Schubert also attended his first operas and learned lieder, German art songs, by Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg. While at school, Schubert first heard works by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, whom he especially admired. By 1808 Schubert was offered a place at the Imperial Seminary on a choir scholarship. Some of Schubert’s first compositions were for string quartet to be played by his family.Īround 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. 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. 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. ![]() 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. 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. Schubert began violin lessons with his father at age eight and soon was proficient enough to play simple duets. These lessons were short-lived, because soon young Franz could play everything Ignaz knew and was ready to go his own way. He began his first piano lessons at a young age, studying first with his older brother Ignaz. The next year, Schubert was formally enrolled in his father’s school. Schubert began his education at age five with his father teaching him at home. Both his parents came from ethnically Czech backgrounds. Schubert’s father was a parish schoolmaster. He was the twelfth child in a family of fourteen, sadly nine of his siblings died as infants. 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.įranz Schubert was born on Januin a suburb of Vienna and was baptized in the local Catholic Church the following day. 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. Only a few close friends and admirers knew Schubert’s works when he died. Like Mozart, Schubert lived a tragically short life, dying at age thirty-one. The works of these composers greatly influenced Schubert, especially Beethoven. As a music student, he heard the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Thus the music moves from nowhere to nowhere via doubt and sorrow, the perfect image of the verses.Franz Schubert was the youngest of this group of composers living and working in Vienna in the early 1800s. But after a fermata, the opening melody returns over a heart-easing arpeggiated tonic triad in the accompaniment to close safely back where it started, on the tonic. ![]() But after the piano's one-bar interlude, the singer's melody moves through doubt to sorrow as the arpeggiated accompaniment moves through the dominant minor to the subdominant minor, to close on the dominant major, making the singer's sadness tangible. ![]() After the piano's five-bar introduction, the singer's opening melody soars above the easy open chords of the accompaniment, starting on the tonic and moving only so far as the dominant. What saves the song from mawkishness is the simple perfection of Schubert's music. Because, in fact, this is no true morning greeting - the young miller is far too shy and introverted even to bid the lovely daughter a good morning - but a series of four verses delaying saying good morning until it is too late to say anything at all. Indeed, the very static quality of a strophic setting in which the music for each verse is exactly the same, admirably suits the verses for this song. And only a shy and introverted composer could have composed the eighth song in the cycle, "Morgengruss" (Morning Greeting), and made it so completely sympathetic and so unspeakably beautiful.Īfter the seventh song's straight strophic setting of four verses, one would have thought that following it with another straight strophic setting would have been too taxing for the listener's attention. Whether these characteristizations are made sympathetically, derogatorily, or merely scholastically, it does seem that only a shy and introverted composer could have composed the cycle Die schöne Müllerin (The Miller's Beautiful Daughter), the story of a young miller too shy and introverted to declare his love. It is said that, owing to his physique and his personality, he was unable to declare his love for any woman (or, as some current scholarship might suggest, young boy). ![]() It is said that Schubert was a fat little man with a shy and introverted personality.
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