8/8/2023 0 Comments Franz schubert musicMusic connected to text in this way was known as Program music. This was a new idea and a departure from Classical norms. Schubert began using the meaning, meter, and structure of poetry, theater, and literature to inform his decisions about harmony, melody, and rhythm. He led the way by marrying his music with text. Nevertheless, Schubert is usually relegated to fourth place in the Classical music genius contest (Goulding 217).ĭespite his shortcomings with Classical trends, Schubert was a bellwether with Romantic trends. Some musicologists suggest he eclipsed all three in the realm of melody. He was as prodigious as Mozart, as prolific as Haydn, and as sensitive to art and beauty as Beethoven. Schubert is the only possible adjunct to this holy trinity of Classicism. Much of Schubert’s music was in the tradition of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. The rest of this lecture describes how Schubert used his short time on Earth to become both a musical progressive and a musical conservative. Musicologist commonly express deep sorrow when imagining how many masterpieces were lost to posterity because of Schubert’s early death. His sickness was almost certainly caused by complications due to late stage Syphilis. Just when his career was on the verge of taking off, Schubert died tragically of Typhus at the age of thirty-one. The gatherings were especially interesting to those motivated by wine, revelry, and song (Burkholder et al. Schubertiads attracted large crowds of artists, actors, musicians, poets, playwrights and other inhabitants of the Viennese nightlife. He handled all the piano duties himself, of course, and the singing duties were sometimes performed by Vienna’s finest professional opera singers. At these gatherings, Schubert sang his own lieder or accompanied other singers doing so. But among a small group of friends, followers, and devotees, Schubert was adored (Norton 722).īeginning in Vienna around 1818, a form of house party-later known as a Schubertiad-evolved around the composer and his music. For example, he wrote Die Erlkonig at age eighteen, and this song is widely regarded to be a masterpiece by listeners and musicologists alike.ĭespite his superhuman musical aptitude, Schubert was largely unknown during his lifetime. Indeed, some of his most remarkable pieces were written while he was still a teenager. He learned to play the piano and the viola as a preteen, he became an expert musician and composer as a teenager, and he was impressively prolific as a young adult. Schubert was a rare breed, and his genius flowered early in life. Schubert summarized his method of composition with this declaration, “I compose every morning, and when one piece is done, I begin another” (“Schubert” para 10). Needless to say, few musicians, past or present, can measure their output in kilometers. This means that in 1815, Schubert wrote one kilometer of music. This is a mind-boggling number of measures.įive minutes with my ruler and my music books told me that the average measure length is five centimeters. When all the lieder, chamber, and orchestral works are summed, the total number is 20,000 (Turek 270 “Schubert” para 9). He liked writing songs so much that he wrote over 600 of them (Randel 596).Īs a point of comparison, this is more than twice the output of the Beatles, who wrote 237 songs between the four of them (“List of songs recorded by the Beatles” para 1).Įnterprising musicologists have quantified Schubert’s total output in measures for the year 1815. Schubert especially enjoyed composing lieder, which were German songs. He composed compulsively throughout his short life, completing over 1,500 musical pieces (“Franz Schubert Music, para 1). Schubert was born in Vienna, Austria in 1797, and he died there in 1828. He was, therefore, both a musical conservative and a musical progressive. Schubert’s output suggests he was of two artistic minds: one that supported the ordered beauty of Classicism and another that supported the poetic drama of Romanticism. He operated in the shadow of Beethoven and under the influence of art, poetry, and literature. The early nineteenth-century composer Franz Schubert was a transitional figure between the Classical and Romantic periods. How an Austrian Songwriter Wrote a Kilometer of Music, Launched the Romantic Period, and Preserved the Traditions of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven Introduction
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