Childhood
Franz Schubert was born on January 31, 1797 (in a small suburb of Vienna, now part of it) in the family of a teacher at the parish school of Lichtental, who was an amateur in music making. his father, Franz Theodore Schubert, came from a family of Moravian peasants; mother, Elizabeth Schubert(née Fitz), was the daughter of a Silesian locksmith. Of their fourteen children, nine died at an early age, and one of the brothers Franz- Ferdinand also devoted himself to musicFranz showed musical talent very early. His family members were the first to teach him music: his father (violin) and older brother Ignaz (piano). From the age of six he studied at the parish school of Lichtental. From the age of seven, he took organ lessons from the Kapellmeister of the Lichtental Church. The regent of the parish church M. Holzer taught him to sing
Thanks to his beautiful voice at the age of eleven Franz was adopted as a "singer boy" in the Viennese court chapel and in Konvikt (boarding school). There, Josef von Spaun, Albert Stadler and Anton Holzapfel became his friends. teachers Schubert were Wenzel Ruzicka (bass general) and later (until 1816) Antonio Salieri (counterpoint and composition). Schubert studied not only singing, but also got acquainted with the instrumental works of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as he was the second violin in the Konwikt orchestra.
His talent as a composer soon showed up. From 1810 to 1813 Schubert wrote opera, symphony, piano pieces and songs Schubert mathematics and Latin were hard given, and in 1813 he was expelled from the choir, as his voice broke. Schubert returned home, entered the teacher's seminary, which he graduated in 1814. Then he got a job as a teacher at the school where his father worked (he worked at this school until 1818). In his free time, he composed music. He studied mainly Gluck, Mozart and Beethoven. The first independent works - the opera "Satan's Pleasure Castle" and the Mass in F major - he wrote in 1814.
Maturity
Job Schubert did not correspond to his vocation, and he made attempts to establish himself as a composer. But publishers refused to publish his work. In the spring of 1816, he was denied the post of Kapellmeister in Laibach (now Ljubljana). Soon Joseph von Spaun introduced Schubert with the poet Franz von Schober. Schober arranged Schubert meeting with the famous baritone Johann Michael Vogl. Songs Schubert performed by Vogl began to enjoy great popularity in the Viennese salons. First success Schubert brought the ballad "The Forest King" ("Erlkönig"), written by him in 1816. In January 1818 the first composition Schubert published - the song Erlafsee (as an addition to the anthology, edited by F. Sartori).Among friends Schubert were official J. Shpaun, amateur poet F. Schober, poet I. Mayrhofer, poet and comedian E. Bauernfeld, artists M. Schwind and L. Kupelwieser, composer A. Huttenbrenner and J. Schubert. They were fans of creativity Schubert and periodically provided him with financial assistance.
At the beginning of 1818 Schubert left his job at school. In July, he moved to Želiz (now the Slovak city of Željezovce) to the summer residence of Count Johann Esterhazy, where he began to teach music to his daughters. In mid-November he returned to Vienna. The second time he visited Esterhazy was in 1824.
In 1823 he was elected an honorary member of the Styrian and Linz musical unions.
In the 1820s, Schubert health problems started. In December 1822 he fell ill, but after a hospital stay in the autumn of 1823, his health improved.
Last years
From 1826 to 1828 Schubert lived in Vienna, except for a short stay in Graz. The post of vice conductor in the chapel of the imperial court, for which he claimed in 1826, did not go to him, but to Josef Weigl. On March 26, 1828, he gave his only public concert, which was a great success and brought him 800 guilders. Meanwhile, his numerous songs and piano works were printed.The composer died of typhoid fever on November 19, 1828, at the age of 32, after a two-week fever. According to the last request, Schubert was buried at the Veringskoye cemetery, where Beethoven, idolized by him, had been buried a year before. An eloquent inscription is engraved on the monument: "Music buried here a precious asset, but even more wonderful hopes." On January 22, 1888, his ashes were reburied at the Vienna Central Cemetery.
Creation
creative heritage Schubert covers a wide variety of genres. He created 9 symphonies, over 25 chamber-instrumental works, 21 piano sonatas, many pieces for piano in two and four hands, 10 operas, 6 masses, a number of works for the choir, for vocal ensemble, and finally, more than 600 songs. During his lifetime, and indeed for quite a long time after the death of the composer, he was valued mainly as a songwriter. Only from the 19th century did researchers begin to gradually comprehend his achievements in other areas of creativity. Thanks to Schubert the song for the first time became equal in importance to other genres. Her poetic images reflect almost the entire history of Austrian and German poetry, including some foreign authors.Of great importance in vocal literature are collections of songs Schubert to the verses of Wilhelm Müller - "The Beautiful Miller's Woman" and "Winter Way", which are, as it were, a continuation of Beethoven's idea, expressed in the collection of songs "To a Distant Beloved". In these works Schubert showed remarkable melodic talent and a great variety of moods; he gave the accompaniment more meaning, more artistic meaning. Remarkable is also the latest collection "Swan Song", many songs from which have gained worldwide fame.
musical gift Schubert opened new avenues for piano music. His Fantasies in C major and F minor, impromptu, musical moments, sonatas are proof of the richest imagination and great harmonic courage. In chamber and symphonic music - the string quartet in D minor, the quintet in C major, the piano quintet "Forellenquintett" ("Trout"), the "Great Symphony" in C major and the "Unfinished Symphony" in B minor - Schubert demonstrates his unique and independent musical thinking, significantly different from the thinking of the living and dominant Beethoven at that time.
From numerous church writings Schubert(masses, offertorias, hymns, etc.) the Mass in E-flat major is especially distinguished by its sublime character and musical richness.
Of the operas performed at that time, Schubert most liked Joseph Weigl's The Swiss Family, Luigi Cherubini's Medea, Francois Adrien Boildieu's John of Paris, Izuard's Sandrillon, and especially Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauris. Schubert had little interest in Italian opera, which was in great fashion in his time; only The Barber of Seville and some excerpts from Otello by Gioachino Rossini seduced him.
Posthumous recognition
After Schubert there remained a mass of unpublished manuscripts (six masses, seven symphonies, fifteen operas, etc.). Some smaller works were published immediately after the composer's death, but manuscripts of larger works, little known to the public, remained in bookcases and drawers of relatives, friends, and publishers. Schubert. Even those closest to him did not know everything he wrote, and for many years he was recognized mainly as the king of song. In 1838 Robert Schuman, visiting Vienna, found a dusty manuscript of the "Great Symphony" Schubert and took it with him to Leipzig, where the work was performed by Felix Mendelssohn. The greatest contribution to the search and discovery of works Schubert made by George Grove and Arthur Sullivan, who visited Vienna in the autumn of 1867. They were able to find seven symphonies, the accompaniment music from Rosamund, several masses and operas, some chamber music, and a wide variety of fragments and songs. These discoveries led to a significant increase in interest in creativity. Schubert. Franz Liszt from 1830 to 1870 transcribed and arranged a significant number of works Schubert especially songs. He said that Schubert"the most poetic musician who ever lived." For Antonin Dvořák, the symphonies were especially interesting. Schubert, and Hector Berlioz and Anton Bruckner recognized the influence of the "Great Symphony" on their work.In 1897, the publishers Breitkopf and Gertel produced a critical edition of the composer's works, with Johannes Brahms as editor-in-chief. Composers of the 20th century such as Benjamin Britten, Richard Strauss and George Crum were either persistent popularizers of music Schubert, or made allusions to it in their own music. Britten, who was an excellent pianist, accompanied many songs Schubert and often played his solos and duets.
Unfinished symphony
The time of creation of the symphony in B minor DV 759 ("Unfinished") is the autumn of 1822. It was dedicated to the amateur musical society in Graz, and Schubert presented two parts of it in 1824.The manuscript was kept for more than 40 years by a friend Schubert Anselm Hüttenbrenner until it was discovered by the Viennese conductor Johann Herbeck and performed in concert in 1865. (The completed Schubert the first two movements, and instead of the missing 3rd and 4th movements, the final movement from the early Third Symphony was performed Schubert in D major.) The symphony was published in 1866 in the form of the first two parts.
It is still not clear why Schubert did not complete the "Unfinished" symphony. Apparently, he intended to bring it to its logical conclusion: the first two parts were completely finished, and the 3rd part (in the nature of the scherzo) remained in sketches. There are no sketches for the finale (or they may have been lost).
For a long time there was a point of view that the "Unfinished" symphony is a completely completed work, since the range of images and their development exhausts itself within two parts. As a comparison, they talked about Beethoven's sonatas in two parts and that later, among romantic composers, works of this kind became commonplace. However, this version is opposed by the fact that the completed Schubert the first two parts are written in different keys, far from each other. (Such cases did not occur either before or after him.)
Currently, there are several options for completing the "Unfinished" symphony (in particular, options for the English musicologist Brian Newbould and the Russian composer Anton Safronov).
Compositions
- Singspiel (7), including Claudina von Villa Bell (on a text by Goethe, 1815, the first of 3 acts survives; production 1978, Vienna), The Twin Brothers (1820, Vienna), The Conspirators, or the Domestic War (1823; production 1861 , Frankfurt am Main);
- Music for plays - The Magic Harp (1820, Vienna), Rosamund, Princess of Cyprus (1823, ibid.);
- For soloists, choir and orchestra - 7 Masses (1814-1828), German Requiem (1818), Magnificat (1815), offertorias and other spiritual works, oratorios, cantatas, including Miriam's Song of Victory (1828);
- For orchestra - symphonies (1813; 1815; 1815; Tragic, 1816; 1816; Small in C major, 1818; 1821, unfinished; Unfinished, 1822; Large in C major, 1828), 8 overtures;
- Chamber-instrumental ensembles - 4 sonatas (1816-1817), fantasy (1827) for violin and piano; sonata for arpegione and piano (1824), 2 piano trios (1827, 1828?), 2 string trios (1816, 1817), 14 or 16 string quartets (1811-1826), Forel piano quintet (1819?), string quintet ( 1828), an octet for strings and winds (1824), etc.;
- For piano in 2 hands - 23 sonatas (including 6 unfinished; 1815-1828), fantasy (Wanderer, 1822, etc.), 11 impromptu (1827-28), 6 musical moments (1823-1828), rondo, variations and other pieces, over 400 dances (waltzes, landlers, German dances, minuets, ecossaises, gallops, etc.; 1812-1827);
- For piano in 4 hands - sonatas, overtures, fantasies, Hungarian divertissement (1824), rondo, variations, polonaises, marches, etc.;
- Vocal ensembles for male, female voices and mixed compositions with and without accompaniment;
- Songs for voice and piano, (more than 600) including the cycles "The Beautiful Miller" (1823) and "Winter Road" (1827), the collection "Swan Song" (1828), "Ellen's Third Song" ("Ellens dritter Gesang" , also known as Schubert's Ave Maria).
- forest king
Catalog of works
Since relatively few of his works were published during the composer's lifetime, only a few of them have their own opus number, but even in such cases the number does not accurately reflect the time of creation of the work. In 1951, the musicologist Otto Erich Deutsch published a catalog of Schubert's works, where all the composer's works are arranged in chronological order according to the time they were written.In astronomy
The asteroid (540) Rosamund, discovered in 1904, is named after the musical play Rosamund by Franz Schubert.Franz Peter Schubert was born on January 31, 1797 in Vienna, Austria. He was the fourth son in the family of a school teacher who loved music. As a boy, he sang in the Vienna Court Chapel, then helped his father at school. By the age of nineteen, Franz had already written more than 250 songs, several symphonies and other musical works.
In the spring of 1816, Franz tried to get a job as the head of the choir chapel, but his plans were not destined to come true. Soon, thanks to friends, Schubert met the famous Austrian baritone Johann Fogal. It was this performer of romances that helped Schubert to establish himself in life: he performed songs to the accompaniment of Franz in the music salons of Vienna.
Wide recognition came to him in the 1820s. In 1828, his concert took place, at which he and other musicians performed his works. This happened a few months before the death of the composer. Despite his short life, Schubert composed nine symphonies, sonatas, and chamber music.
In 1823, Schubert became an honorary member of the Styrian and Linz musical unions. In the same year, the musician composes the song cycle "The Beautiful Miller's Woman" to the words of the romantic poet Wilhelm Müller. These songs tell about a young man who went in search of happiness. But the young man's happiness lay in love: when he saw the miller's daughter, Cupid's arrow rushed into his heart. But the beloved drew attention to his rival, the young hunter, so the joyful and sublime feeling of the traveler soon grew into desperate grief.
After the tremendous success of The Beautiful Miller's Girl in the winter and autumn of 1827, Schubert worked on another cycle called The Winter Journey. The music, written to the words of Muller, is distinguished by pessimism. Franz himself called his brainchild "a wreath of creepy songs." It is noteworthy that Schubert wrote such gloomy compositions about unrequited love shortly before his own death.
A special place in his work is occupied by songs, of which the composer wrote more than 600. Franz enriched existing songs, wrote new ones to the verses of such prominent poets as Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare, Scott. It was the songs that glorified Schubert during his lifetime. He also wrote quartets, cantatas, masses and oratorios. And in the classical music of Schubert, the influence of the lyrical song theme is clearly manifested.
His best classical works are "Unfinished Symphony" and "Great Symphony in C-dur". The composer's piano music is very popular: waltzes, landlers, gallops, ecossaises, marches, polonaises. Many works are intended for home performance.
Franz Peter Schubert died of typhoid fever in Vienna on November 19, 1828. According to the last wish, Schubert was buried in the cemetery, where Ludwig Beethoven, adored by him, was buried a year before. In January 1888, his ashes, along with those of Beethoven, were reburied at the Central Cemetery in Vienna. Later, the famous burial site of composers and musicians was formed around their graves.
Works by Franz Schubert
Songs (over 600 in total)
Cycle "The Beautiful Miller" (1823)
Cycle "Winter Way" (1827)
Collection "Swan Song" (1827-1828, posthumous)
About 70 songs to texts by Goethe
About 50 songs to texts by Schiller
Symphonies
First D-dur (1813)
Second B-dur (1815)
Third D-dur (1815)
Fourth c-moll "Tragic" (1816)
Fifth B major (1816)
Sixth C-dur (1818)
Quartets (total 22)
Quartet B-dur op. 168 (1814)
G minor quartet (1815)
A minor quartet op. 29 (1824)
Quartet in d-moll (1824-1826)
Quartet G-dur op. 161 (1826)
Facts about Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert bought a grand piano with the proceeds from the triumphant concert in 1828.
In the autumn of 1822, the composer wrote "Symphony No. 8", which went down in history as the "Unfinished Symphony". The fact is that at first Franz created this work in the form of a sketch, and then in the score. But for some unknown reason, Schubert never completed work on the brainchild. According to rumors, the remaining parts of the manuscript were lost and were kept by friends of the Austrian.
Schubert adored Goethe. The musician dreamed of getting to know this famous writer better, but his dream was not destined to come true.
Schubert's grand symphony in C major was found 10 years after his death.
Schubert lived only thirty-one years. He died physically and mentally exhausted, exhausted by failures in life. None of the composer's nine symphonies was performed during his lifetime. Of the six hundred songs, about two hundred were printed, and of the two dozen piano sonatas, only three.
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In his dissatisfaction with the surrounding life, Schubert was not alone. This dissatisfaction and protest of the best people of society was reflected in a new direction in art - in romanticism. Schubert was one of the first Romantic composers.
Franz Schubert was born in 1797 on the outskirts of Vienna - Lichtental. His father, a school teacher, came from a peasant family. Mother was the daughter of a locksmith. The family was very fond of music and constantly arranged musical evenings. My father played the cello, and the brothers played various instruments.
Having discovered musical abilities in little Franz, his father and older brother Ignaz began to teach him to play the violin and piano. Soon the boy was able to take part in the home performance of string quartets, playing the viola part. Franz had a wonderful voice. He sang in the church choir, performing difficult solo parts. The father was pleased with the success of his son.
When Franz was eleven years old, he was assigned to a convict - a school for the training of church choristers. The atmosphere of the educational institution favored the development of the boy's musical abilities. In the school student orchestra, he played in the group of first violins, and sometimes even acted as a conductor. The orchestra's repertoire was varied. Schubert got acquainted with symphonic works of various genres (symphonies, overtures), quartets, vocal compositions. He confessed to his friends that Mozart's symphony in G minor shocked him. Beethoven's music became a high model for him.
Already in those years, Schubert began to compose. His first works are a fantasy for piano, a series of songs. The young composer writes a lot, with great enthusiasm, often to the detriment of other school activities. The boy's outstanding abilities drew the attention of the famous court composer Salieri to him, with whom Schubert studied for a year.
Over time, the rapid development of Franz's musical talent began to cause alarm in his father. Knowing well how difficult the path of musicians, even world famous ones, was, the father wanted to save his son from a similar fate. As punishment for his excessive passion for music, he even forbade him to be at home on holidays. But no prohibitions could delay the development of the boy's talent.
Schubert decided to break with the convict. Throw away boring and unnecessary textbooks, forget about worthless, heart and mind draining cramming and go free. To surrender entirely to music, to live only for it and for its sake. On October 28, 1813, he completed his first symphony in D major. On the last sheet of the score, Schubert wrote: "End and end." The end of the symphony and the end of the convict.
For three years he served as a teacher's assistant, teaching children literacy and other elementary subjects. But his attraction to music, the desire to compose is becoming stronger. One has only to marvel at the vitality of his creative nature. It was during these years of school hard labor from 1814 to 1817, when everything seemed to be against him, that he created an amazing number of works.
In 1815 alone, Schubert wrote 144 songs, 4 operas, 2 symphonies, 2 masses, 2 piano sonatas, and a string quartet. Among the creations of this period, there are many that are illuminated by the unfading flame of genius. These are the Tragic and Fifth Symphonies in B flat major, as well as the songs “Rose”, “Margarita at the Spinning Wheel”, “Forest King”, “Margarita at the Spinning Wheel” - a monodrama, a confession of the soul.
"The Forest King" is a drama with several actors. They have their own characters, sharply different from each other, their actions, completely dissimilar, their aspirations, opposing and hostile, their feelings, incompatible and polar.
The history of this masterpiece is amazing. It arose in a fit of inspiration.” Once, - recalls Shpaun, a friend of the composer, - we went to Schubert, who was then living with his father. We found our friend in the greatest excitement. With a book in his hand, he paced up and down the room, reading aloud The Forest King. Suddenly he sat down at the table and began to write. When he got up, a magnificent ballad was ready.”
The father's desire to make his son a teacher with a small but reliable income failed. The young composer firmly decided to devote himself to music and left teaching at school. He was not afraid of a quarrel with his father. All further short life of Schubert is a creative feat. Experiencing great material need and deprivation, he tirelessly created, creating one work after another.
Unfortunately, material hardships prevented him from marrying the girl he loved. Teresa Coffin sang in the church choir. From the very first rehearsals, Schubert noticed her, although she was inconspicuous. Fair-haired, with whitish eyebrows, as if faded in the sun, and a grainy face, like most dim blondes, she did not shine at all with beauty.Rather, on the contrary - at first glance it seemed ugly. Smallpox marks were clearly visible on her round face. But as soon as the music sounded, the colorless face was transformed. Only that it was extinct and therefore inanimate. Now, illumined by the inner light, it lived and radiated.
No matter how accustomed Schubert to the callousness of fate, he did not imagine that fate would treat him so cruelly. “Happy is he who finds a true friend. Even happier is the one who finds it in his wife.” he wrote in his diary.
However, the dreams were shattered. Teresa's mother, who raised her without a father, intervened. Her father owned a small silk mill. When he died, he left the family a small fortune, and the widow turned all her worries to ensure that the already meager capital did not decrease.
Naturally, she linked her hopes for a better future with her daughter's marriage. And even more naturally, Schubert did not suit her. In addition to the penny salary of an assistant school teacher, he had music, and, as you know, it is not capital. You can live with music, but you can't live with it.
A submissive girl from the suburbs, brought up in submission to her elders, even in her thoughts did not allow disobedience. The only thing she allowed herself was tears. Having quietly wept until the wedding, Teresa with swollen eyes went down the aisle.
She became the wife of a confectioner and lived a long, monotonously prosperous gray life, dying at the age of seventy-eight. By the time she was taken to the cemetery, Schubert's ashes had long since decayed in the grave.
For several years (from 1817 to 1822) Schubert lived alternately with one or the other of his comrades. Some of them (Spaun and Stadler) were friends of the composer during the contract. Later they were joined by the multi-talented in the field of art Schober, the artist Schwind, the poet Mayrhofer, the singer Vogl and others. Schubert was the soul of this circle.
Small in stature, stocky, stocky, very short-sighted, Schubert had great charm. Especially good were his radiant eyes, in which, as in a mirror, kindness, shyness and gentleness of character were reflected. A delicate, changeable complexion and curly brown hair gave his appearance a special appeal.
During the meetings, friends got acquainted with fiction, poetry of the past and present. They argued heatedly, discussing the issues that arose, and criticized the existing social order. But sometimes such meetings were devoted exclusively to the music of Schubert, they even received the name "Schubertiad".
On such evenings, the composer did not leave the piano, immediately composing ecossaises, waltzes, landlers and other dances. Many of them have remained unrecorded. No less admired were the songs of Schubert, which he often performed himself. Often these friendly gatherings turned into country walks.
Saturated with bold, lively thought, poetry, and beautiful music, these meetings represented a rare contrast with the empty and meaningless entertainments of secular youth.
The disorder of life, cheerful entertainment could not distract Schubert from creativity, stormy, continuous, inspired. He worked systematically, day after day. “I compose every morning when I finish one piece, I start another”
, - the composer admitted. Schubert composed music unusually quickly.
On some days he created up to a dozen songs! Musical thoughts were born continuously, the composer barely had time to put them on paper. And if it was not at hand, he wrote on the back of the menu, on scraps and scraps. In need of money, he especially suffered from a lack of music paper. Caring friends supplied the composer with it. Music visited him in a dream.
Waking up, he strove to write it down as soon as possible, so he did not part with his glasses even at night. And if the work did not immediately result in a perfect and complete form, the composer continued to work on it until he was completely satisfied.
So, for some poetic texts, Schubert wrote up to seven versions of songs! During this period, Schubert wrote two of his wonderful works - the "Unfinished Symphony" and the song cycle "The Beautiful Miller's Woman". "Unfinished Symphony" does not consist of four parts, as is customary, but of two. And the point is not at all that Schubert did not have time to finish the other two parts. He started on the third - the minuet, as required by the classical symphony, but abandoned his idea. The symphony, as it sounded, was completely completed. Everything else would be superfluous, unnecessary.
And if the classical form requires two more parts, it is necessary to give up the form. Which he did. Song was Schubert's element. In it, he reached unprecedented heights. The genre, previously considered insignificant, he raised to the degree of artistic perfection. And having done this, he went further - he saturated chamber music - quartets, quintets - and then symphonic music with song.
The combination of what seemed incompatible - miniature with large-scale, small with large, song with symphony - gave a new, qualitatively different from everything that was before - a lyric-romantic symphony. Her world is a world of simple and intimate human feelings, the subtlest and deepest psychological experiences. This is the confession of the soul, expressed not with a pen and not with a word, but with a sound.
The song cycle “Beautiful Miller's Woman” is a vivid confirmation of this. Schubert wrote it to the verses of the German poet Wilhelm Müller. "The Beautiful Miller's Woman" is an inspired creation, illuminated by gentle poetry, joy, romance of pure and high feelings.
The cycle consists of twenty individual songs. And all together they form a single dramatic play with a plot, ups and downs and a denouement, with one lyrical hero - a wandering mill apprentice.
However, the hero in "The Beautiful Miller's Woman" is not alone. Next to him is another, no less important hero - a stream. He lives his turbulent, intensely changeable life.
The works of the last decade of Schubert's life are very diverse. He writes symphonies, piano sonatas, quartets, quintets, trios, masses, operas, a lot of songs and much more. But during the composer's lifetime, his works were rarely performed, and most of them remained in manuscript.
Having neither the means nor influential patrons, Schubert had almost no opportunity to publish his writings. Songs, the main thing in the work of Schubert, were then considered more suitable for home music-making than for open concerts. Compared to the symphony and opera, songs were not considered important musical genres.
Not a single opera by Schubert was accepted for production, not a single one of his symphonies was performed by an orchestra. Not only that: the notes of his best Eighth and Ninth symphonies were found only many years after the death of the composer. And the songs to the words of Goethe, sent to him by Schubert, did not receive the attention of the poet.
Timidity, inability to arrange one's affairs, unwillingness to ask, to humiliate oneself in front of influential people were also an important reason for Schubert's constant financial difficulties. But, despite the constant lack of money, and often hunger, the composer did not want to go either to the service of Prince Esterhazy, or to the court organists, where he was invited. At times, Schubert did not even have a piano and composed without an instrument. Financial difficulties did not prevent him from composing music.
And yet the Viennese learned and fell in love with Schubert's music, which itself made its way to their hearts. Like old folk songs, passing from singer to singer, his works gradually acquired admirers. They were not frequenters of the brilliant court salons, representatives of the upper class. Like a forest stream, Schubert's music found its way to the hearts of ordinary people in Vienna and its suburbs.
An outstanding singer of that time, Johann Michael Vogl, who performed Schubert's songs to the accompaniment of the composer himself, played an important role here. Insecurity, continuous life failures seriously affected Schubert's health. His body was exhausted. Reconciliation with his father in the last years of his life, a more calm, balanced home life could no longer change anything. Schubert could not stop composing music, this was the meaning of his life.
But creativity required a huge expenditure of strength, energy, which became less and less every day. At the age of twenty-seven, the composer wrote to his friend Schober: "I feel like an unfortunate, most insignificant person in the world."
This mood was reflected in the music of the last period. If earlier Schubert created predominantly bright, joyful works, then a year before his death he wrote songs, uniting them under the common name “Winter Way”.
This has never happened to him before. He wrote about suffering and suffered. He wrote about hopeless longing and hopelessly yearned. He wrote about the excruciating pain of the soul and experienced mental anguish. "Winter Way" is a journey through the torments of both the lyrical hero and the author.
The cycle, written with the blood of the heart, excites the blood and stirs the heart. A thin thread woven by the artist connected the soul of one person with the soul of millions of people with an invisible but indissoluble bond. She opened their hearts to the flood of feelings rushing from his heart.
In 1828, through the efforts of friends, the only concert of his works during Schubert's lifetime was organized. The concert was a huge success and brought great joy to the composer. His plans for the future became brighter. Despite failing health, he continues to compose. The end came unexpectedly. Schubert fell ill with typhus.
The weakened body could not withstand a serious illness, and on November 19, 1828, Schubert died. The rest of the property was valued for pennies. Many writings have disappeared.
The well-known poet of that time, Grillparzer, who had composed Beethoven's funeral oration a year earlier, wrote on a modest monument to Schubert in the Vienna cemetery:
Amazing, deep and, it seems to me, mysterious melody. Sadness, faith, renunciation.
F. Schubert composed his song Ave Maria in 1825. Initially, this work by F. Schubert had little to do with Ave Maria. The title of the song was "Ellen's Third Song" and the lyrics to which the music was written were taken from the German translation of Walter Scott's poem "Lady of the Lake" by Adam Stork.
Creative way. The role of everyday and folk music in the artistic formation of Schubert
Franz Schubert was born on January 31, 1797 in Lichtental, a suburb of Vienna, in the family of a school teacher. The democratic environment that surrounded him from childhood had a great influence on the future composer.
Schubert's introduction to art began with home music-making, so characteristic of Austrian urban life. Apparently, from a young age, Schubert began to master the multinational musical folklore of Vienna.
In this city, on the border of east and west, north and south, the capital of a "patchwork" empire, many national cultures, including musical ones, were mixed. Austrian, German, Italian, Slavic in several varieties (Ukrainian, Czech, Ruthenian, Croatian), gypsy, Hungarian folklore sounded everywhere.
In Schubert's works, right down to the very last, there is a perceptible kinship with the diverse national origins of Vienna's everyday music. Undoubtedly, the dominant stream in his work is the Austro-German. Being an Austrian composer, Schubert also took a lot from German musical culture. But against this background, the features of Slavic and Hungarian folklore are especially stable and prominent.
There was nothing professional in Schubert's versatile musical education (he already got acquainted with the basics of composition, choral art, playing the organ, clavier, violin at home). In the era of emerging virtuoso variety art, it remained patriarchal and somewhat old-fashioned. Indeed, the lack of virtuoso piano training was one of the reasons for Schubert's alienation from the concert stage, which in the 19th century became the most powerful means of promoting new music, especially piano music. Subsequently, he had to overcome his timidity before large public performances. However, the absence of concert experience had its positive side: it was compensated by the purity and seriousness of the composer's musical tastes.
Schubert's works are free from deliberate showiness, from the desire to please the tastes of the philistine public, who are looking for entertainment in art. It is characteristic that out of the total number - about one and a half thousand works - he created only two actual pop compositions ("Concertshtuk" for violin and orchestra and "Polonaise" for violin and orchestra).
Schumann, one of the first connoisseurs of the Viennese romantic, wrote that the latter "did not have to first overcome the virtuoso in himself."
Schubert's invariable creative connection with folk genres, which were cultivated in his home environment, is also significant. Schubert's main artistic genre is the song - an art that exists among the people. Schubert draws his most innovative features from traditional folk music. Songs, a four-handed piano piece, arrangements of folk dances (waltzes, landlers, minuets and others) - all this was of paramount importance in determining the creative image of the Viennese romantic. Throughout his life, the composer maintained a connection not only with the everyday music of Vienna, but with the characteristic style of the Viennese suburbs.
Five years of study at Konvikta*,
* Closed general educational institution, which was also the school of court choristers.
from 1808 to 1813, significantly expanded the young man's musical horizons and for many years determined the nature of his ideological and artistic interests.
At school, playing in the student orchestra and conducting it, Schubert got acquainted with a number of outstanding works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, which had a profound impact on the formation of his artistic tastes. Direct participation in the choir gave him excellent knowledge and a sense of vocal culture, which is so important for his future work. In Konvikt, since 1810, the intense creative activity of the composer began. And besides, it was there, among the students, that Schubert found an environment close to him. Unlike Salieri, the official director of composition, who sought to educate his student in the traditions of the Italian opera seria, the youth sympathized with Schubert's searches and welcomed in his works the attraction to national-democratic art. In his songs and ballads, she felt the spirit of national poetry, the embodiment of the artistic ideals of the new generation.
In 1813, Schubert left Konvikt. Under strong pressure from his family, he agreed to become a teacher and, until the end of 1817, taught the alphabet and other elementary subjects at his father's school. It was the first and last service in the life of the composer.
In the years associated with his pedagogical activity, which burdened him, Schubert's creative talent unfolded with amazing brilliance. Despite the complete absence of connections with the professional musical world, he composed songs, symphonies, quartets, spiritual and choral music, piano sonatas, operas and other works. Already during this period, the leading role of the song was clearly indicated in his work. In 1815 alone, Schubert composed more than one hundred and forty romances. He wrote greedily, using every free minute, barely managing to put down on paper the thoughts that overwhelmed him. Almost without blots and changes, he created one finished work after another. The unique originality of each miniature, the poetic subtlety of their moods, the novelty and integrity of style elevate these works above everything that was created in the song genre by Schubert's predecessors. In "Margarita Behind the Spinning Wheel", "Forest Tsar", "Wanderer", "Trout", "To Music" and many other songs of these years, the characteristic images and expressive devices of romantic vocal lyrics were already fully defined.
The position of a provincial teacher became unbearable for the composer. In 1818, there was a painful break with his father due to the fact that Schubert refused to serve. He began a new life, devoting himself entirely to creativity.
These years have been marked by severe, unceasing need. Schubert had no source of material income. His music, gradually gaining recognition among the democratic intelligentsia, was performed almost exclusively in private homes and mainly in the provinces, without attracting the attention of influential people in the musical world of Vienna. This went on for ten years. It was only on the eve of Schubert's death that publishers began to buy small plays from him, and even then for a negligible fee. Lacking funds to rent an apartment, the composer spent most of his time living with his friends. The property left after him was valued at 63 florins.
Twice - in 1818 and 1824 - under the pressure of extreme need, Schubert briefly left for Hungary, as a music teacher in the family of Count Esterhazy. The relative wealth and even the novelty of impressions that attracted the composer, especially musical ones, which left a tangible mark on his work, still did not atone for the severity of the position of the “court servant” and spiritual loneliness.
And, however, nothing could paralyze his mental strength: neither the miserable level of existence, nor the disease, which gradually destroyed his health. His path was a continuous creative ascent. In the 1920s, Schubert lived a particularly intense spiritual life. He moved among the progressive democratic intelligentsia*.
* The Schubert circle included I. von Shpaun, F. Schober, the outstanding artist M. von Schwind, the brothers A. and I. Huttenbrevner, the poet E. Meyerhofer, the revolutionary poet I. Zenn, the artists L. Kupelwieser in I. Telcher, student E. von Bauernfeld, the famous singer I. Vogl and others. In recent years, the outstanding Austrian playwright and poet Franz Grillparzer joined him.
Public interests and issues of political struggle, the latest works of literature and art, contemporary philosophical problems were at the center of attention of Schubert and his friends.
The composer was acutely aware of the oppressive atmosphere of Metternich's reaction, which became especially thickened in the last years of his life. In 1820, the entire Schubert circle received official condemnation for revolutionary sentiment. The protest against the existing order is frankly expressed in the letters and other statements of the great musician.
“It’s just a misfortune, how everything now ossifies in vulgar prose, and many people look at it indifferently and even feel quite good, calmly rolling through the mud into the abyss,” he wrote to a friend in 1825.
“... Already a wise and beneficent state system has taken care that the artist always remains a slave to every miserable merchant,” says another letter.
Schubert's poem "A Complaint to the People" (1824) has been preserved, according to the author, composed "in one of those gloomy moments when I especially acutely and painfully felt the futility and insignificance of life, characteristic of our time." Here are the lines from that outpouring:
O youth of our days, you rushed!
The power of the people wasted
And bright less and less every year,
And life goes the way of vanity.
It's harder to live in suffering
Although I still have strength.
Lost days that I hate
Could serve a great purpose...
And only you, Art, are destined
Capture both action and time,
To moderate the sad burden...** Translation by L. Ozerov
Indeed, Schubert devoted all his unspent spiritual energy to art.
The high intellectual and spiritual maturity he achieved during these years was reflected in the new content of his music. Great philosophical depth and drama, gravitation towards large scales, towards generalizing instrumental thinking distinguish Schubert's work of the 1920s from the music of the early period. Beethoven, who a few years ago, during the period of Schubert's boundless admiration for Mozart, sometimes frightened the young composer away with his gigantic passions and harsh, unvarnished truthfulness, has now become for him the highest artistic measure. Beethoven - in terms of scale, great intellectual depth, dramatic interpretation of images and heroic tendencies - enriched the immediate and emotional-lyrical character of Schubert's early music.
Already in the first half of the 1920s, Schubert created instrumental masterpieces, which subsequently took their place among the most outstanding examples of world musical classics. In 1822, the "Unfinished Symphony" was written - the first symphonic work in which romantic images received their finished artistic expression.
In the early period, new romantic themes - love lyrics, pictures of nature, folk fiction, lyrical mood - were embodied by Schubert in songwriting. His instrumental works of those years were still very dependent on classicist samples. Now sonata genres have become for him the spokesmen of a new world of ideas. Not only the "Unfinished Symphony", but also three wonderful quartets composed in the first half of the 20s (unfinished, 1820; A minor, 1824; D minor, 1824-1826), compete with his song in novelty, beauty and completeness style. The courage of the young composer seems amazing, who, boundlessly bowing to Beethoven, went his own way and created a new direction of romantic symphonism. Just as independent in this period is his interpretation of chamber instrumental music, which no longer follows either the path of Haydn's quartets, which previously served as his models, or the path of Beethoven, whose quartet turned into a philosophical genre in the same years, significantly different in style from his democratic dramatized symphonies.
And in piano music during these years, Schubert creates high artistic values. Fantasy "The Wanderer" (the same age as the "Unfinished Symphony"), German dances, waltzes, landlers, "Musical Moments" (1823-1827), "Impromptu" (1827), many piano sonatas can be assessed without exaggeration as a new stage in the history of musical literature . Free from the schematic imitation of the classicist sonata, this piano music was distinguished by unprecedented lyrical and psychological expressiveness. Growing up from intimate improvisation, from everyday dance, it was based on new romantic artistic means. None of these creations sounded from the concert stage during Schubert's lifetime. The deep, restrained piano music of Schubert, imbued with a subtle poetic mood, diverged too sharply, with the pianistic style developing in those years - virtuoso-bravura, spectacular. Even the "Wanderer" fantasy - Schubert's only virtuoso piano work - was so alien to these requirements that only Liszt's arrangement helped her achieve popularity on the concert stage.
In the choral sphere, the Mass As-dur (1822) appears - one of the most original and powerful works created in this ancient genre by composers of the 19th century. With the four-part vocal ensemble Song of the Spirits over the Waters to a text by Goethe (1821), Schubert opens up completely unexpected colorful and expressive resources of choral music.
He makes changes even to the song - an area in which, almost from the first steps, Schubert found a complete romantic form. In the song cycle "The Beautiful Miller's Woman" (1823), based on the texts of the poet Müller, one feels a more dramatic and in-depth perception of the world. In music based on verses by Rückert, Pirker, from Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and others, a greater freedom of expression and a more perfect development of thought are noticeable.
“Words are constrained, but sounds, fortunately, are still free!” - Beethoven said about Metternich's Vienna. And in the works of recent years, Schubert expressed his attitude to the darkness of the life around him. In the D minor quartet (1824-1826), in the song cycle "The Winter Road" (1827), in the songs to the texts of Heine (1828), the tragic theme is embodied with striking force and novelty. Saturated with passionate protest, Schubert's music of these years is at the same time distinguished by an unprecedented psychological depth. And yet, not once in any of his later works did the composer's tragic worldview turn into brokenness, into unbelief, into neurasthenia. The tragic in Schubert's art does not reflect impotence, but sorrow for a person and faith in his high purpose. Speaking of spiritual loneliness, it also expresses an irreconcilable attitude towards gloomy modernity.
But along with the tragic theme in the art of Schubert in recent years, heroic-epic tendencies are clearly manifested. It was then that he created his most life-affirming and bright music, imbued with the pathos of the people. The Ninth Symphony (1828), the string quartet (1828), the cantata Miriam's Victory Song (1828) - these and other works speak of Schubert's desire to capture in his art images of heroics, images of "the time of power and deeds."
The composer's latest works opened up a new and unexpected side of his creative personality. The lyricist and miniaturist began to get involved in monumental-epic canvases. Captured by the new artistic horizons opening before him, he thought of devoting himself entirely to large, generalizing genres.
“I don’t want to hear anything more about songs, I have now finally set to operas and symphonies,” Schubert said at the end of his last C-dur symphony, six months before the end of his life.
His enriched creative thought is reflected in new searches. Now Schubert turns not only to Viennese everyday folklore, but also to folk themes in a broader, Beethovenian sense. His interest in both choral music and polyphony is growing. In the last year of his life, he composed four major choral works, including an outstanding Mass in Es-dur. But he combined grand scale with fine detail, and Beethoven's drama with romantic images. Never before had Schubert achieved such versatility and depth of content as in his most recent creations. The composer, who had already composed more than a thousand works, stood in the year of his death on the verge of new grandiose discoveries.
The end of Schubert's life was marked by two outstanding events, which, however, occurred with a fatal delay. In 1827, Beethoven praised several of Schubert's songs and expressed a desire to get acquainted with the works of the young author. But when Schubert, overcoming shyness, came to the great musician, Beethoven was already on his deathbed.
Another event was Schubert's first author's evening in Vienna (in March 1828), which was a huge success. But a few months after this concert, which first attracted the attention of the broad musical community of the capital to the composer, he died. Schubert's death, which occurred on November 19, 1828, was hastened by prolonged nervous and physical exhaustion.
Franz Schubert (January 31, 1797 - November 19, 1828) was a famous Austrian composer and pianist. Founder of musical romanticism. In the song cycles, Schubert embodied the spiritual world of a contemporary - "a young man of the 19th century." Wrote ok. 600 songs (to the words of F. Schiller, I.V. Goethe, G. Heine and others), including from the cycles “The Beautiful Miller’s Woman” (1823), “The Winter Road” (1827, both to the words of W. Müller) ; 9 symphonies (including "Unfinished", 1822), quartets, trios, piano quintet "Trout" (1819); piano sonatas (St. 20), impromptu, fantasies, waltzes, landlers, etc. He also wrote works for the guitar.
There are many arrangements of Schubert's works for guitar (A. Diabelli, I.K. Mertz and others).
About Franz Schubert and his work
Valery Agababov
Musicians and music lovers will be interested to know that Franz Schubert, without having a piano at home for a number of years, used mainly the guitar in composing his works. His famous "Serenade" was marked "for guitar" in the manuscript. And if we listen more closely to the melodious and simple in its sincerity music of F. Schubert, we will be surprised to note that much of what he wrote in the song and dance genre has a pronounced "guitar" character.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) is a great Austrian composer. Born in the family of a school teacher. He was brought up in the Viennese convent, where he studied bass general with V. Ruzicka, counterpoint and composition with A. Salieri.
From 1814 to 1818 he worked as an assistant teacher at his father's school. Around Schubert there was a circle of friends-admirers of his work (including the poets F. Schober and I. Mayrhofer, the artists M. Schwind and L. Kupilviser, the singer I. M. Fogl, who became a propagandist of his songs). These friendly meetings with Schubert went down in history under the name "Schubertiad". As a music teacher for the daughters of Count I. Esterhazy, Schubert traveled to Hungary, together with Vogl traveled to Upper Austria and Salzburg. In 1828, a few months before Schubert's death, his author's concert took place, which was a great success.
The most important place in the legacy of F. Schubert is occupied by songs for voice and piano (about 600 songs). One of the greatest melodists, Schubert reformed the song genre, endowing it with deep content. Schubert created a new type of song of through development, as well as the first highly artistic samples of the vocal cycle ("The Beautiful Miller's Woman", "Winter Way"). Peru belongs to Schubert operas, singspiel, masses, cantatas, oratorios, quartets for male and female voices (he used the guitar as an accompanying instrument in male choirs and op. 11 and 16).
In Schubert's instrumental music, based on the traditions of the composers of the Viennese classical school, song-type thematics acquired great importance. He created 9 symphonies, 8 overtures. The apex examples of romantic symphonism are the lyrical-dramatic "Unfinished" symphony and the majestic heroic-epic "Big" symphony.
Piano music is an important area of Schubert's work. Influenced by Beethoven, Schubert established the tradition of free romantic interpretation of the piano sonata genre (23). The fantasy "Wanderer" anticipates the "poetic" forms of the Romantics (F. Liszt). Impromptu (11) and musical moments (6) by Schubert are the first romantic miniatures close to the works of F. Chopin and R. Schumann. Piano minuets, waltzes, "German dances", landlers, ecossesses, etc. reflected the composer's desire to poeticize dance genres. Schubert wrote more than 400 dances.
The work of F. Schubert is closely connected with Austrian folk art, with the everyday music of Vienna, although he rarely used genuine folk themes in his compositions.
F. Schubert is the first major representative of musical romanticism, who, according to academician B.V. Asafiev, expressed "the joys and sorrows of life" in the way "as most people feel and would like to convey."
Magazine "Guitarist", №1, 2004
