Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 5 And 8 / Rosamunde

Description

Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) Symphony No.8 in B minor (Unfinished) D. 759 Symphony No.5 in B flat major D. 485 Rosamunde D. 797Vienna has alwaysclaimed Franz Schubert as its own. Of his immediate predecessors, Haydn camefrom the village of Rohrau, Mozart came to the city from provincial Salzburg,while Beethoven travelled there from his native Bonn. Schubert was born inVienna and spent most of his life there. His family, however, were from anotherpart of the Habsburg empire. Schubert's father, Franz Theodor, was from Moraviaand his mother from Silesia. The former had joined his elder brother as aschoolmaster in the capital, while the latter's father had been driven thereafter financial troubles at home.Franz Schubert,born in 1797, was the fourth surviving child of 14 born to his mother. Hismusical abilities were fostered as a chorister in the Imperial Chapel, aposition that brought with it the chance of a decent education at theStaatskonvikt and also an association with the old Court Kapellmeister AntonioSalieri, whose influence on him was considerable. In 1812 his voice broke, butthis need not have ended his schooling. Faced, however, with a choice betweenmusic and academic study he chose to leave, and in 1814 entered a school forthe training of teachers. His father's school was, after all, the customaryfamily business, demanding the assistance of his sons. In 1815 he began work asan assistant to Franz Theodor, only to abandon both home and career, at leastfor the time being, the following year.Schubert's childhood had been dominated by music. He played the pianoand the violin, and there was a family string quartet, in which he and two ofhis older brothers were joined by their father, an amateur cellist andallegedly the least proficient of the group. At school he had led the studentorchestra and acquired close familiarity with contemporary repertoire. Aboveall, though, he w rote songs, settings of words by famous poets or by writerswho had become his friends.In 1816, at the ageof 19, Schubert left home to live with his friend Franz von Schober. A yearlater he was home again at his father's new school. In 1818, after serving asmusic teacher to the daughters of Prince Esterhazy in Hungary, he returned toVienna to share rooms with another friend, the poet Mayrhofer, later movingback once more to his father's school-house. He was to return briefly toHungary for part of the summer of 1824, at a time when his health had beenseriously impaired by the venereal infection that was to cause his death in1828.During his brief life Schubert enjoyed the friendship of a circle ofyoung poets, artists and musicians, many of them dependent on other employmentfor a living. He never held any official position in the musical establishment,nor was he a virtuoso performer, as Mozart and Beethoven had been. The latter,who was to die one year before Schubert, had long been forced to relinquish hisearlier career as a virtuoso, but kept and was kept by a group of rich patro