Schubert: 6 Moments Musicaux, D. 780 / 3 Piano Pieces, D. 946

Description

Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)6 Moments musicaux, Opus 94, D, 780 Allegretto in C minor, D. 9153 Klavierstucke, D, 946Franz Schubert was born in Vienna in1797, the son of a schoolmaster who had followed his brother to the Imperial capital fromhis native Moravia. Descended on his mother's side from Silesian stock, Schubert was asViennese in language and outlook as any other inhabitant of a city, the cultural strengthof which lay in its very mixture of races.Schubert's family showedconsiderable musical enthusiasm, his father evidently the least proficient member of thefamily string quartet, in which he played the cello. Schubert himself, like Mozart beforehim, played the violin and viola, and was a proficient enough keyboard-player, if no greatvirtuoso. His musical and general education was at the Staatskonvikt, an institution heattended as a member of the choir of the Imperial Chapel directed by the KapellmeisterAntonio Salieri, his composition teacher. In 1812, when his voice broke, he left the choirand rather than continue an education that would have distracted him from music he chosein 1814 to embark on a course of teacher training, joining his father in the familybusiness as an assistant teacher in the following year.During these early years Schuberthad shown considerable musical precocity. His first surviving compositions date from 1810and by the following year he had embarked on the writing of the first of the many songsettings in which his particular genius in melodic invention is shown. 1811 brought hisfirst attempt at opera, a medium in which he never achieved any particular distinction,and his ambitious attempts at others forms of vocal and instrumental music. The followingyears brought a flood of music of all kinds so that by the end of the year in which hecompleted his formal education he had already written, among other things threesymphonies, a dozen or so string quartets and some fifty songs.As a school-teacher Schubert showedlittle ability or interest and in 1816 he gave up the attempt, living thereafterintermittently with various friends, busy as a composer and as an important figure in hisown circle, but never enjoying any official position as a musician. His last years weredarkened by illness of syphilitic origin that first made itself known in 1823, itspredictable and fatal progress awakening immediate fears for his life. He died in 1828,the year of the first public concert dedicated to his music, at a time when publisherswere showing an increased interest in his work.Schubert's six Momens musicals, which might more correctly haveappeared as Moments musicaux, were published in Vienna in 1828 by Leidesdorf, with whomthe composer had come to an agreement in 1822 to provide songs for two years in return fora regular payment of 480 florins. The sixth of the later Musical Moments was published in1824 in a Christmas album under the title Les Plaintesd'un Troubadour. Like the Impromptusthese short piano pieces seem to owe a debt to the