Franz Peter Schubert died young, but not before he was able to compose music that has become justly famous. As well as symphonies, piano works, sacred music, and chamber works, he composed over songs or Lieder.
This essay considers a few of his over 70 settings for poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Schubert was born and died in Vienna. His father, a teacher, recognized his gift for music and arranged for him to obtain a scholarship to the Stadtkonvikt Imperial Seminary , where he received special training from Anton Salieri.
Ultimately, he was able to publish his own works. The etching by Joseph Kupelwieser on the right shows Schubert in The following illustration shows a watercolor portrait of Schubert by Wilhelm August Rieder from Schubert developed numerous friends among the nobility, and among the singers and actors who entertained them.
Joseph von Spaun, an important patron, hosted many musical evenings for Schubert and his friends. He had attended one of the Schubertiades as a young man and painted this from memory in Schubert is at the piano and the baritone, Johann Michael Vogl, is singing one of his songs. Goethe adapted the story an old Danish ballad wherein the daughter of the King of the Fairies chases after a man she desires. The father arrives home.
His son is dead. The poem deals with the mortality of children. Desire triumphs: innocence is no defence. In it became his first published piece of music: Opus 1. The song is for one vocalist, but distinguishes the four different voices of the poem through different rhythmic and harmonic characteristics.
