Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. He was immensely prolific despite living a short life, leaving behind a vast oeuvre of more than 1,000 compositions, including over 600 Lieder and other vocal works, seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of piano and chamber music. Among these are the songs “Gretchen am Spinnrade”, “Erlkönig” and “Ave Maria”; the Trout Quintet; the Symphony No. 8 in B minor (Unfinished); the Symphony No. 9 in C major ; the String Quartet No. 14 in D minor ; the String Quintet in C major; the Impromptus for solo piano; the last three piano sonatas; the Fantasia in F minor for piano four hands; the incidental music to the play Rosamunde; the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise; and the song collection Schwanengesang.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article on Franz Schubert.

From the period sources

Franz Schubert’s compositions were recognized early by publishers like Augener & Co., who included his vocal music in their catalogues (Brown’s Biographical Dictionary, 1886). His works also inspired other artists, such as the cellist Alfred Piatti, who arranged Schubert’s “Litania” for cello and piano, and the pianist Alexandre-Edouard Goria, whose fantasy on “Plaintes de la jeune fille” was a notable success among amateurs (Biographie universelle des musiciens, Vol. 4, 1883). Indeed, Schubert’s “Erl-King,” written in 1815 or 1816, was published as his Op. 1 in Vienna in 1821 and, after being sung by August von Gymnich at the Musikverein, significantly enhanced the composer’s fame (Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians, Vol. 2, 1889). While his string quartets are described by Grove’s Dictionary (1922) as “irreproachable models” of “polished and thoroughly legitimate workmanship,” they are contrasted with Beethoven’s in their use of all four parts working hard to overcome the inherent “thinness of sound.” Schubert’s noble Quintet in C (Op. 163), however, uniquely employs two cellos, with the first often soaring in its upper octave above the viola (Grove’s Dictionary, 1922). His early life included a period as a sopranist in the court chapel, a position he left, to be replaced by Georges Hellmesberger at the age of ten (Biographie universelle des musiciens, Vol. 4, 1883). His legacy was such that by 1873, G. L. Austin had published a “Life of Franz Schubert” in Boston (Brown’s Biographical Dictionary, 1886).