The Best of Franz Schubert
Welcome back to Mozart For Muggles, the series that explains classical music for people who just don’t “get” it. We keep things simple here. No jargon, no technical terms, and very little theory. Just lots of good music!
I’ve been on a bit of a Schubert high lately, so this time around we’re going to take a quick tour of some of my favorite pieces by the great Franz Schubert.
Schubert, like Haydn and Mozart, was exceptionally prolific. The dude wrote hundreds of Lieder (short songs for voice and piano), a bunch of chamber music, and many symphonies. The craziest part? He died at 31. Let that sink in for a moment.
Schubert lived right on the cusp between two periods of music history: the Classical and the Romantic. (Need a quick refresh of what that means? Read this!) One of my music professors in college said that Schubert composed Romantic music with the tools of a Classical composer. You can hear it quite well in these pieces below. Each piece expressively tells a story as if it were a piece of Romantic music, but the scenes and characters are distinct and pronounced like a piece of Classical music — they don’t blend seamlessly like in a piece of late Romantic music.
Enough chit-chat. Let’s get to the music!
Der Erlkonig
Let’s start with this Lied (“song”). The lyrics come from Goethe’s poem by the same name — Der Erlkonig. Even if you don’t turn on the captions for this video, you can still understand what’s happening. The animations are stunning. And the music? Well, the music is why we’re here of course!
You can hear the voices of each character so clearly. You feel the gentle encouragement of Death, the terror of the boy, the dismissive hopefulness of the father. This clarity is present in all of Schubert’s music. Even without the nice animations. Listen on!
Death and the Maiden — Andante con moto
I bet you can guess what this piece of music is about just from the title. Fun fact, the melody from this movement was originally a Lied like Der Erlkonig above. And that original Lied was also titled “Death and the Maiden.”
This is only the 2nd movement out of 4, but it’s my personal favorite. I also think it’s the easiest to understand and listen to if you don’t really care for classical music. The entire movement is only one melody — but that melody shifts and transforms and develops many times. This “transforming melody” is what’s called “variations on a theme.”
Listen to how the Maiden and Death talk to each other. But don’t just listen to one voice or another. Feel them all at once. Feel the fear, how it transforms into hope, and then to despair, and back to hope.
As others have wondered, is Death the one morosely commanding the Maiden to follow him? Or is Death singing sweet encouragements to the dejected, fearful Maiden? Is she begging for her life, or is she coming solemnly?
Asking these questions makes listening to this piece oh so interesting. You have to listen at least twice! As I said, the video above is only the 2nd movement. To hear the terrifying beginning of the piece (and the rest of the story), check out the whole piece here.
Serenade (arranged for solo guitar)
This Standchen or “Serenade” is a Lied that was published a few months after Schubert’s death. It was one of the last things he ever wrote. It’s a short story of a person wishing to be loved by another. You can feel two different things: melancholy yearning and hope. They shift back and forth, back and forth.
Like all Lieder, this was originally written for voice and piano, but Liszt came along and rewrote it — and a lot of Schubert’s Lieder — for solo piano. It became very popular after he rearranged and began performing it.
Piano Trio no. 2 — Andante con moto
Moving on, here’s the 2nd movement of Schubert’s 2nd piano trio. It’s an incredibly popular piece. I hear it in movies and documentaries quite frequently!
It has a bit of a “funeral march” feel to it at the beginning, don’t you think? The cello is a bit solemn for its solo, and so is the piano when the solo comes its way. But when the violin takes a turn playing the melody at 17:25, everything changes. The sun comes out! Listen how this melody goes back and forth, how suddenly or dramatically the sun goes behind the clouds, how soon the sun comes out again.
String Quintet in C major — Adagio
This is my favorite composition by Schubert, personally. This string quintet is absolutely magical — every note of it.
My favorite thing to listen to is the conversation between the first violin and first cello throughout the 2nd movement. Listen for a bit. Watch the violinist on the far left and the cellist in the center. Hear how the violin says something, and then the cello replies?
And then at 4:46 you can hear a terrible storm (or is it an argument?) brew. It comes out of nowhere. But is it really an argument? Or just a show of passion? Keep listening to the violin (and second cello)’s conversation with the first cello throughout this. Feel how the passion comes and goes.
This only the 1/4 of the piece. The entire string quintet is equally mesmerizing. You can give it a listen here!
Some final thoughts…
Have you noticed a pattern in Schubert yet? Not to oversimplify his music, but one thing I’ve found I can count on when I listen to Schubert is that he usually has two or three distinct characters that pop up and disappear very suddenly and noticeably.
For this reason, his music is easy to listen to, easy to understand, and easy to enjoy. You don’t have to listen to a piece 50 times to “get” it (unlike many composers that come before or after him). You don’t have to know any fancy words to appreciate his music. It speaks for itself just as it is.
This doesn’t even scratch the surface of all the beautiful music that Schubert wrote, but hopefully it gives you some nice things to explore and an idea of what to listen for when you hear Schubert.
Additional resources:
- Joel Krosnick analyses Schubert’s String Quintet
- Schubert’s Piano Quintet “The Trout” — performed by Jacquline du Pre, Barenboim, Perlman, and Pinchas
- Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony” — conducted by Leonard Bernstein
What’s your favorite piece by Schubert? Please share it with us below! And don’t forget to follow and clap so you and your friends can fulfill your long held dreams of becoming hat-tipping, monocle-adjusting, classical music enthusiasts!
