Schubert: The Music and the ManOf all the great composers, none, not even Mozart, has been so dogged by myth and misunderstanding as Schubert. Since the 1920s, when the musical Blossom Time hit the stage, the notion of Schubert as a pudgy, love-lorn Bohemian schwammerl (mushroom) scribbling gem lich tunes on the back of menus in idle moments has never been quite eradicated. But in this major new biography (the first comprehensive work on Schubert in over fifty years) Brian Newbould lays to rest the stereotype of the composer plucking melodies out of the air, relying on instinct more than well-honed craft. Instead he paints a vivid and compelling portrait of a man who was compulsively dedicated to his art, a composer so prolific that he produced roughly one thousand works in an eighteen year period. Gifted with an intuitive know-how, coupled with a Mozartian facility for composition, Schubert combined the relish and wonder of an amateur with the discipline and technical rigor of a professional. He moved quickly and comfortably among genres, and sometimes composed directly into score; but many pieces required painstaking revision before they satisfied his growing self-criticism. Examining afresh the enigmas surrounding Schubert's religious outlook, his loves, his sexuality, his illness and death, Newbould offers above all a celebration of a unique genius, an idiosyncratic composer of an astonishing body of powerful, enduring music. |
Contents
Introduction | 11 |
The Early Piano Music | 90 |
The Early Chamber Music | 110 |
The Early Church Music | 128 |
The Songwriters Craft | 142 |
The Late Church Music | 278 |
The Late Songs | 290 |
The Late Piano Sonatas | 318 |
Other Late Piano Works | 339 |
The Late Chamber Music | 350 |
The Late Symphonies | 373 |
Aspects of Technique | 389 |
Schubert after 1828 | 403 |
Glossary | 444 |
458 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Adagio Alfonso und Estrella Allegro Andante bars bass Bauernfeld Beethoven beginning Brian Newbould cadence cello chord Classical close coda colour complete composer composer's counterpoint dominant early exposition F sharp Fantasy finale flat major four-bar Franz Franz Schubert friends fugue G major G minor genre Goethe harmonic Haydn Hüttenbrenner Ibid instrumental Josef keyboard Kupelwieser later Liebe March Mass Mayrhofer melody minuet modulation Mozart notes opening opera orch orchestral Otto Erich Deutsch Overture performance perhaps piano duet Piano Sonata piece poem quartet TTBB Quintet recapitulation reprise rhythm rondo Rosamunde SATB scherzo Schiller Schober Schu Schubert Schubertian score second subject Sept sharp minor slow movement soloists sonata form song Spaun Stadtkonvikt stanza String Quartet strophe strophic strophic form Symphony tempo texture theme third three-key exposition tonal tonic trio TTB Unfinished variations verse Vienna violin vocal Vogl voice Winterreise Zseliz