Schubert: Symphony No. 9, 'great'

Description

Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) Symphony No.9 in C Major, D. 944, the \Great Franz Schubert was born in Vienna in 1797, the son of a schoolmaster who had settled in the city some fourteen years before. He showed early musical ability, exercised in the family quartet with his father and older brothers, and in 1808 was successful in winning a place as a chorister in the Imperial Chapel, enabling him to continue his general education at the Staatskonvikt, a school of the highest prestige. It was here that he was exposed to a wider musical world and began to compose. At the Konvikt he could profit from the presence of the old Kapellmeister Salieri and broaden his practical experience by playing the violin in the student orchestra, which he sometimes led. His voice broke in 1812 and he rejected the offer of a scholarship for further study, instead entering the Normal School of St. Anna to train as an elementary teacher. In this capacity he joined his father in the school-room in 1815. The following year he was unsuccessful in an application for a position as music teacher at the Normal School in Laibach (Ljubljana) but left home to lodge instead with his friend Franz von Schober. The remaining years of Schubert's life were spent predominantly in Vienna, more often than not in the company of friends. There were occasions when he returned briefly to teaching at his father's school, but as a composer he proved increasingly prolific, particularly in the writing of songs, welcomed among his own circle and winning him gradually a wider reputation. Some of his songs proved immediately successful, particularly through the advocacy of his friend, the singer Michael Vogl, and there were commissions for the theatre and publication of piano pieces and songs well suited to the new domestic market. His last years, however, were clouded by illness. A syphilitic infection, in those days incurable, took its intermittent course, and he died in November 1828, twenty months after the death of Beethoven. While the latter had from the first enjoyed distinguished patronage and had had an early career as a virtuoso pianist, Schubert had occupied a different position in society, part, rather, of the society of Biedermeier Vienna. Lacking the esteem and patronage from which Beethoven had profited, Schubert published relatively little and consequently left a great deal of music to be rediscovered posthumously. His orchestral writing was clearly influenced by the repertoire of the Staatskonvikt orchestra, which included symphonies by Mozart and Haydn, as well as the earlier Beethoven symphonies. The family quartet tackled four-part versions of Haydn symphonies and the ensemble grew so that by 1815, under the leadership of the violinist Otto Hatwig, it could muster some twenty string players, as well as double woodwind and percussion, providing an orchestra for which Schubert, who played viola, wrote his earlier symphonies and overtures. The "Great" C major Symphony marks the summit