Yesterday was Franz Schubert's birthday. People don't usually name him along with Mozart and Beethoven -- and all the other greats before and after the period during which those three lived in Vienna. He was as talented as either but had his own distinct style. More romantic than Mozart, not as grand and deep as Beethoven. He lived only to his early 30 but must have done nothing but write music -- his output was as almost as prolific as Mozart's. I heard his Trout Quintet just before I fell asleep last night -- so beautiful, so joyous. I love his 9th symphony almost as much as Beethoven's. Last spring I saw one of his rarely performed operas. The music was as heavenly as his lieder but the story was ridiculous and the staging and design equally ridiculous. Never mind. He apparently did nothing dramatic -- no heavy handed father, no mysterious death, no deafness or secret romance. He just wrote music and made so little money at it he had to go play at soirees to earn a bit. The world is a more beautiful place because of Franz Schubert.
2 comments:
My favorite symphony, for most of my adult life and, likely, forever - is Beethoven's 6th, the Pastoral(e).
It's been panned by the musically sophisticated. It's been deemed makish and a wee bit trite. I don't much care. I listen to the Sixth and I fall in love with Life and living.
I happen to enjoy Schubert, too. Not as much as I love a great many Russian composers. There's something about Russian emotions that tickles my roots...
Great music is as various as the composers were and the listeners respond as variously -- it's wonderful to have all that treasure of great music and, of course, it grows every day.
One of my great joys is hearing something I haven't heard before or haven't paid much attention to and discovering that it's wonderful.
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