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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Composer of the Week: Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Episode 1

Episode 1

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Franz Schubert (1797-1828), Episode 1

Donald Macleod explores the remarkable musical output of the teenage Schubert.

Donald Macleod explores the musical output of the teenage Schubert, who had developed a musical maturity well beyond his years. With Mass in F (1st mvt), Erlkonig, Symphony No 5.

This prodigiously talented composer led a very full but all too brief life, dying at the age of just 31, in 1828. He is probably best known for the vast number of songs he wrote throughout his life - around 600 of them, including the two song cycles 'Die SchÃ¶ne MÃ¼llerin' and 'Winterreise' plus some of the most popular symphonic and chamber music in the repertoire, such as the 'Unfinished' and 'Great C major' Symphonies and the 'Trout' Quintet. This week Donald Macleod looks at the important role the colourful individuals in Schubert's social circle had on him and his music, and how his decadent lifestyle contributed to his untimely death. 
He was an intensely prolific composer - in his 18th year alone he produced around 200 works. And in spite of immense mental and physical problems he continued to do so, writing some of his best-loved music in his final year. 
Schubert suffered from severe mood swings most of his adult life. When he was in his mid-twenties, they became far more extreme and his friends reported periods of dark despair and violent anger. It's hard to know at this distance, to what extent his decadent lifestyle affected his behaviour but it greatly increased his chances of succumbing to one of the major killers of the time - syphilis. From then on, his fate was sealed - although he had periods of remission, it irreparably damaged his health and if typhoid fever hadn't struck him down first, would undoubtedly have killed him.
In the first programme, Donald looks at Schubert's teenage years when he had already developed a musical maturity well beyond his years, including two of his most popular Goethe settings, a symphony written for his friends and family to play and his first mass, conducted by the composer, at the tender age of seventeen.

Composer of the Week: Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod on the influence of Schubert's friends and lifestyle on his music

Donald Macleod explores the important role the colourful individuals in Schubert's social circle had on him and his music, and how his decadent lifestyle contributed to his untimely death

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Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

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