Other notes

Franz Schubert was born in Vienna, 1797, the son of a schoolmaster who had moved to Vienna from his native Moravia. Franz was raised in a highly musical environment, and was taught to play the violin, viola, and piano. At the age of nine, he began harmony and counterpoint studies, and at 11 entered the Imperial Chapel as a choirboy, receiving his musical and general education at the Stadtskonvikt. The school gave him many opportunities to develop his compositional technique. He studied theory with Salieri (who was choirmaster), and composed his First Symphony (1813) for the school orchestra. 

When his voice broke in 1812, Schubert decided to leave the school and began training as a teacher. In 1814, he became assistant teacher to his father, and the same year, his Mass in F major was first performed in Vienna. The soprano soloist was Therese Grob, with whom Schubert fell in love. That year also saw the composition of his first true masterpiece, the song 'Gretchen at the Spinning-wheel', a setting of a poem by Goethe. During the next few years, he continued to compose an astonishing amount of music - his output in 1815 alone included 144 songs, a symphony, two Masses, and many other works.

A charity concert in 1821 brought Schubert a little more recognition with the public. By this time, his circle of friends had undergone many changes, with several members leaving Vienna. He sketched his Seventh Symphony in 1821, but left it unorchestrated, and in the following year began the famous Eighth Symphony in B minor, but only completed two movements of the work (hence its status as 'The Unfinished').  In 1825, he composed his Ninth Symphony (‘The Great’). Altogether, Schubert wrote 6 complete symphonies, and three left incomplete. Schubert died in Vienna, at age 31, on 19 November 1828.

Along with Beethoven, he was the most accomplished symphonist of his day. He excelled in all of the forms that he attempted (except opera), and was arguably the greatest songwriter who ever lived. He expanded Classical form immensely, and introduced harmonic innovations that remained unchallenged until well into the late 19th century. The emotional expression of his music is what places him firmly into the canon of great composers. He was, in many respects, the first true Romantic. 

Incomplete though it is, the Eighth Symphony remains one of the most moving symphonic works from the early 19th century, and a very advanced one in the context of its time. Here for the first time was a composition worth to stand beside Beethoven’s symphonic music. The deep pathos we encounter in Schubert’s B Minor Symphony, its broad harmonic tonal terrain and the ambitious scale of the movements all mark this “Unfinished” Symphony as a worthy successor to Beethoven’s middle-period works.