Franz Schubert (1797-1828) contracted syphilis at 25, and died at the tragically young age of 31, so much of his later work is inevitably describes as “valedictory”. The maturity of his music, and the stuffy portraits we have of Schubert belie his tender age. Roughly speaking, we can say he wrote in the style of Beethoven. Of his chamber music, the first piano trio, the “Trout quintet” (piano and strings) written when he was just 22, the Octet and the string quintet (especially the first movement) are all delightful. His early symphonies are classical and not particularly worth listening to. I’m fond of the 5th because I used to play it as a piano duet. With the first of the two movements we have of the “unfinished” symphony (numbered as the 7th or the 8th symphony; there’s one after it too but it’s nothing special), there seems to be a real departure towards a more brooding and interesting world, and it makes you wonder what he would have gone on to achieve if he had lived a full life. But if you are after rich brooding orchestral sounds, you can wait for the later German masters.
Regarding his piano music, Schubert was not himself a virtuoso and as a consequence most of his works are quite playable. Of most interest are:
- Impromptus – they are nice but some of them really do go on. The best are Op90 D899 no. 2 and 3, and op142 D935 no. 4 in A flat major (and no. 3 sounds like variations on Schumann’s kinderscenen)
- 6 moments musicaux op94 (especially no 3 and 4)
- Wanderer Fantasie
- the early sonatas can be skipped, but the “late” sonatas, ie #19, 20 and 21. They all sound like late Beethoven with their resigned calm depth
- 6 Deutsche Tanze (these miniature pieces are nice to play)
- piano duet Fantasie in F minor (at least fun to play)
Schubert is also celebrated for his 600 or so songs or ‘lieder’. He practically invented this form of setting poets (and at the top of the list Goethe and Schiller) to voice with piano accompaniment. I’ve never really taken to male voice songs, which make up the celebrated song cycles such as “Winterreise” (rejected love being the typical romantic theme!), “Erikönig” and “Die Schöne Müllerin”. But I love to listen to the female voice songs for their atmosphere of melancholy (I love the “Schubert lieder” album sung by Barbara Bonney on Elatus label). Favourites are Ellens Gesang iii (Ave Maria), Seligkeit D433, Gretchen am Spingrad (this celebrated lieder was one of his first, written when he was but 17) and Der Jüngling an der Quelle, D300. The music and lyrics (which I first heard it in English as a small boy and was traumatised by) of The EarlKing are devastating and I can’t listen to it. “Schwanengesang” (Swan song) D957 is a late collection of 14 songs, of which the movement ständchen is also well known from Liszt’s piano transcription.