RomanticFranz Schubert
Franz Schubert was born in Vienna, Austria.
Franz Schubert’s life
The big moments of this life, and what was happening in the world at the same time.
A life at a glance
- 1797👶 Birth
Born in Vienna on 31 January, son of a schoolmaster
- 1804🌍 Meanwhile
Napoleon crowned emperor
- 1808📚 Trainingage 11
Choirboy of the imperial chapel; pupil of Salieri
- 1814🎼 Workage 17
Gretchen am Spinnrade, his first masterpiece, at 17
- 1815🎼 Workage 18
Erlkönig and about 140 songs in a single year
- 1816🌍 Meanwhile
Maelzel patents the metronome (1815–16)
- 1818🎩 Careerage 21
Music teacher to the Esterházy family at Zseliz
- 1819🎼 Workage 22
‘Trout’ Quintet
- 1821🏛️ Landmarkage 24
First ‘Schubertiades’, musical evenings among friends
- 1822🌍 Meanwhile
Champollion deciphers hieroglyphs
- 1823❤️ Private lifeage 26
Falls seriously ill
- 1825🌍 Meanwhile
First public passenger railway (England)
- 1828🎩 Careerage 31
His only public concert devoted to his works, on 26 March
- 1828🕯️ Deathage 31
Dies in Vienna on 19 November, aged 31
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Excerpts of up to 90 seconds, freely licensed recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
Once upon a time…
Franz Schubert was born in Vienna, Austria. His dad was a schoolmaster. As a boy he sang in the emperor’s choir and studied with Salieri, a very famous composer.
Schubert loved poems and set them to music: he wrote more than six hundred songs! In The Erl-King a father gallops through the night with his child, and the piano imitates the galloping horse.
He was not rich, but he had lots of friends. They held evenings called “Schubertiads” where he played his music. He was so passionate that he sometimes slept with his glasses on so he could compose as soon as he woke up.
He died very young, at thirty-one. Many of his works were only discovered after his death.
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