Composer of the Month: Franz Schubert (Classical Period)

Anyone who loves music can never be quite unhappy. — Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) was an Austrian composer who bridged the worlds of Classical and Romantic music. Born in Vienna, Austria, he was from a very musical family and played the viola in his family’s string quartet alongside his father— who was his first music teacher—and his brothers.

Schubert learned to play the organ, violin, and piano, and he sang in the local choir. His organ teacher quickly identified him as a child prodigy, claiming he did not provide actual instruction but rather watched him play with silent astonishment.

This talent earned Schubert a scholarship to study under the celebrated composer Antonio Salieri in the Imperial College in Austria. In his early teens, Schubert began writing his first compositions. He left school at 16 to join Vienna’s imperial teacher’s training college, and a year later, started teaching music at the same school as his father. During his teenage years, Schubert composed nine liturgical works, a symphony, as well as over 100 Deutsche Lieder (German songs).

Schubert became a popular attraction at a number of private musical soirées. He also hosted parties with musicians, poets, painters, singers, and students, who gathered to listen to his music. These gatherings came to be called Schubertiades (Schubert evenings).

With little money, Schubert produced a seemingly endless stream of masterpieces until the end of his life. At the time of his death at the age of 31, he had written some 600 lieder, nine symphonies, as well as chamber music, masses, piano works, and compositions left unfinished.

Along with fellow Classical-era composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Joseph Haydn, and Ludwig van Beethoven, Schubert established customs and musical language that classical musicians continue to use today. These composers are sometimes grouped into a collective called the First Viennese School of classical music.

Click here to listen to Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B Minor ('Unfinished Symphony') — one of classical music's most intriguing works, despite never having been finished.