Adventures with Beethoven

Scene Two

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Franz Schubert was the youngest of this group of composers living and working in Vienna in the early 1800s. As a music student, he heard the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. The works of these composers greatly influenced Schubert, especially Beethoven. Like Mozart, Schubert lived a tragically short life, dying at age thirty-one. Only a few close friends and admirers knew Schubert’s works when he died. However, he was discovered by a group of later composers, including Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn, and others who performed his works and brought it to greater notoriety. He has since gained a place among the greats of classical music, leaving us to wonder what else he would have written had he lived longer. 

Franz Schubert was born on January 31, 1797 in a suburb of Vienna and was baptized in the local Catholic Church the following day. He was the twelfth child in a family of fourteen, sadly nine of his siblings died as infants. Schubert’s father was a parish schoolmaster. Both his parents came from ethnically Czech backgrounds. 

Schubert began his education at age five with his father teaching him at home. The next year, Schubert was formally enrolled in his father’s school. He began his first piano lessons at a young age, studying first with his older brother Ignaz. These lessons were short-lived, because soon young Franz could play everything Ignaz knew and was ready to go his own way. Schubert began violin lessons with his father at age eight and soon was proficient enough to play simple duets. Once again, Schubert learned everything his family could teach him and he began lessons with Michael Holzer, the organist and choirmaster at the local church. Holzer often expressed his amazement at the young boy’s skill, frequently telling Schubert’s father that Holzer had never had another student as talented. Holzer began teaching Schubert piano, organ, and basic music theory, but really the lessons were conversations because Schubert picked up the lessons so quickly, Holzer ran out of things to teach. Schubert picked up another instrument, learning to play the viola so that the family could play string quartets together; Schubert’s brothers, Ferdinand and Ignaz played violin, while his father played the cello. Some of Schubert’s first compositions were for string quartet to be played by his family. 

Around 1804, Schubert first came to the attention of Antonio Salieri, then the Imperial Kapellmeister (music director) and one of the most important musicians in Vienna. By 1808 Schubert was offered a place at the Imperial Seminary on a choir scholarship. While at school, Schubert first heard works by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, whom he especially admired. Schubert also attended his first operas and learned lieder, German art songs, by Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg. These experiences gave Schubert a well-rounded introduction to the music and styles of the Classical period. After listening to the variety of music, Schubert wanted to “modernize” Zumsteeg’s songs. He became acquainted with Joseph von Spaun, an Austrian nobleman who later served as an Imperial councilor. Spaun, who came from a wealthy family, became a lifelong friend and often helped pay for manuscript paper and other supplies for Schubert, who never had enough money. 

As Schubert’s compositions were getting more advanced, Salieri began giving Schubert private lessons in music theory and composition. Schubert completed his first real composition, a piano fantasy for four hands around 1810; he wrote his first song the next year. Schubert was allowed to conduct the school orchestra on occasion and began writing his first orchestral compositions for the group. The rest of his time at school he wrote chamber music, piano pieces, songs, and a couple of more complicated church choral works, including a Salve Regina and a Kyrie. In addition, Schubert wrote an Octet for Winds in 1812 to commemorate the death of his mother. The following year, when Schubert was just 13 years old, he wrote a cantata in honor of his father’s birthday, and he also wrote his first symphony. 

Schubert finished his schooling at the seminary in 1813 and then attended St. Anna Normal-hauptschule to complete a course in teacher’s training (in many countries a “normal” school was the name given to teacher’s training colleges). The following year, Schubert began working at his father’s school, teaching the youngest students. Schubert hated being a teacher, but kept working for his father for the next two years. Fortunately, he continued his lessons with Salieri who gave Schubert extensive training until their lessons ended in 1817. On his own, Schubert wrote several more sacred choral works, many featuring a solo soprano part after he met Therese Grob in 1814. Schubert fell in love with her and hoped to marry her, however he was unable to due to the marriage consent law in the empire. In order to marry, the prospective groom had to show they were financially able to support a family. Schubert had tried to gain a position in Laibach (present day Ljubljana, Slovenia) but did not get the job. Since he had no income, except a small salary from his father’s school, he and Therese were unable to marry. 

In 1815 Schubert wrote a staggering amount of music, over 20,000 measures, including orchestral works, sacred music, a new symphony, and 140 songs. While composing all of this music, Schubert was still living at home and teaching, as well as giving a few private music lessons. However, Schubert was not happy teaching or living at home and longed to be on his own so he could further develop as a musician. When his friend Joseph von Spaun moved into a new home in one of the Viennese suburbs, he invited Schubert to visit for a few days. Soon thereafter, another friend, Franz von Schober invited Schubert to move in with him. This gave Schubert the opportunity to devote himself fully to composing, most of these works were not published during Schubert’s lifetime; he did, however, give them to friends as gifts. Schubert made two important friends in 1817. The first was Johann Michael Vogl, a well-known baritone. Vogl often performed Schubert’s songs, many of which Schubert wrote for him. The second was Joseph Hüttenbrenner who became a promoter of Schubert’s music. These friends, as well as others, helped preserve and promote Schubert’s music after his death. 

Schubert’s father took a job at a new school in 1817. Reluctantly, Schubert went back to teaching to help make ends meet. Schubert was also disappointed musically when his application to join the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (The Society of Friends of Music) was denied because he was “no amateur.” He had hoped that by joining the society, he could work as an accompanist and that his songs would be performed for a wider audience. This disappointment was tempered slightly by praise in the press after the performance of an overture in February 1818. Schubert spent that summer as the private music teacher for Count Johann Karl Esterházy, a distant relative of the Esterházys that employed Haydn, teaching piano and voice lessons to the count’s daughters, Marie and Karoline. He only had to work a few hours a day, allowing Schubert to spend a happy summer composing in the countryside. When he returned to Vienna, he moved in with another friend, Johann Mayrhofer. 

Schubert had a circle of friends, most of whom were artists or students, who had regular social gatherings that came to be known as Schubertiads. Often these evenings of music took place in the apartment of Ignaz von Sonnleiithner where Schubert would perform new works and the friends would spend time together, often drinking heavily. This group had an unpleasant run-in with the police in 1820. As Schubert and four of his friends came home from one of their evening gatherings, they were arrested by the police, who, following the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, were on guard for suspected revolutionary activities; any gathering of students was deemed suspicious. Four of the friends, including Schubert, were “severely reprimanded” for “inveighing against (officials) with insulting and opprobrious language.” The final member of the group, Johann Senn, was put on trial, spent a year in jail, and was permanently banned from the city of Vienna. Schubert never saw Senn again, but did use some of his poetry as the basis for songs. 

By 1819-1820 Schubert’s music had developed and become more complex. He was writing more large scale works which were beginning to be performed in bigger venues, rather than at the small gatherings in friend’s homes. Although he was beginning to be better known by the Viennese public, Schubert still had a hard time finding publishers who were willing to accept his works. Schubert completed several operas, but this was a largely unsuccessful venture; two had poor stories, one was banned by the censors, and German opera was less popular in general since the introduction of Rossini and his light Italian style. Despite these disappointments, Schubert had other successes. He was finally accepted as a member of the Society of Friends of Music, which allowed more of his music to be performed, further bringing him to prominence in the Viennese musical society. 

Schubert met Beethoven in 1822, but there was no real relationship between the two. Beethoven did acknowledge Schubert’s skills to other friends and, at the end of his life, Beethoven said, “Truly, the spark of divine genius resides in this Schubert.” Beethoven apparently regretted that he had not spent more time with Schubert, especially attending his concerts and operas, but at this point Beethoven was too sick to go out. 

Schubert completed a number of large works in 1822, including the Mass in A Flat Major and the Symphony in B Minor, known as the Unfinished. Quite often when a composer leaves a work incomplete, it’s because of their death. However, in Schubert’s case, he simply never got around to finishing it. The work has two complete movements and some ideas for the third, but Schubert never went back to it, puzzling scholars to this day. In 1823 Schubert completed his first song cycle, Die schöne Müllerin (The Fair Maid of the Mill). A song cycle is a group of songs that are meant to be performed together in order to tell a story or set a mood, often with all the lyrics by the same writer. Schubert spent 1824 completing several large works and spending another summer teaching the Esterházy family. By 1825 more of Schubert’s works were being published and for the first time, Schubert felt a bit more financially stable. He continued writing, completing another song cycle, a piano sonata, and beginning the Symphony in C Major (the Great), which he would finish the next year. Schubert had a large circle of devoted friends, but he also spent a great deal of time alone. As he progressed as a composer, he was able to use this solitude to write some of his best works in the last two years of his life. 

Although Schubert did not have a personal relationship with Beethoven, the maestro’s death in 1827 affected Schubert greatly. Schubert, along with fellow composers Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Carl Czerny (Chair-knee), served as a torch bearer at Beethoven’s funeral. Schubert produced several major works in 1827, including the song cycle Winterreise (Winter’s Journey), a cantata, works for piano and violin, and a set of thirteen lieder, called the Schwanengesang (Swan-song). On the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death, Schubert gave his first, and only, public concert of his compositions. The concert was a great success and provided a financial boost to Schubert, but it was largely overshadowed by the first appearance of the violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini just a few weeks later. 

For several years, Schubert had been suffering from ill-health and had told some friends in 1827 that he felt he was near death. In the summer of 1828, Schubert saw a doctor who confirmed that the illness was serious and that there was nothing to be done. By November Schubert’s condition had deteriorated greatly. Schubert’s friend Karl Holz visited with his string quartet and played Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 in C Sharp Minor at Schubert’s request. Schubert died five days later and Holz later said that “The King of Harmony has sent the King of Song a friendly bidding to the crossing.” Schubert was only thirty-one when he died, officially of typhoid fever, although like Mozart numerous other causes of death have been suggested by scholars. At his request, Schubert was buried near Beethoven. In 1888 the graves of both Beethoven and Schubert were moved from the smaller cemetery in the suburbs of Vienna to the central cemetery in the city. The new graves are located near fellow composers Johann Strauss II and Johannes Brahms. The cemetery where both Schubert and Beethoven were originally buried was converted to a park in 1925 and named for Schubert. The statue near his former resting place reads “The art of music has here interred a precious treasure, but yet far fairer hopes.”