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.
Hello and thank you for being a DL contributor. We are changing the login scheme for contributors for simpler login and to better support using multiple devices. Please click here to update your account with a username and password.
Hello. Some features on this site require registration. Please click here to register for free.
Hello and thank you for registering. Please complete the process by verifying your email address. If you can't find the email you can resend it here.
Hello. Some features on this site require a subscription. Please click here to get full access and no ads for $1.99 or less per month.
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.
by Anonymous | reply 62 | November 30, 2024 5:11 PM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 1 | March 19, 2024 1:13 AM |
Karl Bohm conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in Schubert's Unfinished
by Anonymous | reply 2 | March 19, 2024 1:15 AM |
Mitsuko Uchida playing his 4 Impromptus, No 3 in G-Flat Major
by Anonymous | reply 3 | March 19, 2024 1:16 AM |
I feel like he's underrated. He died of syphilis
by Anonymous | reply 6 | March 19, 2024 1:25 AM |
The song that is always included in EVERY Farewell Recital . . .
by Anonymous | reply 7 | March 19, 2024 1:28 AM |
He composed my favorite symphony. Every movement is PERFECTION!
by Anonymous | reply 8 | March 19, 2024 1:30 AM |
Likely gay, but so young and so poor when he died it wasn’t clear what he was. He did have syphilis
by Anonymous | reply 9 | March 19, 2024 1:31 AM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | March 19, 2024 1:35 AM |
I don’t think he is underrated, R6. He is widely considered as on of the greatest composers.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | March 19, 2024 1:37 AM |
Andras Schiff playing his Impromptu No 4 in A Flat
by Anonymous | reply 12 | March 19, 2024 1:38 AM |
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
by Anonymous | reply 13 | March 19, 2024 1:40 AM |
Adagio in e flat. One of his last pieces. Makes me cry.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | March 19, 2024 1:41 AM |
The television show "Wings" wouldn't have had a theme song without Schubert
by Anonymous | reply 15 | March 19, 2024 1:44 AM |
R11, during his life to me he wasn’t
by Anonymous | reply 16 | March 19, 2024 1:45 AM |
Also, one of the most prolific composers of music for two performers at one piano keyboard:
by Anonymous | reply 17 | March 19, 2024 1:48 AM |
For some reason, Koreans are obsessed with this:
by Anonymous | reply 18 | March 19, 2024 1:49 AM |
What a lovely (and educational) thread. Thanks, OP.
by Anonymous | reply 22 | March 19, 2024 2:08 AM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 23 | March 19, 2024 2:18 AM |
^ Thanks for calling out Winterreise, R21!!
by Anonymous | reply 24 | March 19, 2024 2:20 AM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 25 | March 19, 2024 2:23 AM |
^Schreier, oh Dear!
by Anonymous | reply 26 | March 19, 2024 2:23 AM |
He's usually not mentioned along with the greats.
by Anonymous | reply 27 | March 19, 2024 2:24 AM |
THANK YOU, R28!
by Anonymous | reply 29 | March 19, 2024 2:31 AM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 32 | March 19, 2024 2:41 AM |
I couldn't find a clip on Youtube, but the Schubert Symphony starts a little after the 1 hour and 24 minute mark.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | March 19, 2024 2:53 AM |
Another great song (one of Schubert's earliest) performed by an amazing singer. Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel
by Anonymous | reply 34 | March 19, 2024 2:53 AM |
My dog loves Schubert, especially the Impromptus. They really seem to affect her.
by Anonymous | reply 35 | March 19, 2024 2:54 AM |
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 . . .
by Anonymous | reply 36 | March 19, 2024 3:06 AM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 38 | March 19, 2024 3:13 AM |
What a strange comment, R13 -- neither of the pieces you mention would have struck Schubert's public as strange combinations of musical resources.
by Anonymous | reply 39 | March 19, 2024 3:24 AM |
[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
by Anonymous | reply 42 | March 19, 2024 3:32 AM |
Please be nice!
by Anonymous | reply 43 | March 19, 2024 4:13 AM |
I like his cover of Ring My Bell.
by Anonymous | reply 44 | March 19, 2024 4:33 AM |
OP, you forgot to end it with
He is Franz Schubert.
by Anonymous | reply 45 | March 19, 2024 4:36 AM |
How you can write 10 symphonies without ever hearing them performed is beyond me.
by Anonymous | reply 46 | March 19, 2024 4:45 AM |
R46 He wrote 9 symphonies
by Anonymous | reply 47 | March 19, 2024 5:11 AM |
I don't think Taylor Swift listens to her music either.
by Anonymous | reply 48 | March 19, 2024 5:12 AM |
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?
by Anonymous | reply 49 | March 19, 2024 5:33 AM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 50 | March 19, 2024 8:57 AM |
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.
by Anonymous | reply 52 | March 19, 2024 3:02 PM |
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).
by Anonymous | reply 53 | March 19, 2024 3:07 PM |
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.)
by Anonymous | reply 54 | March 19, 2024 8:50 PM |
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!
by Anonymous | reply 55 | March 19, 2024 9:17 PM |
Kyung Wha Chung playing the violin sonata with Kevin Kenner
by Anonymous | reply 56 | March 19, 2024 9:24 PM |
Schubert was Donald Rumsfeld favorite composer.
by Anonymous | reply 57 | March 20, 2024 2:41 AM |
Schubert was a pocket gay, only five foot one tall. His nickname was ‘Schwammerl’ (little mushroom).
by Anonymous | reply 58 | March 20, 2024 1:47 PM |
Keep the recommendations coming!
by Anonymous | reply 59 | March 20, 2024 2:39 PM |
How has no one mentioned Schubert's Trout Quintet?
by Anonymous | reply 60 | June 11, 2024 9:43 PM |
Cello/String Quintet, not the Trout! Sorry
by Anonymous | reply 61 | June 11, 2024 9:50 PM |
Yes indeed, we too use "cookies." Take a look at our privacy/terms or if you just want to see the damn site without all this bureaucratic nonsense, click ACCEPT. Otherwise, you'll just have to find some other site for your pointless bitchery needs.
Become a contributor - post when you want with no ads!