super groovy delicious bite: schubert

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

schubert

Franz Peter Schubert

(31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828)

This prolific early Romantic Austrian composer wrote almost one thousand musical works during his short life. Schubert began his musical education at the age of five, learning violin and piano from his father and brother. When he was eleven, he received a choir scholarship at the Stadtkonvikt, where he was exposed to opera and the music of Mozart. He began composing in earnest, gaining a reputation through prominent singers, musicians, and students. He became known for his experimentation with different musical forms, especially the Lieder, a German song for a single singer and piano of which he composed more than six hundred for the poetry of many different writers. He completed seven symphonies and began work on three others. There are numerous compositions for piano solo and duet, as well as sonatas, dances, marches, chamber works, and masses. While at the height of his compositional powers, he died suddenly at the age of thirty-one from typhoid fever. Poet Franz Grillparzer wrote his epithet: "Here music has buried a treasure, but even fairer hopes."