Franz Schubert has fascinated music goers for two centuries. MusicOL speaks from time to time of his own irresistible melomaniac passion about him. The Guardian has just released an article-page with a raft of excellent pieces.
The simple facts of Franz Schubert‘s life shed little light on the enormous emotional range of his music, and the seismic effect his work has had. Living almost entirely in his home town of Vienna, he was a loyal but occasionally cantankerous and drunk friend to a tight-knit groups of artists, poets and writers. He wrote more than 600 songs, more than a dozen string quartets and 21 piano sonatas; he completed seven symphonies, with many more left unfinished; he wrote operas, masses, piano trios and duets. Yet there was only one public concert of his music in his lifetime. He died at 31, from typhus and syphilis.
It was decades before his achievement was recognised; the « Unfinished » Symphony premiered in 1865, 37 years after his death. Yet the more we know about his music, the more there is to explore. A new Radio 3 season starting this Friday, The Spirit of Schubert, will give us that chance. (Radio is a peculiarly Schubertian medium, the most intimate way of connecting a composer and listener.) There is a whole life revealed in his music, and if you really listen to him, Schubert will change yours, too. We asked musicians and enthusiasts which work they couldn’t live without.
The comments of those are very uneven, albeit sincere. For someone, that will not be quoted hereafter, a given slow piano movement is a « play of pure sound, without external reference, that gives us a glimpse of eternity« . This is the definition of music actually : more than making time stand still, it is one of the best to spend time, sometimes slow, sometimes hectic.
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– FS ? | Schubert + Te Kanawa | Brendel Poet of Notes + Words | Geister der Musik u. der Literatur | Franz Schubert (MusicOL).
Lavoisy/Net 