubert resided continuously in
Vienna, except for a brief visit to Graz,
Austria|Graz in 1827.  The history of his life
during these three years is little more than a
record of his compositions.  The only events worth
notice are that in 1826 he dedicated a symphony to
the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and received a
honorarium in return. In the spring of 1828 he
gave, for the first and only time in his career, a
public concert of his own works which was very
well received.  But the compositions themselves
are a sufficient biography. The string quartet in
D minor, with the variations on Death and the
Maiden Quartet|Death and the Maiden (D.810), was
written during the winter of 1825-1826, and first
played on Jan. 25.  Later in the year came the
string quartet in G major, the "Rondeau brilliant"
for piano and violin (D.895, Op.70), and the fine
Piano Sonata in G (D.894, Op.78) which, because of
some pedantry of the publisher's, was originally
printed without Schubert's title 'Fantasia'
(although more recent editions have restored the
title, at least as a subtitle).  To these should
be added the three Shakespearian songs, of which
"Hark! Hark! the Lark" (D.889) and "Who is
Sylvia?" (D.891) were allegedly written on the
same day, the former at a tavern where he broke
his afternoon's walk, the latter on his return to
his lodging in the evening.  

In 1827 Schubert wrote the song cycle Winterreise
(D.911), the Fantasia for piano and violin  in C
(D.934), and the two piano trios (B flat, D.898;
and E flat, D.929): in 1828 the Song of Miriam,
the C major symphony (D.944), the Mass in E-flat
(D.950), and the exceedingly beautiful Tantum Ergo
(D.962) in the same key, the String Quintet
(Schubert)|String Quintet in C (D.956), the second
Benedictus to the Mass in C, the last three piano
sonatas, and the collection of songs published
posthumously under the fanciful name of
Schwanengesang ("Swan song", D.957).  Six of these
are to words by Heinrich Heine, whose Buch der
Lieder appeared in the autumn.

==Death==

In the midst of this creative activity, his health
deteriorated. He had battled syphilis since 1822.
The final illness may have been typhoid fever,
though other causes have been proposed; some of
his final symptoms match those of mercury
poisoning (mercury was a common treatment for
syphilis in the early 19th century); at any rate,
insufficient evidence remains to make a definitive
diagnosis. He died aged 31 on November 19, 1828 at
the apartment of his brother Ferdinand in Vienna.
By his own request, he was buried next to Ludwig
van Beethoven, whom he had adored all his life, on
the Währinger cemetery. In 1888, both Schubert
and Beethoven's graves were moved to the
Zentralfriedhof where they can now be found next
to those of Johann Strauss I and Johannes Brahms.

In 1872, a memorial to Franz Schubert was erected
in Vienna's Stadtpark.
==Posthumous history of Schubert's music==
Some of his smaller pieces were printed shortly
after his death, but the more valuable seem to
have been regarded by the publishers as waste
paper.  In 1838 Robert Schumann, on a visit to
Vienna, found the dusty manuscript of the Symphony
No. 9 (Schubert)|C major symphony (the "Great",
D.944) and took it back to Leipzig, where it was
performed by Felix Mendelssohn and celebrated in
the Neue Zeitschrift.  There continues to be some
controversy over the numbering of this symphony,
with German-speaking scholars numbering it as
symphony No. 7, the revised Deutsch catalogue (the
standard catalogue of Schubert's works, compiled
by Otto Erich Deutsch) listing it as No. 8, and
English-speaking scholars listing it as No. 9.

50 of his songs were transcribed for piano and
then popularised by Franz Liszt.

The most important step towards the recovery of
the neglected works was the journey to Vienna
which Sir George Grove (of "Grove's Dictionary of
Music and Musicians" fame) and Sir Arthur Sullivan
made in the autumn of 1867.  The  travellers
rescued from oblivion seven symphonies, the
Rosamunde music, some of the Masses and operas,
some of the chamber works, and a vast quantity of
miscellaneous pieces and songs. This led to more
widespread public interest in Schubert's work.

Another controversy, which originated with Grove
and Sullivan and continued for many years,
surrounded the "lost" symphony.  Immediately
before Schubert's death, his friend Eduard von
Bauernfeld recorded the existence of an additional
symphony, dated 1828 (although this does not
necessarily indicate the year of composition)
named the "Letzte" or "Last" symphony.  It has
been more or less accepted by musicologists that
the "Last" symphony refers to a sketch in D major
(D936A), discovered by Ernst Hilmar in the 1970s
and eventually realised by Brian Newbould as the
Symphony No. 10 (Schubert)|Tenth Symphony.

Franz Liszt said Schubert was "the most poetic
musician ever".

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==See also==
===Lists of works===
*By Deutsch number: Schubert compositions D number
1-504|D 1 to 504 - Schubert compositions D number
505-998|D 505 to 998
*List of compositions by Schubert — by
musical genre
*: