BY:Brittany & Christina

Franz was born in Vienna on January and died November Franz was a son of a schoolmaster;he showed a great interest for music, studying the piano, violin, organ, singing and harmony. By 1814 he produced piano pieces setting of Schiller & Metastasio, string quartet. Schubert's discovery of Wilhelm Müller's narrative lyrics gave rise to his further development of the lied by means of the song cycle. Again, his two masterpieces were practically without precedent and have never been surpassed. Both identify nature with human suffering.

Music was the essence of his being, and, considering the vast quantity of works of all kinds which he penned during the brief period of 18 years, it would have been surprising had he found time to pursue any other study to serious purpose. And it would be extremely idle and unreasonable to regret his concentration of energy on this one subject. The world would be a loser had Schubert devoted the time occupied in noting down his beautiful thoughts to perfecting himself in different languages or mathematics. He had a mission to accomplish, and the time allotted him was brief. Let us then be grateful that he fulfilled the task set before him so worthily and well.

Schubert's music was almost entirely neglected during his life time- and for half a century afterward. Although his gifts were extraordinary, he had no talent for his self- promotion. He died before he could establish the reputation that he deserved. He came from a modest family; his mother was a cook his father was a school master.

Franz Peter Schubert was the youngest of four surviving children (eight others died in infancy) of a Viennese schoolmaster. From his father, Schubert learned to play the violin and piano. His musical talent was recognized early. He studied with Salieri (whose nemesis was Mozart, according to the movie Amadeus), a fact of which he was very proud. Likewise, Salieri said that his student knew "all that there was to know about music". During his lifetime Schubert was never recognized outside of Vienna. Before his death at the age of 31, only one of his nine (the tenth was started but not completed) symphonies, none of his fifteen operas, only one of his nineteen quartets, only one of his seven masses, and only 187 of over 600 songs were published. Credit must be given to George Grove, the English critic and musicologist, for discovering Schubert and introducing him to the world. In 1856, Grove heard a performance of Schubert's C Major Symphony, believing it to be the only symphony Schubert wrote. In 1865 Grove, with Arthur Sullivan, visited Vienna and learned much about the rest of Schubert's music. In 1879 Grove published the first edition of his now famous and widely used "Dictionary of Music". In it was a splendid article on Schubert which was the first widely available information that allowed the world to truly begin to appreciate him.

By: Robert