Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert is one of my favorite composers.

What are your favorite pieces by him? Favorite recordings?

Sad he died at the age of 31.

Few things are more beautiful than the Andante from his Piano Trio No. 1 in B-Flat Major.

Played in the attached excellently and perfectly by Isaac Stern, Leonard Rose, and Eugene Istomin.

Karl Bohm conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in Schubert's Unfinished

Mitsuko Uchida playing his 4 Impromptus, No 3 in G-Flat Major

One of his many-hundred songs:

I feel like he's underrated. He died of syphilis

The song that is always included in EVERY Farewell Recital . . .

He composed my favorite symphony. Every movement is PERFECTION!

Likely gay, but so young and so poor when he died it wasn’t clear what he was. He did have syphilis

He is the one artist whose early death I truly lament. God knows what would have sprung from his imagination if he had lived as long as Beethoven.

I don’t think he is underrated, R6. He is widely considered as on of the greatest composers.

Andras Schiff playing his Impromptu No 4 in A Flat

One of the neatest things about Schubert is that he could always create great music for whatever instruments/musicians were available at any given time. Hence, the Trout Quintet and The Shepherd on the Rock.

Kind of makes you wonder what gem he would have composed if he'd hung out for a few days with a banjo player, a bagpiper, and an accordionist

Adagio in e flat. One of his last pieces. Makes me cry.

The television show "Wings" wouldn't have had a theme song without Schubert

R11, during his life to me he wasn’t

Also, one of the most prolific composers of music for two performers at one piano keyboard:

For some reason, Koreans are obsessed with this:

Another four-hand classic:

You can also play it with 8 hands!

Winterreise, Schreier and Schiff

What a lovely (and educational) thread. Thanks, OP.

he last song of the Winter's Journey song cycle is Die Leiermann (The Hurdy Gurdy Player) and was one of the last pieces Schubert composed before his untimely death. The piece is absolutely BONE CHILLING in its stark simplicity and paints a cold, barren winter landscape.

^ Thanks for calling out Winterreise, R21!!

Die Winterreise is so sad as a whole. Beautiful but sad, in a melancholy way. The opening is haunting already. The lyrics by Wilhelm Müller are amazing.

Thanks for sharing the Schiff/Schreyer version.

He's usually not mentioned along with the greats.

Hear it on an actual hurdy gurdy, r23.

Andras Schiff on Schubert.

Schiff on the impromptus.

I always loved Schubert's Second Symphony.

In the film Nixon, the first movement plays while he is bombing Cambodia, lying to the press/public, college kids protest, and he is ordering John Dean to take the fall. It is a genius montage.

I couldn't find a clip on Youtube, but the Schubert Symphony starts a little after the 1 hour and 24 minute mark.

Another great song (one of Schubert's earliest) performed by an amazing singer. Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel

My dog loves Schubert, especially the Impromptus. They really seem to affect her.

He composed this great sonata for a now-defunct instrument called the Arpeggione (played here on 'cello). The man would compose great music for ANY instrument!

R28 - Challenge: Can you find us a performance on an actual Arpeggione? You know there has to be one out there somewhere . . .

It was Schubert who got me into classical music. I heard the opening to the last piano sonata (D960) in a record store one day, and had to have it. It was the beginning of the CD era, and mid-price Polydor classical CDs (Philips, Decca, DG) were on sale @ 3 for $25, so I bought this, by Alfred Brendel, a disc of Mozart PCs 23 & 27, and Beethoven's 9th (HVK). And I've been listening to classical ever since. I like popular music too, mostly from before the '80s.

What a strange comment, R13 -- neither of the pieces you mention would have struck Schubert's public as strange combinations of musical resources.

This is a good Guardian article

[quote]neither of the pieces you mention would have struck Schubert's public as strange combinations of musical resources

R39 - Okay: Please name some other compositions, either famous or obscure, written for:

1) Piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass.

2) Soprano, clarinet, and piano

I like his cover of Ring My Bell.

OP, you forgot to end it with

He is Franz Schubert.

How you can write 10 symphonies without ever hearing them performed is beyond me.

R46 He wrote 9 symphonies

I don't think Taylor Swift listens to her music either.

R42, just off the top off my head, Louis Spohr wrote a lovely set of songs for soprano, piano and clarinet. Júlia Várady recorded them for Orfeo. Meyerbeer comes to mind as another composer who wrote songs in that vein.

in 1802, Hummel wrote a piano quintet for the same combination as Schubert's 1919 "Trout." Wikipedia reports others by Dussek (1799), Ries (1817), Cramer (1825, 1832), Rigel (1826), Pixis (ca.1827), Limmer (1832), Farrenc (1839, 1840) and Onslow (1846, 1848, 1849).

Next?

Thank you, R1. That movement is so beautiful, yet so simple in the outer sections, and even the inner, turbulent section is not particularly complex. I wept, because years ago I played that trio with two friends, and it brought back fond memories of that time. I’ve been a violinist for more than 55 years, recently diagnosed with a physical problem that is limiting my ability to play. Fond memories mixed with current sorrow and longing for that past seemed to fit with the outer sections of that movement.

He was working on No 10, R47

I remember telling a teacher when I was very young that my favourite composer was Schubert. She snottily replied, "Well, there's no accounting for the tastes of the young!"

Anyway, I especially love to play his Sehnsuchtswalzer (Waltz(es) of Longing). I also like almost all of his Lieder because they're so tuneful and approachable. Barbra Streisand even sang Auf dem Wasser zu singen (To Sing on the Water) on her Classical Barbra album and sounded pretty good doing it, too!

The only piece of his that I don't like as much as most people seem to is Ave Maria. I much prefer the Bach/Gounod version.

R52 again - I forgot to add that I like how he uses chords so beautifully and moves the inner harmonies so subtly, a little bit like Brahms, and doesn't fall back on the hackneyed device of the Alberti bass (left hand playing the same old broken chords in the same old pattern, over and over).

I just recently (re)discovered Die schöne Müllerin, which strangely managed to pass me by. One of my absolute favourites in there is the piece "Ungeduld" (Impatience), where the young journeyman blurts out his love for the miller's wife. He's giddy with love, vowing he will carve his crush's name not every tree, and (very creatively) sow her name in cress seeds so everyone will soon read it, etc. Such an incredible song. One of my favourite recordings of the song cycle is by Daniel Behle. It manages to touch me, and not many Lieder achieve that. (To know that it ends so very tragically makes it extra bitter-sweet.)

R50 You are welcome! It is a favorite piece of mine. One of the best ever written.

I'm sorry about your health Is there anything I can do?

Please keep the discussion going!

Kyung Wha Chung playing the violin sonata with Kevin Kenner

Schubert was Donald Rumsfeld favorite composer.

Schubert was a pocket gay, only five foot one tall. His nickname was ‘Schwammerl’ (little mushroom).

Keep the recommendations coming!