Franz Schubert (jan 1, 1797 – jan 1, 1828)

Description:

Schubert and Goethe
1. Schubert was the first composer to make the Lied a major genre.
2. Although he never met the poet, Schubert most frequently chose poems by Goethe for his Lieder.
3. At age eighteen he composed both “Heidenröslein” and “Der Erlkönig.”
a. “Heidenröslein” is a simple strophic song, natural and relatively easy to perform.
b. “Der Erlkönig” is entirely different in that it completely ignores most aspects associated with the genre in intensity, drama, and technical difficulty.
1) The recitative serves only to bring the thundering and driving music to an extremely abrupt halt.
2) Each character has special characteristics that mark the part.
3) The tonal center shifts incessantly throughout “Erlkönig.”
4) The terrifying outcries of the little boy bring increased tension.
5) The pounding of the horse’s hooves recede as the subjective elements take over.

Beyond the Songs
A. Salon Culture and Schubertiades
1. Schubert’s performances were often for a musical society (Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde).
2. Schubert’s private sphere of music making was known as a “Schubertiade,” but is in
essence the beginning of salon culture.
3. Salons were large rooms where invited guests gathered, usually run by a patron.
4. While salons were associated with aristocratic circles, Schubertiades involved a more bohemian group of civil servants.
5. Such small gatherings fit the Romantic ideal of the individual, private over public.

Disaster
1. In 1822, Schubert became gravely ill and went to hospital.
2. He seemed to get better, although he lived the remainder of his life in fear of new symptoms.
a. This is documented by a letter he wrote to a friend, Leopold Kupelwieser.
b. He turned to instrumental music, writing chamber music and talking about a great symphony, although he had already written six.
c. In this letter he reveals his view of Beethoven as a model.
3. In the 1820s Schubert appeared to his friends to be living only to compose.

What Contemporaries Knew of Schubert’s Music
1. In a composition career lasting only eighteen years, Schubert wrote just under 1000 works.
2. Putting the compositions in chronological order gives some indication of how his
contemporaries saw him.
3. The earliest publications show Schubert’s attempt at commercial success, working within markets for a buying public, for consumption at home.

Crossing the Edge
1. Schubert also composed character pieces, such as his Impromptus.
2. These pieces are good examples of his harmonic style, most notably the use of modal
mixture.
3. His Moments musicaux are also smaller piano works where Schubert’s ability to
capture intimacy abound.

Schubert’s Last Two Songs
1. Schubert died within eight months of his Beethoven Hommage concert.
2. In less than two years after Beethoven’s death, Schubert composed some of his greatest
works: Winterreise, String Quintet in C, Violin Fantasy in C, Mass in E-flat, three piano sonatas, and others.
3. The last songs were published posthumously in 1828, under the title Schwanegesang
(Swan Song). They are not a true song cycle, but a collection of the final ones.
4. At his request, Schubert was buried near Beethoven.

Key Terms:

Schubertiade: see #2

Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde: The Vienna Society for Music

Impromptu: a free-form musical composition with the character of an "ex tempore" improvisation as if prompted by the spirit of the moment, usually for a solo instrument, such as piano.

Modal mixture: aka "modal borrowing;" the use of chords belonging to a parallel key—for example, a passage in F major incorporating one or more chords from F minor.

Characters of Der Erlkönig: narrator, father, son, and the Erlking

N.B.: the flat submediant expresses inwardness in Schubert's harmony

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