The most famous compositions of Schubert. Instrumental creativity of Schubert. About Franz Schubert and his work

If the work of Beethoven, his older contemporary, was nourished by the revolutionary ideas that permeated the social consciousness of Europe, then the heyday of Schubert's talent occurred in the years of reaction, when for a person the circumstances of his own destiny became more important than the social heroism so vividly embodied by Beethoven's genius.

Schubert's life was spent in Vienna, which, even in the least favorable times for creativity, remained one of the musical capitals of the civilized world. Famous virtuosos performed here, operas by the universally recognized Rossini were staged with great success, and the orchestras of Lanner and Strauss the Father, who raised the Viennese waltz to unprecedented heights, sounded. And yet, the discrepancy between dreams and reality, so obvious at that time, gave rise to moods of melancholy and disappointment among creative people, and the very protest against the inert, complacent bourgeois life resulted in an escape from reality, into an attempt to create their own world from a narrow circle of friends, true connoisseurs of beauty...

Franz Schubert was born on January 31, 1797 on the outskirts of Vienna. His father was a school teacher - a hardworking and respectable man, who sought to raise his children in accordance with his ideas about the path of life. The eldest sons followed in their father's footsteps, and the same path was prepared for Schubert. But there was also music in the house. On holidays, a circle of amateur musicians gathered here; Franz’s father himself taught him to play the violin, and one of his brothers taught him to play the clavier. The church regent taught Franz music theory, and he also taught the boy how to play the organ.

It soon became clear to those around him that in front of them was an unusually gifted child. When Schubert was 11 years old, he was sent to a church singing school - konvikt. It had its own student orchestra, where Schubert soon began playing the first violin part, and sometimes even conducting.

In 1810, Schubert wrote his first composition. The passion for music embraced him more and more and gradually crowded out all other interests. He was oppressed by the need to study something that was far from music, and after five years, without finishing the convict, Schubert left it. This led to a deterioration in relations with his father, who was still trying to guide his son “on the right path.” Yielding to him, Franz entered the teachers' seminary, and then acted as an assistant teacher at his father's school. But the father’s intentions to make his son a teacher with a reliable income were never destined to come true. Schubert entered the most intense period of his work (1814-1817), without hearing his father's warnings. By the end of this period, he was already the author of five symphonies, seven sonatas and three hundred songs, among which there are such as “Margarita at the Spinning Wheel”, “The Forest King”, “Trout”, “The Wanderer” - they are known and sung. It seems to him that the world is about to open its friendly arms to him, and he decides to take the extreme step of quitting his service. In response, the indignant father leaves him without any means of support and essentially breaks off relations with him.

For several years, Schubert had to live with his friends - among them there are also composers, there is an artist, a poet, and a singer. A close circle of people close to each other is formed - Schubert becomes its soul. He was short, stocky, short-sighted, shy and distinguished by extraordinary charm. The famous “Schubertiads” date back to this time - evenings devoted exclusively to the music of Schubert, when he did not leave the piano, composing music right there on the go... He creates every day, hourly, without fatigue and stopping, as if he knows that He didn't have much time left... The music didn't leave him even in his sleep - and he jumped up in the middle of the night to write it down on scraps of paper. In order not to look for glasses every time, he did not part with them.

But no matter how hard his friends tried to help him, these were years of desperate struggle for existence, life in unheated rooms, hated lessons that he had to give for the sake of meager earnings... Poverty did not allow him to marry his beloved girl, who preferred him to a rich pastry chef .

In 1822, Schubert wrote one of his best works - the seventh "Unfinished Symphony", and in the next - a masterpiece of vocal lyrics, a cycle of 20 songs "The Beautiful Miller's Wife". It was in these works that a new direction in music - romanticism - was expressed with exhaustive completeness.

Best of the day

At this time, thanks to the efforts of friends, Schubert made peace with his father and returned to his family. But the family idyll was short-lived - after two years, Schubert left again to live separately, despite his complete impracticality in everyday life. Trusting and naive, he often became a victim of his publishers, who profited from him. The author of a huge number of works, and in particular songs, which during his lifetime became popular in burgher circles, he barely made ends meet. If Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, as excellent performing musicians, greatly contributed to the growth of the popularity of their works, then Schubert was not a virtuoso and only dared to act as an accompanist for his songs. And there is nothing to say about the symphonies - not a single one of them was ever performed during the composer’s lifetime. Moreover, both the seventh and eighth symphonies were lost. The eighth score was found by Robert Schumann ten years after the composer’s death, and the famous “Unfinished” was first performed only in 1865.

More and more, Schubert plunged into despair and loneliness: the circle fell apart, his friends became family people with a position in society, and only Schubert remained naively faithful to the ideals of his youth, which had already passed. He was timid and did not know how to ask, but at the same time he did not want to humiliate himself in front of influential people - several places that he had the right to count on and that would have provided him with a comfortable existence were, as a result, given to other musicians. “What will happen to me...” he wrote, “in my old age, perhaps, like Goethe’s harpist, I will have to go from door to door and beg for bread...”. He did not know that he would not grow old. Schubert's second song cycle, Winterreise, is the pain of unfulfilled hopes and lost illusions.

In the last years of his life he was ill a lot and was in poverty, but his creative activity did not weaken. Quite the contrary - his music becomes deeper, larger and more expressive, whether we are talking about his piano sonatas, string quartets, the eighth symphony or songs.

And yet, even if only once, he learned what real success was. In 1828, his friends organized a concert of his works in Vienna, which exceeded all expectations. Schubert is again full of daring plans, he is working intensively on new works. But there are several months left before death - Schubert falls ill with typhus. The body, weakened by years of need, cannot resist, and on November 19, 1828, Franz Schubert dies. His property is valued at pennies.

Schubert was buried in the Vienna cemetery, with the inscription engraved on the modest monument:

Death buried a rich treasure here,

But even more wonderful hopes.

The first romantic composer, Schubert is one of the most tragic figures in the history of world musical culture. His life, short and uneventful, was cut short when he was in the prime of his strength and talent. He did not hear most of his compositions. The fate of his music was also tragic in many ways. Priceless manuscripts, partly kept by friends, partly donated to someone, and sometimes simply lost in endless travels, could not be put together for a long time. It is known that the “Unfinished” Symphony waited for its performance for more than 40 years, and the C Major Symphony - 11 years. The paths that Schubert discovered in them remained unknown for a long time.

Schubert was a younger contemporary of Beethoven. Both of them lived in Vienna, their work coincides in time: “Margarita at the Spinning Wheel” and “The Forest King” are the same age as Beethoven’s 7th and 8th symphonies, and his 9th symphony appeared simultaneously with Schubert’s “Unfinished”. Only a year and a half separates the death of Schubert from the day of Beethoven's death. Nevertheless, Schubert is a representative of a completely new generation of artists. If Beethoven's work was formed under the influence of the ideas of the Great French Revolution and embodied its heroism, then Schubert's art was born in an atmosphere of disappointment and fatigue, in an atmosphere of the harshest political reaction. It began with the “Congress of Vienna” of 1814-15. Representatives of the states that won the war with Napoleon then united in the so-called. "Holy Alliance", the main goal of which was the suppression of revolutionary and national liberation movements. The leading role in the “Holy Alliance” belonged to Austria, or more precisely to the head of the Austrian government, Chancellor Metternich. It was he, and not the passive, weak-willed Emperor Franz, who actually ruled the country. It was Metternich who was the true creator of the Austrian autocratic system, the essence of which was to suppress any manifestations of free thought in their infancy.

The fact that Schubert spent the entire period of his creative maturity in Metternich's Vienna greatly determined the nature of his art. In his work there are no works related to the struggle for a happy future for humanity. His music has little heroic mood. In Schubert's time there was no longer any talk about universal human problems, about the reorganization of the world. The fight for it all seemed pointless. The most important thing seemed to be to preserve honesty, spiritual purity, and the values ​​of one’s spiritual world. Thus was born an artistic movement called « romanticism". This is an art in which for the first time the central place was occupied by an individual with his uniqueness, with his quests, doubts, and suffering. Schubert's work is the dawn of musical romanticism. His hero is a hero of modern times: not a public figure, not an orator, not an active transformer of reality. This is an unhappy, lonely person whose hopes for happiness are not allowed to come true.

The fundamental difference between Schubert and Beethoven was content his music, both vocal and instrumental. The ideological core of most of Schubert's works is the clash of the ideal and the real. Every time the collision of dreams and reality receives an individual interpretation, but, as a rule, the conflict does not find a final resolution. It is not the struggle in the name of establishing a positive ideal that is the focus of the composer’s attention, but the more or less clear exposure of contradictions. This is the main evidence of Schubert's belonging to romanticism. Its main topic was theme of deprivation, tragic hopelessness. This topic is not made up, it is taken from life, reflecting the fate of an entire generation, incl. and the fate of the composer himself. As already mentioned, Schubert passed his short career in tragic obscurity. He did not enjoy the success that was natural for a musician of this caliber.

Meanwhile, Schubert's creative legacy is enormous. In terms of the intensity of creativity and the artistic significance of the music, this composer can be compared with Mozart. His compositions include operas (10) and symphonies, chamber instrumental music and cantata-oratorio works. But no matter how outstanding Schubert’s contribution to the development of various musical genres was, in the history of music his name is associated primarily with the genre songs- romance(German) Lied). The song was Schubert's element, in it he achieved something unprecedented. As Asafiev noted, “What Beethoven accomplished in the field of symphony, Schubert accomplished in the field of song-romance...” In the complete collection of Schubert's works, the song series is represented by a huge number - more than 600 works. But it’s not just a matter of quantity: a qualitative leap took place in Schubert’s work, allowing the song to take a completely new place among musical genres. The genre, which clearly played a secondary role in the art of the Viennese classics, became equal in importance to the opera, symphony, and sonata.

Schubert's instrumental work

Schubert's instrumental work includes 9 symphonies, over 25 chamber instrumental works, 15 piano sonatas, and many pieces for piano for 2 and 4 hands. Growing up in an atmosphere of living exposure to the music of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, which for him was not the past, but the present, Schubert surprisingly quickly - by the age of 17-18 - perfectly mastered the traditions of the Viennese classical school. In his first symphonic, quartet and sonata experiments, the echoes of Mozart, in particular the 40th symphony (the favorite composition of the young Schubert), are especially noticeable. Schubert is closely related to Mozart clearly expressed lyrical way of thinking. At the same time, in many ways he acted as an heir to Haydn’s traditions, as evidenced by his closeness to Austro-German folk music. He adopted from the classics the composition of the cycle, its parts, and the basic principles of organizing the material. However, Schubert subordinated the experience of the Viennese classics to new tasks.

Romantic and classical traditions form a single fusion in his art. Schubert's dramaturgy is a consequence of a special plan in which lyrical orientation and songfulness as the main principle of development. Schubert's sonata-symphonic themes are related to songs - both in their intonation structure and in their methods of presentation and development. Viennese classics, especially Haydn, often also created themes based on song melody. However, the impact of songfulness on instrumental dramaturgy as a whole was limited - developmental development among the classics is purely instrumental in nature. Schubert emphasizes in every possible way the song nature of the themes:

• often presents them in a closed reprise form, likening them to a finished song (MP of the first movement of the sonata in A major);
• develops with the help of varied repetitions, variant transformations, in contrast to the symphonic development traditional for Viennese classics (motivic isolation, sequencing, dissolution in general forms of movement);
• The relationship between the parts of the sonata-symphonic cycle also becomes different - the first parts are often presented at a leisurely pace, as a result of which the traditional classical contrast between the fast and energetic first part and the slow lyrical second is significantly smoothed out.

The combination of what seemed incompatible - miniature with large-scale, song with symphonic - gave a completely new type of sonata-symphonic cycle - lyrical-romantic.

Childhood

Franz Schubert born on January 31, 1797 (in a small suburb of Vienna, now part of it) in the family of a teacher at the Lichtenthal parish school, who was an amateur music-player. His father Franz Theodore Schubert, came from a family of Moravian peasants; mother, Elizabeth Schubert(née Fitz), was the daughter of a Silesian mechanic. Of their fourteen children, nine died at an early age, and one of the brothers Franz- Ferdinand also devoted himself to music

Franz showed musical abilities very early. The first to teach him music were his family: his father (violin) and older brother Ignatz (piano). From the age of six he studied at the parish school of Lichtenthal. From the age of seven he took organ lessons from the bandmaster of the Lichtental church. The rector of the parish church, M. Holzer, taught him to sing

Thanks to his beautiful voice at the age of eleven Franz was accepted as a “singing boy” into the Viennese court chapel and into the Konvikt (boarding school). There his friends became Joseph von Spaun, Albert Stadler and Anton Holzapfel. Teachers Schubert there were Wenzel Ruzicka (bass general) and later (until 1816) Antonio Salieri (counterpoint and composition). Schubert He studied not only singing, but also became acquainted with the instrumental works of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as he was second violin in the Konvikt orchestra.

His talent as a composer soon emerged. From 1810 to 1813 Schubert wrote an opera, a symphony, piano pieces and songs In his studies Schubert Mathematics and Latin were difficult for him, and in 1813 he was expelled from the choir because his voice was breaking. Schubert returned home and entered the teachers' seminary, which he graduated from in 1814. Then he got a job as a teacher at the school where his father worked (he worked at this school until 1818). In his spare time, he composed music. He studied mainly Gluck, Mozart and Beethoven. He wrote his first independent works - the opera "Satan's Pleasure Castle" and the Mass in F major - in 1814.

Maturity

Job Schubert did not correspond to his calling, and he made attempts to establish himself as a composer. But publishers refused to publish his works. In the spring of 1816, he was denied the post of bandmaster in Laibach (now Ljubljana). Soon Joseph von Spaun introduced Schubert with the poet Franz von Schober. Schober arranged Schubert meeting with the famous baritone Johann Michael Vogl. Songs Schubert performed by Vogl began to enjoy great popularity in Viennese salons. First success Schubert brought the ballad “The Forest King” (“Erlkönig”), written by him in 1816. In January 1818 the first composition Schubert published - the song Erlafsee (as an addition to the anthology edited by F. Sartori).

Among friends Schubert there were the official J. Spaun, the amateur poet F. Schober, the poet I. Mayrhofer, the poet and comedian E. Bauernfeld, the artists M. Schwind and L. Kupelwieser, the composer A. Hüttenbrenner and J. Schubert. They were fans of creativity Schubert and periodically provided him with financial assistance.

At the beginning of 1818 Schubert left work at school. In July, he moved to Želiz (now the Slovak city of Železovce) to the summer residence of Count Johann Esterházy, where he began teaching music to his daughters. In mid-November he returned to Vienna. The second time he visited Esterhazy was in 1824.

In 1823 he was elected an honorary member of the Styrian and Linz Musical Unions.

In the 1820s Schubert health problems began. In December 1822 he fell ill, but after a stay in hospital in the autumn of 1823 his health improved.

Last years

From 1826 to 1828 Schubert lived in Vienna, except for a short stay in Graz. The position of vice-kapellmeister in the chapel of the imperial court, for which he applied in 1826, did not go to him, but to Joseph Weigl. On March 26, 1828, he gave his only public concert, which was a great success and brought him 800 guilders. Meanwhile, his numerous songs and piano works were published.

The composer died of typhoid fever on November 19, 1828 at the age of less than 32 years after a two-week fever. According to the last wish, Schubert They buried him in the Wehring cemetery, where the year before, Beethoven, whom he idolized, was buried. An eloquent inscription is engraved on the monument: “Music buried here a precious treasure, but even more wonderful hopes.” On January 22, 1888, his ashes were reburied at the Vienna Central Cemetery.

Creation

Creative heritage Schubert covers a wide variety of genres. He created 9 symphonies, over 25 chamber instrumental works, 21 piano sonatas, many pieces for piano for two and four hands, 10 operas, 6 masses, a number of works for choir, for vocal ensemble, and finally, more than 600 songs. During his lifetime, and for quite a long time after the composer’s death, he was valued mainly as a songwriter. Only from the 19th century did researchers begin to gradually comprehend his achievements in other areas of creativity. Thanks to Schubert the song became equal in importance to other genres for the first time. Her poetic images reflect almost the entire history of Austrian and German poetry, including some foreign authors.

Collections of songs are of great importance in vocal literature. Schubert based on the poems of Wilhelm Müller - “The Beautiful Miller's Wife” and “Winter Reise”, which are, as it were, a continuation of Beethoven’s idea expressed in the collection of songs “To a Distant Beloved”. In these works Schubert showed remarkable melodic talent and a wide variety of moods; he gave the accompaniment greater meaning, greater artistic meaning. The latest collection “Swan Song” is also remarkable, many of the songs from which have gained worldwide fame.

Musical gift Schubert opened new paths of piano music. His Fantasies in C major and F minor, impromptu, musical moments, sonatas are proof of the richest imagination and great harmonic courage. In chamber and symphonic music - string quartet in D minor, quintet in C major, piano quintet “Forellenquintett” (“Trout”), “Great Symphony” in C major and “Unfinished Symphony” in B minor - Schubert demonstrates his unique and independent musical thinking, significantly different from the thinking of Beethoven, living and dominant at that time.

From numerous church works Schubert(mass, offertory, hymns, etc.) the Mass in E-flat major is especially distinguished by its sublime character and musical richness.

Of the operas performed at that time, Schubert Most of all I liked “The Swiss Family” by Joseph Weigl, “Medea” by Luigi Cherubini, “John of Paris” by François Adrien Boieldieu, “Cendrillon” by Izward and especially “Iphigenia in Tauris” by Gluck. Schubert had little interest in Italian opera, which was in great fashion in his time; only “The Barber of Seville” and some passages from “Othello” by Gioachino Rossini attracted him.

Posthumous recognition

After Schubert a mass of unpublished manuscripts remained (six masses, seven symphonies, fifteen operas, etc.). Some smaller works were published immediately after the composer's death, but manuscripts of larger works, little known to the public, remained in the bookcases and drawers of relatives, friends and publishers Schubert. Even those closest to him did not know everything he wrote, and for many years he was recognized mainly only as the king of song. In 1838 Robert Schumann While visiting Vienna, I found a dusty manuscript of the “Great Symphony” Schubert and took it with him to Leipzig, where the work was performed by Felix Mendelssohn. The greatest contribution to the search and discovery of works Schubert made by George Grove and Arthur Sullivan, who visited Vienna in the fall of 1867. They managed to find seven symphonies, accompaniment music from the play Rosamund, several masses and operas, some chamber music and a large variety of fragments and songs. These discoveries led to a significant increase in interest in creativity Schubert. Franz Liszt transcribed and arranged a significant number of works from 1830 to 1870 Schubert, especially songs. He said that Schubert"the most poetic musician who ever lived." For Antonin Dvorak, symphonies were especially interesting Schubert, and Hector Berlioz and Anton Bruckner acknowledged the influence of the Great Symphony on their work.

In 1897, the publishers Breitkopf and Hertel published a critical edition of the composer's works, whose chief editor was Johannes Brahms. Twentieth-century composers such as Benjamin Britten, Richard Strauss, and George Crum were or were persistent popularizers of music Schubert, or made allusions to it in their own music. Britten, who was an excellent pianist, accompanied many of the songs. Schubert and often played his solos and duets.

Unfinished Symphony

The time of creation of the symphony in B minor DV 759 (“Unfinished”) was the autumn of 1822. It was dedicated to the amateur musical society in Graz, and Schubert presented two parts of it in 1824.

The manuscript was kept for more than 40 years by a friend Schubert Anselm Hüttenbrenner, until it was discovered by the Viennese conductor Johann Herbeck and performed in a concert in 1865. (The completed Schubert the first two movements, and instead of the missing 3rd and 4th movements the final movement from the early Third Symphony was performed Schubert in D major.) The symphony was published in 1866 in the form of the first two movements.

The reasons why are still unclear Schubert did not complete the “Unfinished” Symphony. Apparently, he intended to bring it to its logical conclusion: the first two parts were completely finished, and the 3rd part (in the nature of a scherzo) remained in sketches. There are no sketches for the ending (or they may have been lost).

For a long time there was a point of view that the “Unfinished” symphony is a completely completed work, since the circle of images and their development exhausts itself within two parts. As a comparison, they talked about Beethoven's sonatas in two movements and that later works of this kind became common among Romantic composers. However, this version is contradicted by the fact that the completed Schubert the first two parts are written in different keys, far from each other. (Such cases have not occurred either before or after him.)

Currently, there are several options for completing the “Unfinished” Symphony (in particular, the options of the English musicologist Brian Newbould and the Russian composer Anton Safronov).

Essays

• Singspiel (7), including Claudina von Villa Bella (on a text by Goethe, 1815, the first of 3 acts has been preserved; staged 1978, Vienna), The Twin Brothers (1820, Vienna), The Conspirators, or Home War (1823; staged 1861 , Frankfurt am Main);
• Music for plays - The Magic Harp (1820, Vienna), Rosamund, Princess of Cyprus (1823, ibid.);
• For soloists, choir and orchestra - 7 masses (1814-1828), German Requiem (1818), Magnificat (1815), offertories and other spiritual works, oratorios, cantatas, including Miriam's Victory Song (1828);
• For orchestra - symphonies (1813; 1815; 1815; Tragic, 1816; 1816; Small C major, 1818; 1821, unfinished; Unfinished, 1822; Major C major, 1828), 8 overtures;
• Chamber instrumental ensembles - 4 sonatas (1816-1817), fantasy (1827) for violin and piano; sonata for arpeggione and piano (1824), 2 piano trios (1827, 1828?), 2 string trios (1816, 1817), 14 or 16 string quartets (1811-1826), Trout piano quintet (1819?), string quintet ( 1828), octet for strings and winds (1824), etc.;
• For piano 2 hands - 23 sonatas (including 6 unfinished; 1815-1828), fantasy (Wanderer, 1822, etc.), 11 impromptu (1827-28), 6 musical moments (1823-1828), rondo, variations and other pieces, over 400 dances (waltzes, ländlers, German dances, minuets, ecosaises, gallops, etc.; 1812-1827);
• For piano 4 hands - sonatas, overtures, fantasies, Hungarian divertissement (1824), rondos, variations, polonaises, marches, etc.;
• Vocal ensembles for male, female voices and mixed compositions with and without accompaniment;
• Songs for voice and piano, (over 600) including the cycles “The Beautiful Miller’s Wife” (1823) and “Winter Retreat” (1827), the collection “Swan Song” (1828), “Ellen’s Third Song” (“Ellens dritter Gesang” , also known as Schubert's "Ave Maria").
• Forest king

Catalog of works

Since relatively few of his works were published during the composer's lifetime, only a few of them have their own opus number, but even in such cases the number does not accurately reflect the time of creation of the work. In 1951, musicologist Otto Erich Deutsch published a catalog of Schubert's works, where all of the composer's works are arranged in chronological order according to the time they were written.

In astronomy

The asteroid (540) Rosamund, discovered in 1904, is named after Franz Schubert's musical play Rosamund. K. Vasilyeva
Franz Schubert
1797 - 1828
a short sketch of life and work
book for young people
"Music", 1969
(pdf, 3 MB)

The fate of wonderful people is amazing! They have two lives: one ends with their death; the other continues after the death of the author in his creations and, perhaps, will never fade away, preserved by subsequent generations, grateful to the creator for the joy that the fruits of his labor bring to people. Sometimes the life of these creatures (whether they are works of art, inventions, discoveries) begins only after the death of the creator, no matter how bitter it is.
This is exactly how the fate of Schubert and his works unfolded. Most of his best works, especially large genres, were not heard by the author. Much of his music might have disappeared without a trace if not for the vigorous search and enormous work of some ardent connoisseurs of Schubert (including such musicians as Schumann and Brahms).
And so, when the great musician’s warm heart stopped beating, his best works began to be “born again”, they started talking about the composer, captivating listeners with their beauty, deep content and skill.

His music gradually began to sound everywhere where true art was appreciated.
Speaking about the peculiarities of Schubert’s work, academician B.V. Asafiev notes in him “the rare ability to be a lyricist, but not to withdraw into one’s personal world, but to feel and convey the joys and sorrows of life in the way that most people feel and would like to convey them.” Perhaps it is impossible to more accurately and deeply express the main thing in Schubert’s music, what its historical role is. Schubert created a huge number of works of all genres that existed in his time without exception - from vocal and piano miniatures to symphonies.
In every field, except theatrical music, he said a unique and new word, leaving wonderful works that are still alive today. Given their abundance, one is struck by the extraordinary variety of melody, rhythm, and harmony.
“What an inexhaustible wealth of melodic invention there was in this untimely ended
his career as a composer,” Tchaikovsky wrote with admiration. “What a luxury of fantasy and sharply defined originality!”
Schubert's song wealth is especially great. His songs are valuable and dear to us not only as independent works of art. They helped the composer find his musical language in other genres. The connection with the songs was not only in the general intonations and rhythms, but also in the peculiarities of presentation, development of themes, expressiveness and colorfulness of harmonic means. Schubert opened the way for many new musical genres - impromptu, musical moments, song cycles, lyric-dramatic symphony. But no matter what genre Schubert wrote - traditional or created by him - everywhere he appears as a composer of a new era, the era of romanticism, although his work is firmly based on classical musical art.
Many features of the new romantic style were then developed in the works of Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, and Russian composers of the second half of the 19th century.

Schubert's music is dear to us not only as a magnificent artistic monument. It deeply moves listeners. Whether it splashes with fun, plunges you into deep thoughts, or causes suffering - it is close and understandable to everyone, so vividly and truthfully does it reveal human feelings and thoughts expressed by the great Schubert in his boundless simplicity.

MAIN WORKS OF SCHUBERT

For symphony orchestra
Eight symphonies, including:
Symphony No. 4, C minor (Tragic), 1816
Symphony No. 5, B flat major, 1816
Symphony No. 7, B minor (Unfinished), 1822
Symphony No. 8, C major, 1828
Seven overtures.

Vocal works(notes)
Over 600 songs, including:
Cycle “The Beautiful Miller's Wife”, 1823
Cycle "Winter Retreat", 1827
Collection “Swan Song” (posthumous), 1828
More than 70 songs based on Goethe's texts, among them:
"Margarita at the Spinning Wheel", 1814
"The Forest King", 1815
More than 30 spiritual works, including:
Mass in A flat major, 1822
Mass in E flat major, 1828
More than 70 secular works for choir and various ensembles.

Chamber ensembles
Fifteen quartets, including:
Quartet in A minor, 1824
Quartet in D minor, 1826
Quintet "Trout", 1819
String Quintet, 1828
Two piano trios, 1826 and 1827.
Octet, 1824

Piano works
Eight impromptu songs, 1827-1828.
Six musical moments, 1827
Fantasy "The Wanderer", 1822
Fifteen sonatas, including:
Sonata in A minor, 1823
Sonata in A major, 1825
Sonata in B flat major, 1828
56 piano duets.
Hungarian divertissement, 1824
Fantasia in F minor, 1828
24 collections of dances.

Musical and dramatic works
Eight Singspiels, including:
"Friends from Salamanca", 1815
"Twins", 1819
Operas:
"Alfonso and Estrella", 1822
"Fierabras", 1823
"Home War" ("Conspirators"), 1823
The rest are not finished.
Melodrama “The Magic Harp”, 1820

Creative path. The role of everyday and folk music in the artistic formation of Schubert

Franz Schubert was born on January 31, 1797 in Lichtenthal, a suburb of Vienna, in the family of a school teacher. The democratic environment that surrounded him from childhood had a great influence on the future composer.

Schubert's introduction to art began with playing music at home, so characteristic of Austrian urban life. Apparently, from a young age, Schubert began to master the multinational musical folklore of Vienna.

In this city, on the border of east and west, north and south, the capital of a “patchwork” empire, many national cultures, including musical ones, mixed. Austrian, German, Italian, Slavic in several varieties (Ukrainian, Czech, Ruthenian, Croatian), Gypsy, Hungarian folklore sounded everywhere.

In Schubert's works, right up to the very last, there is a palpable kinship with the diverse national sources of everyday music in Vienna. Undoubtedly, the dominant current in his work is Austro-German. Being an Austrian composer, Schubert also took a lot from German musical culture. But against this background, the features of Slavic and Hungarian folklore appear especially steadily and clearly.

There was nothing professional in Schubert’s versatile musical education (he had already learned at home the basics of composition, choral art, playing the organ, clavier, and violin). In the era of emerging pop-virtuoso art, it remained patriarchal and somewhat old-fashioned. Indeed, the lack of virtuoso training on the piano was one of the reasons for Schubert’s alienation from the concert stage, which in the 19th century became the most powerful means of promoting new music, especially piano music. Subsequently, he had to overcome his shyness before large public appearances. However, the lack of concert experience also had its positive side: it was compensated by the purity and seriousness of the composer’s musical tastes.

Schubert's works are free from deliberate showiness, from the desire to please the tastes of the bourgeois public, who seek entertainment in art above all. It is characteristic that out of a total number of approximately one and a half thousand works, he created only two actual pop works (“Concertstück” for violin and orchestra and “Polonaise” for violin and orchestra).

Schumann, one of the first connoisseurs of the Viennese romantic, wrote that the latter “did not need to first overcome the virtuoso within himself.”

Schubert’s constant creative connection with the folk genres that were cultivated in his home environment is also significant. Schubert's main artistic genre is song - an art that exists among the people. Schubert draws his most innovative features from traditional folk music. Songs, a four-handed piano piece, arrangements of folk dances (waltzes, ländlers, minuets and others) - all this was of paramount importance in determining the creative image of the Viennese romantic. Throughout his life, the composer maintained a connection not just with the everyday music of Vienna, but with the characteristic style of the Viennese suburbs.

Five-year training in Konvikt *,

* Closed general educational institution, which was also a school for court singers.

from 1808 to 1813, significantly expanded the young man’s musical horizons and determined the nature of his ideological and artistic interests for many years.

At school, playing in and conducting a student orchestra, Schubert became acquainted with a number of outstanding works by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, which had a profound impact on the formation of his artistic tastes. Direct participation in the choir gave him excellent knowledge and a sense of vocal culture, so important for his future work. In Konvikta, the composer’s intense creative activity began in 1810. And, besides, it was there, among the students, that Schubert found an environment close to him. Unlike Salieri, the official head of composition, who sought to educate his student in the traditions of the Italian opera seria, young people sympathized with Schubert’s quest and welcomed the tendency towards national democratic art in his works. In his songs and ballads, she felt the spirit of national poetry, the embodiment of the artistic ideals of the new generation.

In 1813, Schubert left Konvikt. Under strong family pressure, he agreed to become a teacher and, until the end of 1817, taught the alphabet and other elementary subjects at his father's school. This was the first and last service in the composer's life.

During the years associated with his pedagogical activity, Schubert's creative talent unfolded with amazing brilliance. Despite the complete lack of connections with the professional musical world, he composed songs, symphonies, quartets, sacred choral music, piano sonatas, operas and other works. Already during this period, the leading role of the song in his work was clearly identified. In 1815 alone, Schubert composed more than one hundred and forty romances. He wrote greedily, using every free minute, barely managing to put down on paper the thoughts that overwhelmed him. Almost without blemishes or changes, he created one finished work after another. The unique originality of each miniature, the poetic subtlety of their moods, the novelty and integrity of the style elevate these works above everything that was created in the song genre by Schubert's predecessors. In “Margarita at the Spinning Wheel”, “The Forest Tsar”, “The Wanderer”, “Trout”, “To Music” and many other songs of these years, the characteristic images and expressive techniques of romantic vocal lyrics have already been fully defined.

The position of a provincial teacher became unbearable for the composer. In 1818, there was a painful break with his father due to the fact that Schubert refused to serve. He began a new life, completely devoting himself to creativity.

These years were marked by severe, ongoing need. Schubert had no source of material income. His music, which gradually gained recognition among the democratic intelligentsia, was performed almost exclusively in private homes and mainly in the provinces, without attracting the attention of influential persons in the musical world of Vienna. This went on for ten years. Only on the eve of Schubert's death did publishers begin to buy small plays from him, and even then for a paltry fee. Without the funds to rent an apartment, the composer lived most of the time with his friends. The property left behind was valued at 63 florins.

Twice - in 1818 and 1824 - under the pressure of extreme need, Schubert briefly left for Hungary, as a music teacher in the family of Count Esterhazy. The relative prosperity and even the novelty of impressions that attracted the composer, especially musical ones, which left a tangible mark on his work, still did not atone for the gravity of the position of a “court servant” and spiritual loneliness.

And, however, nothing could paralyze his mental strength: neither the miserable level of existence, nor the illness that gradually destroyed his health. His path was a continuous creative ascent. In the 1920s, Schubert lived a particularly intense spiritual life. He moved among the advanced democratic intelligentsia*.

* The Schubert circle included J. von Spaun, F. Schober, the outstanding artist M. von Schwind, brothers A. and J. Hüttenbrevner, poet E. Meyerhofer, revolutionary poet I. Zenn, artists L. Kupelwieser in I. Telcher, student E. von Bauernfeld, famous singer I. Vogl and others. In recent years, the outstanding Austrian playwright and poet Franz Grillparzer joined him.

Public interests and issues of political struggle, the latest works of literature and art, and modern philosophical problems were the focus of attention of Schubert and his friends.

The composer was acutely aware of the oppressive atmosphere of Metternich's reaction, which especially thickened in the last years of his life. In 1820, the entire Schubert circle received official condemnation for revolutionary sentiments. Protest against the existing order is openly expressed in letters and other statements of the great musician.

“It’s just unfortunate how everything now ossifies in vulgar prose, and many people look at it indifferently and even feel quite good, calmly rolling through the mud into the abyss,” he wrote to a friend in 1825.

“...The wise and beneficent state structure made sure that the artist always remained a slave to every miserable tradesman,” says another letter.

Schubert's poem “Complaint to the People” (1824) has survived, according to the author, composed “in one of those dark moments when I especially acutely and painfully felt the futility and insignificance of life, characteristic of our time.” Here are the lines from this outpouring:

O youth of our days, you have rushed by!
The power of the people has been wasted,
And there’s less and less brightness year after year,
And life goes along the path of futility.
It’s getting harder to live in suffering,
Although I still have some strength left.
Lost days that I hate,
Could serve a great purpose...
And only you, Art, are destined
Capture both action and time,
To moderate the sorrowful burden...*

* Translation by L. Ozerov

And in fact, Schubert gave all his unspent spiritual energy to art.

The high intellectual and spiritual maturity he achieved during these years was reflected in the new content of his music. Great philosophical depth and drama, a tendency towards large scales, towards generalizing instrumental thinking distinguish Schubert's work of the 20s from the music of the early period. Beethoven, who a few years ago, during the period of Schubert's boundless admiration for Mozart, sometimes frightened the young composer with his gigantic passions and harsh, unvarnished truthfulness, now became for him the highest artistic standard. Beethovenian - in the sense of scale, great intellectual depth, dramatic interpretation of images and heroic tendencies - enriched the direct and emotional-lyrical character of Schubert's early music.

Already in the first half of the 20s, Schubert created instrumental masterpieces, which subsequently took their place among the most outstanding examples of world musical classics. In 1822, the “Unfinished Symphony” was written - the first symphonic work in which romantic images received their finished artistic expression.

In the early period, new romantic themes - love lyrics, pictures of nature, folk fantasy, lyrical mood - were embodied by Schubert in his songwriting. His instrumental works of those years were still very dependent on classicist models. Now sonata genres have become for him exponents of a new world of ideas. Not only the “Unfinished Symphony”, but also three wonderful quartets, composed in the first half of the 20s (unfinished, 1820; A minor, 1824; D minor, 1824-1826), compete with his song in novelty, beauty and completeness style. The courage of the young composer, who, infinitely admiring Beethoven, followed his own path and created a new direction of romantic symphony, seems amazing. Equally independent during this period is his interpretation of chamber instrumental music, which no longer follows either the path of Haydn’s quartets, which previously served as his models, or the path of Beethoven, whose quartet in these same years turned into a philosophical genre, significantly different in style from his democratic dramatized symphonies.

And in piano music during these years, Schubert created high artistic values. The fantasy “The Wanderer” (the same age as the “Unfinished Symphony”), German dances, waltzes, landlers, “Musical Moments” (1823-1827), “Impromptu” (1827), many piano sonatas can be assessed without exaggeration as a new stage in the history of musical literature . Free from schematic imitation of the classicist sonata, this piano music was distinguished by unprecedented lyrical and psychological expressiveness. Growing out of intimate improvisation, from everyday dance, it was based on new romantic artistic means. None of these creations were performed on the concert stage during Schubert's lifetime. Schubert's deep, restrained piano music, imbued with a subtle poetic mood, diverged too sharply from the pianistic style developing in those years - virtuoso-bravura, spectacular. Even the fantasy "The Wanderer" - Schubert's only virtuoso piano work - was so alien to these requirements that only Liszt's arrangement helped it achieve popularity on the concert stage.

In the choral sphere, the Mass As-dur (1822) appears, one of the most original and powerful works created in this ancient genre by composers of the 19th century. With the four-voice vocal ensemble “Song of the Spirits over the Waters” to the text by Goethe (1821), Schubert reveals completely unexpected colorful and expressive resources of choral music.

He even makes changes to the song - an area in which Schubert found a complete romantic form almost from the first steps. In the song cycle “The Beautiful Miller's Wife” (1823), based on the texts of the poet Müller, a more dramatic and in-depth perception of the world is felt. In music based on poems by Rückert, Pirker, from Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and others, greater freedom of expression and a more perfect development of thought are noticeable.

“Words are constrained, but sounds, fortunately, are still free!” - Beethoven said about Metternich's Vienna. And in the work of recent years, Schubert expressed his attitude to the darkness of the life around him. In the D minor quartet (1824-1826), in the song cycle “Winterreise” (1827), in songs based on texts by Heine (1828), the tragic theme is embodied with striking force and novelty. Filled with passionate protest, Schubert's music of these years is at the same time distinguished by unprecedented psychological depth. And yet, not once in any of his later works did the composer’s tragic worldview turn into brokenness, unbelief, or neurasthenia. The tragic in Schubert's art reflects not powerlessness, but grief for man and faith in his high purpose. Speaking about spiritual loneliness, it also expresses an irreconcilable attitude towards gloomy modernity.

But along with the tragic theme, heroic-epic tendencies are clearly evident in Schubert’s art of recent years. It was then that he created his most life-affirming and bright music, imbued with the pathos of the people. The Ninth Symphony (1828), the string quartet (1828), the cantata “Miriam’s Victory Song” (1828) - these and other works speak of Schubert’s desire to capture in his art images of heroism, images of “the time of power and deeds.”

The composer's latest works revealed a new, unexpected side of his creative personality. The lyricist and miniaturist began to become interested in monumental-epic paintings. Captivated by the new artistic horizons opening up to him, he thought of devoting himself entirely to large, generalizing genres.

“I don’t want to hear anything more about songs, I have now finally taken up operas and symphonies,” said Schubert at the end of his last, C major symphony, six months before the end of his life.

His enriched creative thought is reflected in new quests. Now Schubert turns not only to Viennese everyday folklore, but also to folk themes in a broader, Beethovenian sense. His interest in both choral music and polyphony increases. In the last year of his life he composed four major choral works, including the outstanding Mass in Es major. But he combined grandiose scales with fine detailing, and Beethovenian drama with romantic images. Never before had Schubert achieved such versatility and depth of content as in his most recent creations. The composer, who had already composed more than a thousand works, stood in the year of his death on the threshold of new grandiose discoveries.

The end of Schubert's life was marked by two outstanding events, which occurred, however, with a fatal delay. In 1827, Beethoven highly appreciated several of Schubert's songs and expressed a desire to become acquainted with the works of the young author. But when Schubert, overcoming his shyness, came to the great musician, Beethoven was already lying on his deathbed.

Another event was Schubert's first author's evening in Vienna (in March 1828), which was a huge success. But a few months after this concert, which first attracted the attention of the wide musical community of the capital to the composer, he passed away. Schubert's death, which occurred on November 19, 1828, was hastened by prolonged nervous and physical exhaustion.