Franz Schubert Biographies

Franz Schubert Biographies

Schubert, Franz born Vienna Jan 31, 1797 died Vienna Nov 19, 1828 Schubert is widely regarded as one of the world's finest songwriters and classical composers. He was the only Viennese master native to the city. Schubert was one of fourteen children born (of which only four survived infancy) into the family of a Lichtenthal music teachers family. His childhood was music filled with his father being his first teacher and young Franz composing songs and short instrumental pieces by the age of ten. He also excelled at singing (Vienna Court choir and Konvict choir) and playing violin. By age sixteen he had composed his first symphony as well as much else. At age eighteen he composed more than a hundred songs including his masterpiece Der Erlkonig. For most of his adult life Schubert was strongly attracted by the theater and wrote many operas which have not received any lasting popularity. Tragically, Schuberts life was severely incapacitated in the year 1822 when he was diagnosed with syphilis. He made a partial recovery the following year and was able to complete many sonatas and his greatest string quartets, the C-major symphony, as well as many other works before his death at the age of thirty-one. He is buried in the Wahring cemetery two graves away from where Beethoven had been laid to rest twenty months earlier. The great admiration Schubert having felt for Beethoven as evidenced by his remark "...but who can ever do anything after Beethoven?..."