Franz Peter Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer widely regarded as one of the founders of musical Romanticism. Born on 31 January 1797 in a suburb of Vienna, he displayed remarkable musical talent from an early age, receiving his first instruction from members of his family before studying organ, singing, and theory under local teachers. At the age of eleven, he entered the Imperial Chapel Choir and the Convict school in Vienna, where he received a thorough musical education and encountered the works of Haydn and Mozart as a violinist in the student orchestra. During these formative years he also began to compose, producing early operas, symphonies, piano works, and songs.

Schubert briefly worked as a schoolteacher after leaving the choir, but his true ambition was to become a full-time composer. His earliest masterpieces included the opera "The Devil’s Pleasure Castle" and the Mass in F major, both completed in 1814. Despite rejection from publishers and unsuccessful attempts to secure professional positions, Schubert continued to write prolifically, supported by a circle of friends who admired his talent. His breakthrough came with the song "Erlkönig," a dramatic setting of Goethe’s poem that quickly gained attention through performances by the baritone Johann Michael Vogl.

From 1818 onward Schubert increasingly devoted himself to composition, spending summers teaching music at the Esterházy estate and achieving growing recognition in Viennese salons. However, his life was marked by financial uncertainty and declining health, particularly after a serious illness in 1822. Nonetheless, he entered a period of extraordinary creativity, producing symphonies, chamber works, piano sonatas, and hundreds of songs. His only public concert in March 1828 was a major success, bringing him significant income and public acclaim.

Schubert died on 19 November 1828 in Vienna at the age of 31, likely from typhoid fever. He was buried according to his wishes near the grave of Beethoven, whom he deeply admired. His remains were later transferred to Vienna’s Central Cemetery in 1888. Although only a fraction of his music was published during his lifetime, Schubert left behind an enormous body of work, including nine symphonies, more than twenty-five chamber compositions, numerous piano pieces, ten operas, six masses, and over six hundred songs. His music shaped the development of the Lied, expanded the expressive range of piano and chamber music, and influenced composers from Liszt and Schumann to Britten and Strauss.

Posthumous rediscovery of Schubert’s manuscripts in the nineteenth century—especially by Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, George Grove, and Arthur Sullivan—led to a major reassessment of his legacy. The publication of his collected works by Breitkopf & Härtel under the editorship of Johannes Brahms further solidified his reputation. Today Schubert is revered for his poetic imagination, lyrical mastery, and innovative harmonic language, and his works remain central to the Western classical canon.

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