Franz Schubert (1797-1828) was an Austrian composer.

Though he died at
the young age of thirty-one, he was incredibly prolific and much of his work is still
lauded for its artistry today. Schubert’s work was not well-known during his
lifetime, only truly known to a small circle of admirers, but his work became much
more popular in the decades following his death. Schubert’s musical instruction
began when he was seven with Michael Holzer. In 1804, Antonio Salieri, Vienna’s
leading authority in music, noticed him for his vocal talent. In 1808, he was awarded
a choir scholarship at the Imperial Seminary. Here, Schubert began more formal
musical study and began to tutor privately with Salieri in music theory and
composition. He wrote for the orchestra at the Imperial Seminary, and also began
writing chamber music, songs, piano pieces, among other types of compositions.
Schubert’s favorite type of composition, it seemed, was the lied, or art song. He set
the work of many different poets, most frequently Goethe, Mayrhofer, and
Eichendorff. Of Schubert’s shorter works, composer Antonín Dvořák wrote in 1894
that “Schubert created a new epoch with the Lied...All other songwriters have
followed in his footsteps."

After two weeks spent in Graz in the summer of 1827, Schubert seemed to
have been struck by his hostess, pianist Marie Pachler. He wrote to her by letter
with very warm and language signifying great admiration, and also set several
poems to music for her whilst staying with her. One of these songs was “Heimliches
Lieben” featuring poetry by Karoline Klenke (1754-1812). When it was
composed, this poem was thought to have been written by Karl von Leitner, who
wrote many of the other poems Schubert set during this time. Faust Pachler, son of
Marie, described this situation and confirmed the true author of this poem in a letter
to Konstantin von Wurzbach in 1876. This text was one of Pachler’s favorites, and
she is the one who suggested this poem to Schubert. In his collection of Schubert’s
lieder, Graham Johnson confesses that this is his least favorite of Schubert’s songs
due to its “drawing-room sentimentality”. Late music critic Richard Capell, though,
says that the piece is “most gratefully vocal”, an opinion shared by Johnson despite
its “salon-esque” style. The voice and piano in this piece create a clear and honest
description of love and yearning that is quite obvious yet incredibly poetic in the
text.
“Sehnsucht” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is one of many
poems by Goethe that Schubert set to music. Schubert set this specific poem several
times in a number of ways. The poem centers on the character of Mignon, one of the
characters from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. Mignon is a teenage girl who
has been hopelessly in love with Wilhelm, the hero of this work, since they met. The
book features song lyrics throughout that have been set to music by different
composers. “Sehnsucht” is a song of longing, per its title, that is sung by Mignon and
the Harper while Wilhelm dreams about one of the many women he falls in love
with over the course of this story. The character of Mignon is an incredibly powerful
one as she is complex and realistic due to her multi-faceted story and personality. In
this song, “Lied der Mignon”, Schubert expresses Mignon’s changing emotions and
mood swings due to her bearing witness to Wilhelm wooing and dreaming of other
women. The musical change for the lines “es schwindelt mir, es brennt mein
Eingeweide” signifies the change in mood from a calm and introspective longing, to
a frenzied and frantic anxiety due to jealousy and love.

“Gretchen am Spinnrade” is one of Schubert’s more notable works. It centers

on the character of Gretchen from Goethe’s Faust.