Franz Schubert
Composer

A Schoolmaster's Son With Too Many Siblings

I was born in Vienna in January 1797, the twelfth child of a parish schoolmaster, and only five of the fourteen children in our family lived to adulthood. My father taught me the violin, my brother Ignaz started me on the piano, and the parish organist Michael Holzer taught me organ, singing and harmony. In 1808 a choir scholarship got me into the Stadtkonvikt, where I first got to know the music of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. Antonio Salieri also took me on as a private pupil in 1812, which is a bit like having the most respected music teacher in town look over your homework.

The Day a Ghost Story Made Me Known

For a few years I did what a young man with a schoolmaster father was supposed to do, and from 1814 I taught at my father's school, though I never found it satisfying. What I really wanted was to write songs, and I wrote them in great numbers, including Gretchen am Spinnrade. In 1821 the singer Johann Michael Vogl performed my song Erlkönig, a gripping tale of a father riding through the night with his sick child, and people finally started to notice me. That same year the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, which had turned me down in 1818, admitted me as a performing member.

Vienna, My Sofa and My Friends

I spent nearly my whole life in Vienna, and I never had a grand court position to my name. I lodged for a while with my friend Franz von Schober and later lived with the poet Johann Mayrhofer, so I was rarely short of company, or of a roof, as long as someone was feeling generous. In the summers of 1818 and 1824 I went off to teach music to the Esterházy family at Zselíz, which was a pleasant change of scenery. In the early 1820s my friends began gathering for evenings of my music that came to be called Schubertiads, and I still think they were the best concerts I ever had.

The Greatest Hits, Starting With a Prayer

The piece you'll find on this site is my Ave Maria, a prayer set to a melody that flows so smoothly you could almost forget someone had to write it. A calm accompaniment rocks gently underneath while the voice rises and falls in long, quiet lines, and nothing in it ever feels rushed. Beyond that one, I wrote the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, and the Trout Quintet, which is cheerful enough to make a rainy afternoon feel better. I also started a symphony in 1822 that people now call the Unfinished, and nobody has ever found out why I stopped.

Plenty of Doors, Not Many of Them Open

I always had a lot of trouble earning a living, because publishers were reluctant and the royalties I received were small. My admirers were mostly a circle of friends in Vienna, and they were loyal but not exactly a crowd. I also kept trying my luck in the theatre and wrote twenty stage works, yet I finished only eleven, and most of them failed. In 1820 the police even arrested me along with four friends and gave us a reprimand, which is the closest I ever came to a life of crime.

One Good Concert and One Bad Winter

On 26 March 1828 I finally gave a public concert devoted entirely to my own works, the only one of my life. That year I also finished my Great C major symphony, though it seems it was rehearsed and never publicly performed while I lived, and the reasons are unclear. In November 1828 I died at my brother Ferdinand's apartment in Vienna, at only 31, and the official cause was typhoid fever. A collection of songs called Schwanengesang was published after my death, which gave it a rather fitting name.

Famous Only After I Stopped Being Around

I was first buried in Währing, near Beethoven's grave, and in 1888 both of our graves were moved to the Zentralfriedhof. Franz Grillparzer wrote my epitaph, which says that music has buried a rich possession here. Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms all championed my music, and Schumann spoke of the "heavenly length" of my Great C major symphony. In 1867 George Grove and Arthur Sullivan found many of my manuscripts in Vienna, and Brahms later edited the first series of a complete edition of my works.

What I'd Like to Hand You

I'd like you to hear in my music that someone is singing to you quietly and honestly, without trying to impress you. When you listen to my Ave Maria, I hope you can put down whatever you were carrying for a few minutes. I never needed you to know a single rule of music, because a melody should be able to reach anyone who is willing to listen. If it keeps you company on a quiet evening, I'll feel as though I'm back at one of those Schubertiads with my friends.