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Byron in England, Hugo in France, and Goethe and Heine in Germany, among them. Many of their poems quickly became song lyrics for young Romantic com- posers, with the prolific Franz Schubert writing the largest number. His special talent was to fashion music that captured not only the broad spirit, but also the small details of the text, creating a sensitive mood painting. Schubert remarked, “When one has a good poem, the music comes easily, melodies just flow, so that composing is a real joy.”
Franz Schubert (1797–1828)
Franz Schubert (Figure 11.2) was born in Vienna in 1797. Among the great Viennese masters—Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Mahler—only he was native-born to the city. Because his father was a school- teacher, young Franz was groomed for that profession. Yet the boy’s obvious musical talent made it imperative that he also take music lessons; his father taught him to play the violin, and his older brother the piano. At the age of eleven, Schubert was admitted as a choirboy in the emperor’s chapel, a group still well known today as the Vienna Boys’ Choir.
After his voice changed in 1812, young Franz left the court chapel and enrolled in a teachers’ college. He had been spared compulsory military service because he was below the minimum height of five feet, and his sight was so poor that he was compelled to wear the spectacles now familiar from his portraits. By 1815, he had become a teacher at his father’s primary school. But he found teaching demanding and tedious, and so after three unpleasant years, Schubert quit his “day job” to give himself over wholly to music.
“You lucky fellow; I really envy you! You live a life of sweet, precious freedom, can give free rein to your musical genius, can express your thoughts in any way you like.” This was Schubert’s brother’s view of the composer’s newfound freedom. But as many Romantics would find, the reality was harsher than the ideal. Aside from some small income that he earned from the sale of a few songs, he lacked financial support. For most of his adult life, Schubert lived like a bohemian, moving from café to café and helped along by the generosity of his friends, on whose couches he slept when he was broke. Schubert had traded security for artistic opportunity.
Attending Schubert’s decision was a broader change in the how and where audiences heard music. As Schubert was reaching artistic maturity, the era of the great aristocratic salon (entertainment hall)
was drawing to an end, its role now filled by the
middle-class parlor or living room. Here, in less
formal surroundings, groups of men and wom-
en with a common interest in music, novels,
drama, or poetry would meet to read and dis-
cuss the latest fashions in these arts. The gather-
ings at which Schubert appeared, and at which
only his compositions were played, were called
Schubertiads by his friends. In small, purely
private assembles such as these (Figure 11.3),
rather than in large public concerts, most of his
best songs had their first performances.
Figure 11.2
Franz Schubert
Figure 11.3
A small, private assembly known as a Schubertiad, named after the composer, at which artists presented their works. The singer before the piano is Johann Vogl, accompanied by Schubert at the piano, immedi- ately to Vogl’s left.
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Wien Museum Karlsplatz, Vienna/The Bridgeman Art Library Wien Museum Karlsplatz, Vienna/The Bridgeman Art Library
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