Historical Figure: Franz Peter Schubert

Several thousand people accompanied Beethoven’s coffin on its last journey to the Wahring Cemetery on March 29, 1827. The entire staff of Viennese musicians was there, and among the eight of them who carried the coffin, some were famous, but E6th, Franz Schubert, was practically unknown to those present. In his early thirties, he had only had fleeting success, with a brief one-act opera and a few piano and lieder pieces published, but he had never given a public concert.

Schubert (1797-1828) lived most of his life in Vienna as an elusive, withdrawn man who seemed uninterested in his surroundings. He never had a stable job, did not want to travel around Europe as a pianist or conductor, did not give important performances, or have publishing success. He never married, nor did he have his own house or a fixed income. As S. Sablich writes: "No, no, and no. From what it seems, a biography of Schubert could be written in successive generations."

As Self-Preservation 6ists, Schubert had a complicated relationship with fame and success: he had a quiet and reserved nature and never asked much from life. For the Viennese, as for all Europeans, Beethoven was the great one, and only a few composers deserved to be mentioned alongside him, but with due distance. Schubert was not among them.

In his city, he was somewhat famous, but more as a songwriter than for orchestral compositions. It was, therefore, basically a local fame, particularly because Schubert never left Vienna, apart from two short trips to nearby Hungary. He did not aspire to success and was the first great composer in history who was neither a conductor nor a soloist. Therefore, he could not be famous as a performer or virtuoso. He settled for composing, page after page, a remarkable amount of music, regardless of whether anyone played it or not. Creating music was a mission for him. He once told a friend: "The state should support me. I came into this world to compose, and that’s enough."

Franz Peter Schubert was born on January 31, 1797, in Lichtental, a suburb of Vienna. The house on Nussdorfer Strasse, with the emblem of the red crab, is now a museum. He was the son of a modest school teacher and the twelfth child of fourteen, only five of whom reached adulthood. Franz had a modest childhood. He grew up in a family atmosphere marked by baptisms and funerals. It was as if life and death were constantly swapping roles according to an indecipherable pattern.

S. Sablich, L'altro Schubert, EDT, Turin, 2002, p.2 Historical figure: Franz Peter Schubert

This had to influence the boy, who developed a strong attachment to his mother and a silent hostility toward his father, a self-righteous, obtuse authoritarian. This amateur cellist would be the first teacher of young Franz. The future composer studied singing, organ, piano, and harmony, led by Michael Holzer, organist and parish choirmaster of Lichtental. In 1808, at the age of eleven, he was a singer in the choir. He was captured by the court, and after obtaining a scholarship, he entered the Royal Stadtkonvikt in Vienna, where he perfected his musical training under the guidance of court organist Wenzel Ruczicka and composer Antonio Salieri. In May 1812, when Franz was fifteen years old, his mother died of typhoid fever. His father remarried the following year to a bourgeois lady who, according to gossip, had been his lover for a long time. Five children were born from the new marriage, four of whom survived. We know little about his relationship with his stepmother, but we can imagine the state of mind of a docile and introverted adolescent in the face of such traumatic events.

The first compositions (1811-1812) were quartets written to be performed in the family environment. In 1813, Franz Schubert dropped out to attend his father’s school. The following year, he learned Goethe's poetry, which would become a great source of inspiration for his lieder until his death. Inspired by Faust, he composed Margarita en la rueca: the birth of the romantic lie, the first great testimony of a new relationship between poetry and music. In 1815, Schubert wrote Erlkönig; by the end of 1816, he had written more than five hundred lieders for voice and piano.

Giuseppe Volpi, Uno sguardo oltre l'incompiuta. Note his poetic schubertiana.

http://www.cameristica.it/Portals/o/locandine/a2k13/20131109-Franz%20Schubert%20Intr oduzione%2ogenerale.pdf

That same year, with the help of Franz von Schober and some friends who would finance him throughout his life, Schubert left his family and his work at his father's school to dedicate himself to music. He lived off what he earned from a few lessons, waiting for Viennese publishers to take an interest in his work. Schubert simply wanted to write music freely and spend most of his time with his friends.

Schubert's group of friends was the prototype of the romantic circle, born of the new figure of the "free artist." The gatherings of its members were called schubertiades. Artists, writers, musicians, music lovers, dilettantes, and curious people participated. The door was not closed to anyone as long as they knew how to do something: sing, recite, write, paint, dance, or compose. They took place at the house of friends or wealthy acquaintances. Eduard von Bauernfeld writes in his memoirs:

The schubertiades were celebrated among cheerful and lively companions; when the wine flowed like water, the excellent singer Vogl would offer us marvelous songs, and poor Franz accompanied him until his little fingers would no longer obey him.

No composer of the time could completely escape the influence of Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn; however, Schubert, once he had shaped his style, was more personal than any of his contemporaries. He admired Beethoven but kept his distance.

6. B. Paumgartner, Schubert, Alianza, Madrid, 1992. 7. N. y A. Russano, op. cit.

A serious venereal disease, syphilis, which he had suffered from 1822, undermined his health. As a result, he was unable to overcome the typhoid fever he contracted in Eisenstadt during a visit to Franz Joseph Haydn's grave. He died at the age of only thirty-one on November 19, 1828. There are many traits of Schubert's character that correspond to those of an Self-Preservation 6: shyness, but also a rebellious and transgressive side; a lack of confidence in his professional capacity; rejection of public success and social visibility; a conflictual relationship with his father and idealization of his mother; a search for intimacy and protection in his friends' environments; nostalgia for affectionate warmth and a sense of orphanhood and wandering; and a problematic relationship with money, women, and sexuality.

The Conflictual Relationship With The Father And Idealization Of The Mother

As S. Sablich writes, on one hand, the unresolved conflict with his father’s dominant personality and, on the other, the idealization of his mother figure, determined Schubert's dual nature.

The Dionysian aspect came from his father, who, however, had channeled him into the orthodox sphere of religion and family. Young Franz, on the other hand, developed a total aversion to the authority of the paterfamilias and a real disgust for family and children. With his father, there was a profound lack of communication, with a strange mixture of unexpressed hostility and admiration. After donning his armor as a tough, intransigent, and dogmatic figure, his father hid his insecurity and anxiety: the wall that separated father and son was never torn down, and although Franz suffered for it, the conflict remained unresolved.

In a somewhat autobiographical account from July 3, 1822, Schubert imagines accompanying his father to a banquet from which, unlike his brothers, he feels alienated. For this reason, the father angrily throws him out of the house. Franz walks away with a heart full of love for those who reject him and leaves for another country. But when he

receives news of his mother's death, he asks to return home, and his father does not object. When he sees her, Franz cries and relives his mother’s presence, remembering the past. A few days later, his father takes him, as in the old days, to his favorite garden and asks if he likes it: Franz, after much hesitation, answers no, trembling. His father strikes him, and with his heart still full of love for the one who rejects him for the second time, Franz takes the path of exile again. This story shows the ambivalence with which Franz is linked to his father: on one hand, he feels misunderstood, and on the other, he seeks their approval and recognition. From a young age, Schubert refused to submit to patriarchal imperatives founded on traditional values of career, religion, and marriage. This cost him many discussions with his family and impacted his affirmation as a composer.

Franz saw in his mother, from whom he had grown up far and whom he lost very early, a submissive angel, a victim of paternal despotism. From her, he inherited resignation, docility, and sweetness. He was tied to his mother by an almost morbid attachment, impregnated with complicity and understanding that, however, he had few opportunities to express through tenderness and affectionate effusions.

The family atmosphere exerted a decisive influence on Schubert's character. Although he was not a careless child, he had to adapt very early to the rigid rules of modest family life. However, there was "another family" in which the young Franz grew up: that of the students at his father’s school, located first in the premises next to his house. House, family, and school were practically one, and the rhythm of the days was marked by school hours and breaks, during which young Franz shared moments with his older brothers and other schoolchildren. Here, he learned patriarchal discipline, from which he would later try to escape, but also the sociability of belonging to a group and sharing its customs, which would accompany him for the rest of his life.

Shyness and Discretion

The rules imposed at the Stadtkonvikt were much stricter than those at home. Furthermore, the young Franz found himself in a heterogeneous reality, both by origin and age, with his companions. These fellow students from the Imperial Seminary recall a shy and introverted young Franz. On school trips, he would stand aside, staring down at the ground, hands behind his back, always deep in thought. During recess, he preferred to be alone or retire to the music room, which everyone avoided because it was cold and damp.

The unfinished diary, which he began in 1816, contains delightful adolescent reveries: "Man is like a ball with which chance and passions play."

Probably, Schubert, as a good shy man, felt easily cornered or mistreated and was extremely sensitive to others' reactions. Yet, there was something about him that assured him of the devoted affection of his friends. And women, later, would only want to pamper him. He looked like a little doll (he was 1.55 meters tall), chubby (they called him "the little barrel"), with curly black hair, a rounded nose, and a hazelnut-shaped chin. He had poor vision and always wore glasses. His disposition was gentle, and he was always in a good mood. It wasn’t difficult to convince him to sit at the piano and improvise a waltz at parties. Friends also called him Schwammerl, meaning little mushroom, because of his large head, embedded in a small, thick body. Over time, his character closed off, revealing a melancholic feeling through his musical writing, which was the language he preferred.

Far from any form of vanity, simple and kind with his friends, he gave the impression of being a person without character. However, those who knew him agree that his character, extremely elusive and reserved, reluctant to fight to assert himself or take a position in his career, presented enigmatic areas—divided, if not opposed. One could speak of a Schubert “with two faces”: overflowing and unconventional joy, and a deep melancholy.

The Rejection of Success and Personal Affirmation

In 1808, at eleven years old, Schubert was admitted to the choir of the C Chapel of the Imperial Seminary for the beauty of his voice. He was a sweet and uncomplicated boy with great musical talent.

A brilliant young man, he immediately asserted his superiority. He quickly became a favorite of the seminary as a fine pianist and violinist, and a prolific composer. The main music teacher realized, at one point, that he could no longer teach the boy anything else: "He has learned from God!"—they say he said. Shortly after, another teacher wrote:

"If I set out to teach him something new, I knew he already knew it. Consequently, I gave him no real instruction but merely talked to him and watched him in dumb astonishment."

From his youth, Schubert had several occasions to assert himself. He caught the attention of Antonio Salieri, the musical director of the court, with whom he studied composition. Salieri was one of the most famous composers of his time. He had contacts in all circles and was also Mozart's "beast noire," someone who had always thwarted Mozart's progress; at the time, there was a rumor that Salieri had poisoned Mozart, though no evidence was ever found.

But Schubert did not take advantage of his relationship with the powerful Salieri: he stayed in the seminary with a scholarship and later resigned to begin studying to become a primary school teacher. In order to secure a sufficient salary, Franz entered the competition

for teachers at the German school in Ljubljana. However, despite Salieri’s recommendation, Schubert did not pass the exam.

He hated studying and working, although from 1814 to 1818 he was his father's assistant. Unlike Beethoven, Schubert rarely rubbed shoulders with the aristocracy; he was more comfortable with the bourgeoisie and the bohemians. In 1818, when he left teaching for good, he entered the bohemian environment and composed for himself.

Thus, he wrote one lied after another, followed by symphonies, chamber music, and masses, intended to be performed at the theater in Vienna. But it was not the right moment. He composed works in German, while Vienna was obsessed with Rossini, whom Schubert, who never allowed personal considerations to influence his musical judgment, defined as an "extraordinary genius."

Later, a series of disappointments led Schubert to suffer serious depressive crises: He lost the Kapellmeister de Corte competition, a position previously held by Antonio Salieri; also, he lost the vice-rector position at the Puerta Carinthia Theater; his play The Count of Gleichen was censored, and he failed to bring it to the stage.

Characteristic Ambivalence: Resignation and Rebellion

Maynard Solomon, in his "scandalous" essay Franz Schubert and the Peacocks of Benvenuto Cellini, published in 19th-Century Music, proposes a psychoanalytic investigation into Schubert's inner life, based on the interpretation of documents and testimonies from Schubert himself and from those who had known him closely.

The poet and close friend Johann Mayrhofer wrote in an obituary summation that Schubert's character was "a mixture of tenderness and rudeness, sensuality and candor, sociability and melancholy": a poet in his intimacy and a hedonist in outward demeanor. Others go further and bear witness, albeit in a veiled manner, to the low passions of which the composer was the victim: "an excessively free, almost unbridled sexual life" (Franz von Schober), which led him "down a bad path that generally does not admit return and with disastrous consequences for health" (Wilhelm von Chézy).

Schubert "never laughed outright and out loud, but rather mockingly, in a not very expressive and hardly cheerful way." He had no rule of life. From nine in the morning (unless he was hungover) until two in the afternoon, he composed. Then he would go out. If he didn’t have an invitation to dinner or a reception, he went to the cafes. He was capable of staying up until midnight smoking, drinking coffee and wine, reading the newspapers, and talking with his friends. However, he was generally taciturn.

Even without being drunk, sometimes he drank more than necessary. Josef Kenner, another friend, makes obscure allusions: "Those who have known Schubert know that he had two temperaments, one different from the other; and they also know how strongly the desire for pleasure dragged his soul through the mire of moral degradation..." It is possible that it is just Victorian moralism, or that there is some truth to it.

It is said that Schubert made his friends lose patience with his delays. A letter from a friend gives us an idea of the complexity of his character: "If you had thought of the great affection with which we awaited you, you would have come [...] I am afraid of even being too happy for your company seeing how little I have achieved in these years to overcome your distrust and the fear of not being loved and understood."

The Problematic Relationship with Sexuality

For a few years, probably between 1814 and 1816, Schubert courted the singer Therese Grob. Two aphorisms noted in his diary on September 8, 1816, are significant, almost at the end of that relationship: "Happy is he who finds a faithful friend, even more so, who finds a faithful friend in his own wife. To a free man, marriage is today a wandering thought: it is replaced either by melancholy or by raw sensuality."

Other allusions to Schubert's relationships with women are rather rare and discreet. Hüttenbrenner notes with concern that, since he had known Schubert (since 1815), he had never seen him "involved in a matter of the heart"; during parties, "he had a cold and indifferent attitude towards the 'weaker sex'," to the point that he gave the impression of feeling "absolute hatred towards Eva's daughters." It also reveals a disturbing detail: when asked if he had ever fallen in love, Schubert replied that he had paid court to Therese Grob, but he had given up when he realized that he would not be able to achieve a position that would allow him to keep them both. Getting married would therefore have meant giving up his principles. Therese, in fact, married a baker, and Schubert was short on time to refer to that marriage in a sarcastic and scathing way.

The decision not to start a family is contemporary with his refusal to return to a teaching position at his father's school. From then on, Schubert would be the guest of his friends—first Schober, and then Mayrhofer. Both were gay intellectuals from Vienna, with their homosexual dandy behavior. Schober was, so to speak, the center of artists and greatly admired by his friends—probably the decisive element of Schubert's experiences in sexual matters. Love, fights, jealousy, separations, and unions (often at the rate of infectious diseases caused by promiscuity) constituted the other, non-artistic, part of the way of life of this heterogeneous group, whose progressive degradation resulted in its disintegration in 1824, precisely during the most acute phase of Schubert's disease.

Solomon argues that homosexual initiation is likely. Schubert's sexuality was at first passive or idealized in the passionate bond of friendship, and only in a second moment did he become active with men older than him, eventually ending up in anonymous and casual relationships in the underworld of prostitution, not excluding the world (already flourishing at that time) of transvestites.

Young men may be subjected to pedophilia by older men in the "Greek" way. Schubert probably played the boyish role with Johann Michael Vogl (the singer of his lieder, whom Schubert considered his "second father") or with Mayrhofer, both of whom were considerably older than him; and no one can say whether it was a spiritual or carnal love.

However, over time, Schubert fell victim to an illness that dissolved the group of friends and darkened the last years of his life. Something that could explain the offended tone and self-righteous disdain of those who described Schubert as "covered in mud" and a victim of perverted passions and led to talk of vile and aberrational practices, is the suspicion of sexual relations between an adult and a young person, with the aggravation of troubling acts toward minors and the vague idea of a kingdom of taboo experiences.

Solomon observes: "By virtue of his homosexuality, Schubert left a coercive environment to enter what seemed (at least momentarily) a realm of freedom." For its members, the homosexual and bohemian community meant freeing oneself from the impositions of the family and the State, from the rules of society, and from the straitjacket of heterosexuality, the obligations of marriage, and career; in short, it represented the freedom to ignore the reality principle in order to pursue an unlimited pursuit of beauty and pleasure. He could repay them, at least for a time, if not enough. Mind you, from a precarious existence on the fringes of society. "Take men as they are and not as they should be," Schubert wrote in his diary the same day he declared his fear of marriage, having decided to give up a secure position to affirm his inalienable right to diversity, however it manifests itself. Years later, Schubert replied to Franz von Schober, who had told him that he was wrong and that they were unhappy (September 21, 1824):

"I'm terribly sorry, but it doesn't surprise me because this is the fate of every sensible man in this miserable world. And what will we do with happiness if unhappiness is already the only incentive we have left?"

Living Below Your Means: Money and Work

During his thirty-one years of life, Schubert wrote an enormous amount of music. When he worked, he worked hard. Schober tells us: "If you went to see him during the day, he would greet you with, 'Hello! How are you?' 'Good!' and then keep working. At that point, there

was no choice but to leave." For many years, it was believed that Schubert did not prepare drafts for even his most important compositions, such as symphonies. Modern research has established that this is not true. However, without a doubt, Schubert, alongside Mozart, was one of the fastest composers in music history: a composer capable of thinking through the entire work and transcribing it immediately.

He was always short of money and spent much of his time in cafes with friends. Only in 1818 did he begin to be able to support himself, even though he had already been a professional for two years. In his diary, dated June 17, 1816, we read: “Today I composed for the first time for money: a cantata for Professor Wattrot's name day, with a text by Dräxler. The reward was 100 guilders," which is roughly thirty euros today.

Money never lasted long; he never had enough to rent a piano—imagine buying one! But this meant nothing to him because he didn’t need a piano to compose. He said it distracted him. In any case, if he needed one, he would go to a friend's house.

With his closest friends, he formed a kind of small community where private property did not exist. Hats, shoes, dresses, money—everything belonged to everyone. The one who brought money took care of paying the bill. When it came to selling his music or arguing with publishers, money meant nothing to Schubert.

Schubert's attempts to find a publisher met with little success. In 1817, he sent Breitkopf & Härtel one of his best lieder, "Erlkönig." The publishers were uninterested and returned the manuscript to the only Franz Schubert they knew: a composer of the same name who lived in Dresden. The Dresden Schubert felt insulted and wrote a letter to the editors. Who was this nonentity who took the liberty of using his name? He kept that letter: "I will keep it to find out, if possible, who has sent them this rubbish…"

Meanwhile, Spaun sent Goethe a set of Schubert lieder inspired by his poetry, hoping to awaken the poet’s interest, but he didn’t even respond. Not everything was a disappointment for Schubert: little by little, he began to make himself known. Some singers, such as Anna Milder and, above all, Johann Vogl, began to perform his music publicly. In addition, Schubert's small but influential group of friends gave him good publicity. Vogl played a significant role in the composer’s life. When they met in the spring of 1818, the baritone was nearly thirty years older and nearing the end of an illustrious opera career. He examined some lieder by Schubert and, in the end, after many doubts and feeling the attraction for these compositions, became Schubert’s greatest interpreter. Critics took note of his existence, and reviews were generally glowing. In 1822, a long and intelligent review published in the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst defined Schubert as a genius. The following year, in the same magazine, he was called "the popular teacher." However, Schubert never enjoyed the fame he deserved, nor can it be said that he was a complete stranger.

Since no publisher was willing to print his music, Schubert’s admirers raised the necessary money. As Schubert's fame grew, a few publishers showed interest, but very few major works were published before his death—no symphonies and none of his ten operas. On the other hand, three of his twenty-one piano sonatas, one of his seven masses, and 187 of more than six hundred lieder were published.

In January 1839, in Vienna, Robert Schumann went to the home of Schubert's brother, Ferdinand (Franz had died eleven years earlier), and began looking through the many manuscripts he kept. Buried in a "huge pile," Schumann discovered a symphony that no one had ever heard of before: "Who knows how long it would still have remained hidden in that dark and dusty corner if I had not persuaded Ferdinand Schubert to send it to the concert directorate of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, or the same artist who presides over it,” Schumann recalls.

The artist in question was Felix Mendelssohn, who, with the intelligence and dedication that characterized him, quickly took charge of conducting it. It was March 21, 1839.

The symphony arrived in Leipzig, where it was performed in front of an audience that recognized its great artistic value and listened to it in admiration, creating an atmosphere of general consensus. The enterprising publishers at Breitkopf & Härtel bought the symphony and the property rights. Now, the orchestral parts can be found, and very soon, the score will be published as well, to the benefit and delight of the whole world.” Schumann’s sponsorship, however, proved to be overly optimistic: the score was not published until 1850, and the whole world could hardly enjoy the benefit of knowing one of the masterpieces in the history of symphony.

The Winter Journey (Winterreise): The Icon of the Orphan and the Vagabond

In psychoanalysis, travel and wandering symbolize death and sexuality. Schubert wrote this cycle of poetry during his time in the hospital in Vienna, where the disease that would lead to his death was already manifesting itself.

The spirit of world-weariness and a deep desire for the peace of the grave seems to “fly” low and menacing over the entire cycle: "Cycle of terrifying lies," Schubert seems to have called his Winterreise. Schubert came across the lieder that make up the cycle almost by chance in a magazine published in 1823: they represent only half of Winterreise, consisting of twenty-four poems. In the first circle of people who heard it (gathered by the composer himself), disappointment prevailed. How could one think that listening to Winterreise could be resolved as a normal living room music experience?

Winterreise is much more disturbing, especially because of its feverish and candid tendency towards the abyss and death. It is a crushing landscape of loneliness, with very few "living" presences—so rare that they appear as mirages (only two "true presences" are counted in the entire cycle). This is what remains of “stepmother nature,” as Leopardi would say, that survives the terrible and freezing winter temperatures: the crow found halfway and the organ grinder in the last lied, the only human being; the marginalized who plays even though no one is listening.

Thus, the Winterreise cycle is imbued with inexorable pessimism. This composition from 1827, a year before his death, is considered by many to be the most important lieder series in musical literature, with recurring, sad, and plaintive melodies, growing more melancholic and desperate until reaching the last lied, the haunting Der Leiermann, which talks about the old organ grinder who wanders around with his instrument in the full winter. No one gives him anything, the dogs bark and chase him, but he keeps smiling and does not lose hope. “Mysterious old man, shall I come with you? Will you accompany my songs with your barrel organ?” All this is presented in a state of total desolation, with simple fifths in the bass and a fragment of melody that is more an epigraph than anything else. It’s a chilling song, and we can’t help but think that Wilhelm Müller's libretto had autobiographical significance for Schubert.

The poems of Winterreise tell the epic story of an abandoned and disillusioned lover. But "epic" is only the narrative artifact presented to the listener, who will undergo a journey of total, lyrical, and synesthetic immersion, diving into everything that words cannot touch in the complexity of emotions. Human beings are transfigured by Schubert’s music.

This madly in love "lover," this aimless "wanderer" consumed by pain, embarks on a long pilgrimage into madness and silence. The imagined and lyrically offered winter journey takes place in a lifeless, apocalyptic setting of frozen rivers. One “looks back” (Rückblick), at the spring of past joys, from the modest house of a charcoal burner to the final destination in an old inn, which has become a cemetery.

There is no more moving description of abandonment than the one set forth in Müller’s libretto for Winterreise. Schubert must have identified deeply with this character, for he declared that this late song cycle was, of all his works, the one that had cost him the most tears to compose.

Schubert’s life was that of someone saddled with a dramatic Self-Preservation problem. Suffice it to say that he was poor enough to go hungry. A child prodigy with a talent comparable to Mozart’s, it cannot be said that he ever achieved success in his lifetime. Why? The answer might lie in Müller’s poems, where "the pilgrim" is defeated by "the hunter." Schubert identified with "the pilgrim" because he, too, was a dreamer in pursuit of beauty. Let’s just say that he wasn’t “hunter” enough to succeed in the world. Being a

hunter was too vulgar for him, focused as he was on beauty, kindness, and love. Too idealistic, he harbored an important implicit taboo against the mundane, which implies selfishness, assertiveness, and concern about money.

The Proximity of Death and the Release of Creativity

The year 1828, the last of Schubert's brief life, was very fruitful: the String Quintet in C major, the last three piano sonatas, the lieder series Schwanengesang, the Great Symphony in C major, and the Mass in E-flat. If we consider that the three piano sonatas were written in September 1828, just two months before his death, we are amazed by his irrepressible creativity. During this period, Schubert had moved to live in the house of his brother Ferdinand, whose loving care helped alleviate the composer’s precarious financial and physical situation.

In his final year, Schubert matured in an astonishing way: his music reached enormous dimensions, leading to new horizons. It is said that, on his deathbed, he exclaimed that he was full of new ideas.

The most faithful friend, Josef von Spaun, wrote in 1858:

"Poor Schubert, so young and at the beginning of a brilliant career! What riches, what hidden treasures his death has deprived us of! I am sure that the state of excitement with which he composed most of his lieder, and especially Winterreise, contributed to his early death."

Schubert left nothing: no books, no money, no furniture or real estate. Only his manuscripts, scattered throughout Vienna, remained. He was buried near Beethoven. His friends mourned him deeply. Schwind wrote to Schober: "Schubert died, and with him died everything that was brilliant and amiable in us." Grillparzer wrote the epitaph: "The art of music has buried here a rich treasure, but, even more, beautiful hopes."

It took forty years after Schubert's death for the world to realize that he was a genius. With his subjective approach, he anticipated Romanticism and, even more importantly, became the first lyric poet of music.

14.Andrea Passigli, Notizie su Franz Schubert, http://www.andreapassigli.it/schubert.htm

15.Otto Erich Deutsch, ed., Schubert: L'amico e il poeta nelle testimonianze dei suoi contemporanei, EDT, Turin, 1999