| Contents |
I. Bearings. The family before Schubert -- The origins of a composer (1797-1813). Early musical contexts ; Musical life at the Stadtkonvikt ; The aesthetics of patricide ; Memoriae matris sacrum ; Regrouping -- Salieri, partimento and the beginnings of creation. Early exercises ; Fugue and the search for self-realization ; Canon and the beginnings of intellectual life ; Solfeggio and schemata ; The aesthetics of resetting -- The makings of a composer (1812-1813). Early steps in composition: success and failure ; The growth of imagination: schoolhouse string quartets ; Schubert's family play their part: a forgotten history ; The allure of the symphony ; Leaving the Stadtkonvikt -- Place and displacement (1813-1814). Innocent guilt: teacher or artist? ; Schubert's arrangements: Notturno in G (D 96) ; Turning the tide: opera composer or church musician? ; Private and public revolutions: 'the liberators in Paris' ; Ad meliora: first symphonies -- Schubert as a church music composer. The sacred within and without ; Apprenticeship at Lichtental, 1813-1816 ; Intermezzo: the other Schubert ; Schubert's Marienbild ; Stabat mater: rivalry and recomposition ; Preoccupations: tantum ergo ; Stepping stones: kyrie resettings ; Muses in Lichtental: Schubert's Mass in F major (D 105) ; From tradition to truth: Schubert's Latin masses ; Stile antico ; Sacred and secular scriptures: 'Am Tage aller Seelen' (D 343) -- Awakenings. 'Quorum pars minima fui': 'Gretchen am Spinnrade' ; The stolen child: 'Erlkönig' D 328 ; Schubert's Liederjahr and the romance of creation ; Annus Mirabilis: composing Goethe ; Between realism and idealism: setting Schiller ; Recomposition, variant, version ; From Ursprung to Fassung letzter Hand: 'Meeresstille' -- Unsung Schubert: apprenticeship in opera. A glimpse of fulfilment? Schubert's theatrical calling ; Dramma per musica? Claudine von Villa Bella (D 239) -- The promise of freedom (1816-1818). Preoccupations, 13-17 June 1816 ; First commission: the lost Prometheus cantata ; Things fall apart ; In the crucible of convention? Symphonies 4, 5 and 6 ; Speculum mentis: Symphony in D (D 615) -- II. Friendships. Ars amicitia: art of friendship ; In the closet of the Stadtkonvikt? ; Epistolary friendships ; Aesthetic educations ; Some select circles -- Ars amicitiae: art born of friendship ; The good of friendship: Josef von Spaun ; Rivalry or reciprocity?: Anselm Hüttenbrenner ; Other selves? Johann Baptist Mayrhofer ; Crediting Schober ; Vogl and the civility of friendship ; The aesthetics of friendship in Schubert's musical practice -- Art born of improvisation. Between society and solitude: Schubert's improvisations ; Schubert's dances -- |
| Contents |
III. Crises. In the doldrums (1817-1818). Clearances: Schubert's father ; Muses in Zseliz: uneasy paradise, 1818 ; 'Hermit songs' -- Schubert's 'Double nature' (1819-1822). Confidence and indeterminacy: Schubert's male-voice settings ; Declaring his genius: 'Erlkönig' (D 328), op. 1 ; Tension and riddles ; Islands of the mind: multiple fragments -- Secrets of the self. The watershed: annus catastrophicus ; The gardens of Alcinous: Schubert's dream and non-dream ; 'Death and the maiden': Schubert's femme inconnue -- The watershed (1822-1824). The grace of friendship: Moritz von Schwind ; Turning the tide: illness and hospitalization ; Beauty and brokenness: Schubert confides in Kupelwieser ; Et in Arcadia ego: Schubert's minor-key quartets ; Schubert unmasked ; Nietzschean decay and conquests of the soul -- 'Art born of sorrow': Schubert's 'Unfinished'. Tragedy and symbolism: the 'Unfinished'? ; Ownership and controversies: Schubert's 1823 letter to Graz ; Finders keepers? Josef and Anselm Hüttenbrenner -- Songs of a wayfarer (1822-1824). Paradise lost, Goethe regained ; Innocent guilt: Schubert's op. 12 ; 'Quorum pars magna fui': Die schöne Müllerin ; Schiller's pilgrim ; Goethe's wanderer -- High windows of Zseliz. The flight path: Schubert as teacher ; Everyday renewals: Schubert's piano duets ; The local and the universal -- IV. Essence. After the crises: the spirit of beauty and its fate. Old friends and new: Eduard von Bauernfeld ; In media res: portrait of an artist ; Summer in upper Austria and the apprehending of beauty ; Schubert's 'Sommerreise' (D 944) ; After liberation ; From the dust-cloud of a passionate empiricism into the pure circle of historical light: Schubert and his publishers -- Late sacred music as a site of theology? Revolution and renunciation: final masses ; Stile antico fugues in vocal style ; Lichtentalesque: Tantum ergo in E flat (D 952) and Intende voci in B flat (D 963) ; History and hermeneutics: Schubert's credo ; Intimations of the transcendent -- De profundis: final songs. Human chain: Winterreise (D 911) ; Gathering up fragments: Schubert's Italianità ; Schubert's women ; Gifts of Graz -- The final year (1828). Alarms within, the universe without ; Redefining the public: Schubert's benefit concert ; Songs on the threshold: 'Glaube, Hoffnung und Liebe' (D 945 and D 955) ; Mysticism, ecstasy and the sublime: String quintet in C (D 956) ; New territory, new directions: Symphony in D (D 936a) ; Final journeys, final gifts ; Lightnings: 'Die Taubenpost' (D 965a) and 'Der Hirt auf dem Felsen' (D 965) ; Patri antevertens: illness and death -- Lacrimae rerum: burial at Währing ; De brevitate vitae: memorials and reburials -- Chronology. |
| Abstract |
A revelatory biography of the great composer, exploring Schubert's complex and fascinating private life alongside his musical genius. Brilliant, short-lived, incredibly prolific--Schubert is one of the most intriguing figures in music history. While his music attracts a wide audience, much of his private life remains shrouded in mystery, and significant portions of his work have been overlooked. In this major new biography, the author takes a detailed look into Schubert's life, from his early years at the Stadtkonvikt to the harrowing battle with syphilis that led to his death at the age of thirty-one. Drawing on extensive archival research in Vienna and the Czech Republic, and reconsidering the meaning of some of his best-known works, she provides a fuller account than ever before of Schubert's extraordinary achievement and incredible courage. This is a compelling new portrait of one of the most beloved composers of the nineteenth century. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 606-669) and indexes. |
| LCCN | 2023933148 |
| ISBN | 0300204086 (hardcover ; alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 9780300204087 (hardcover ; alk. paper) |
| ISBN | (ePub ebook) |
