Franz Peter Schubert

In 1814, Franz Peter Schubert fell in love with a soprano soloist named Therese Groband wanted to marry her but could not because of the harsh marriage law which required proof that heearned enough to support a family.

He contracted syphilis in May 1822 and was admitted for treatment to the ‘Vienna General Hospital’and was discharged after seven days.

His illness reappeared in 1826 and on November 11, 1828 he started having headache and nausea which were diagnosed to be caused by typhoid. He died eight days later, on November 19, 1828. He was only 31.

Franz Peter Schubert was born on January 31, 1797 in Alsergrund, Vienna, Austria. His father Franz Theodor Schubert was a schoolmaster who founded his own school, and his mother Elizabeth Vietz was engaged in providing domestic services to a Viennese household before her marriage.

He had three elder brothers named Ferdinand, Ignaz and Petrus and a sister named Maria Theresia. Out of the fourteen children that his father had (including an illegitimate child), nine had died in their infancy.

He learnt to play the violin from his father and his elder brother Ignaz when he was only six years old and also learnt to play the organ from an organ player named Michael Holzerat the ‘Imperial Court Chapel’.

His talent for performing vocal compositions was recognized by the leading authority in music in Vienna, Antonio Salieri, in 1804.

At the age of eleven he joined the choir of the ‘Imperial Court Chapel’ after passing the entrance examination and received his formal education at ‘Stadtkonvikt’ from 1808 to 1813.

Franz Peter Schubert composed his earliest ballads while he was still in high school including ‘Hage’s Klage’ in 1811 styled on those written by Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg.

In 1814 he composed his first poem ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’ or ‘Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel’ based on ‘Faust’ written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

He also composed the music of some solos of Mass which were dedicated to his lady friend Therese Grob. Haydn’s compositions had a great influence on his first symphony.

During the same year he also composed five more musical pieces based on songs written by Goethe.

In late 1814 he joined his father’s school as an assistant teacher. Around this time, he met various actors, singers, lawyers and poets who had a great influence on the young composer’s life. In the same year the ‘Mass’ composed by him was performed in Vienna.

After 1814, Franz Peter Schubert started to hold private concerts at the homes of his wealthy acquaintances with the help of the singers and actors whom he befriended during this period.

He also wrote a large number of compositions in 1815 which included more than one-hundred and forty-four songs, two ‘Masses’and one symphony.

He set the music for the poems written by a large number of poets such as F.G. Klopstock, J.G. Von Herder, Friedrich von Schiller and others.

He went on composing symphonies even while working as a schoolteacher in his father’s school and wrote musical pieces for ‘Landler’, an Austrian waltz, for which he became quite famous.

He left his teacher’s post in 1816 when his application for a better post was rejected by the school authorities and decided to follow a carefree and unconventional lifestyle. From this time onwards he did not work but depended on his compositions to earn money for his livelihood.