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	{{picture\|file=~~Franz Schubert~~.jpg\|caption='''Franz Schubert''' (1797-1828)}}		{{picture\|file=Schubert_Franz.jpg\|caption='''Franz Schubert''' (1797-1828), in a portrait by Wilhelm August Rieder}}
	Austrian composer (b. 31 January 1797 in [[Vienna]]; d. 19 November 1828 in [[Vienna]]), born '''''Franz Peter Schubert'''''.		Austrian composer (b. 31 January 1797 {{NS}} in [[Vienna]]; d. 19 November 1828 {{NS}} in [[Vienna]]), born '''''Franz Peter Schubert'''''.

	==Tchaikovsky and Schubert==		==Tchaikovsky and Schubert==
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	* [[wikipedia:Franz Schubert\|Wikipedia]]		* [[wikipedia:Franz Schubert\|Wikipedia]]
	* {{IMSLP\|Schubert,_Franz}}		* {{IMSLP\|Schubert,_Franz}}
			* {{viaf\|7575259}}

	==Notes and References==		==Notes and References==

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{{picture|file=Franz Schubert.jpg|caption='''Franz Schubert''' (1797-1828)}}
Austrian composer (b. 31 January 1797 in [[Vienna]]; d. 19 November 1828 in [[Vienna]]), born '''''Franz Peter Schubert'''''.

==Tchaikovsky and Schubert==
Tchaikovsky had a profound admiration for Schubert's music, as we can see from the many enthusiastic remarks in his feuilleton articles of the 1870s (see below). Although in one of these articles he observed that Schubert could not quite be ranked alongside [[Mozart]] and [[Beethoven]], just a few years later, when discussing the significance of [[Bizet]]'s opera ''Carmen'' in a series of letters written in the summer of 1880, he spoke of [[Mozart]], Beethoven, and Schubert in the same breath as "the great masters of the past".

Given that in Tchaikovsky's time Schubert was known mainly for his ''Lieder'', his chamber music, and piano pieces (just two of his nine symphonies had been unearthed and incorporated into the European concert repertoire by the 1870s, as mentioned in [[TH 288]]), it was not at all so obvious that the young Tchaikovsky should have immediately taken a liking to his music at the [[Saint Petersburg]] Conservatory. (It was there that Tchaikovsky was really introduced to Schubert's works for the first time by his classically-minded teachers, especially [[Anton Rubinstein]]) After all, as [[Herman Laroche]] pointed out in one of his memoirs about his late friend, the young Tchaikovsky had several peculiar "musical antipathies", including a dislike of the combination of piano with string instruments and indeed an aversion to chamber music as such. Tchaikovsky had even sworn that he would never write any short piano pieces or songs himself. However, as [[Laroche]] adds: "He expressed the most profound contempt for songs and romances as a musical genre. This hatred, though, was of a purely platonic nature because he was quite willing to share in my delight at [the songs of] [[Glinka]], [[Schumann]], and Franz Schubert" <ref name="note1"/>. Thus, it is very likely that for all his professions of sympathy for the new ideas proclaimed by [[Berlioz]] and [[Liszt]], which were anathema to so many of his teachers, Tchaikovsky already then was able to appreciate the more 'modest' dimensions of Schubert's music. Certainly, by the 1870s he was a fervent admirer of the latter's chamber music works, and in the spring of 1887 we know that he studied Schubert's String Quintet while staying at [[Maydanovo]] <ref name="note2"/>.

As for Schubert's Great C-major Symphony (which Tchaikovsky discusses in such glowing terms in [[TH 288]]), that always remained unshakeable in his "musical pantheon" alongside [[Mozart]]'s ''Don Giovanni'' and [[Glinka]]'s ''A Life for the Tsar'', as [[Laroche]] would later recall <ref name="note3"/>. Another of Tchaikovsky's life-long favourites was Schubert's dramatic ''Erlkönig'' ballad, which moved him profoundly when it was sung by [[Yelizaveta Lavrovskaya]] at a concert in Moscow in 1875 (see [[TH 305]]). Two years later, his quarrel with [[Vladimir Stasov]] had partly to do with the fact that the mentor of the "Mighty Handful" had dared to assert that any romance by [[Aleksandr Borodin]] was equal to Schubert's ''Erlkönig''! <ref name="note4"/>

==General Reflections on Schubert==
Bold references indicate particularly detailed or interesting references.

===In Tchaikovsky's Music Review Articles===
* '''[[TH 266]]''' — reviewing a performance of the "Rosamunde" string quartet, Tchaikovsky speaks enthusiastically of Schubert's "inexhaustible wealth of melodic invention" and argues that it was only the haste with which he wrote many of his works, as well as his untimely death, that prevented him from ranking alongside [[Mozart]] and [[Beethoven]].
* [[TH 274]] — describes Schubert as "that ever young composer who is always so full of genuine fire and inspiration".
* [[TH 277]] — in his division of composers into two categories — depending on whether it was sheer melodic invention or resourcefulness in the elaboration of themes which predominated in their music — Tchaikovsky places Schubert in the first of these.
* [[TH 287]] — discussing one of the many works by Schubert discovered after his death, Tchaikovsky refers to him as a "composer of genius".
* '''[[TH 288]]''' — praises the "unique magic and beauty" of the Great C-major Symphony and laments again that Schubert had died as "a genius unrecognized by his contemporaries".
* [[TH 303]] — compares Schubert briefly to [[Beethoven]] in his ability to unfold such "majestic breadth" of harmony within a narrow musical canvas.
* [[TH 304]] — attacks those Russian colleagues ([[Cui]] is mentioned explicitly, although Tchaikovsky was probably also thinking of the ever-critical [[Balakirev]]) who argued that prolific composers were insufficiently self-critical and bound to turn out low-quality music, and enumerates the huge body of works composed by [[Mozart]] and Schubert in their all too brief lives.

===In Tchaikovsky's Letters===
* [[Letter 1539]] to [[Nadezhda von Meck]], 16/28 June–19 June/1 July 1880, and letter 1541 to [[Modest Tchaikovsky]], 18/30 July 1880: in both of these letters Tchaikovsky discusses the significance of [[Bizet]]'s opera ''Carmen'' which had appeared like a breath of fresh air in an age when all composers were striving for "pretty and spicy sound effects" — something that "the great masters of the past ([[Mozart]], [[Beethoven]], and Schubert)" had never done!

* [[Letter 4114]] to [[Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich]], 18/30 May 1890, in which Tchaikovsky laments that [[Glinka]] had not been sufficiently hard-working and productive: "[[Mozart]], [[Beethoven]], Schubert, [[Mendelssohn]], and [[Schumann]] wrote their immortal works just as a shoemaker sews his boots, that is day after day, and, in most cases, to order. As a result what they produced was something colossal…".

==Views on Specific Works by Schubert==
Bold references indicate particularly detailed or interesting references.

===In Tchaikovsky's Music Review Articles===
* ''Erlkönig'', ballad for solo voice and piano, Op.1 (1815), D.328 — [[TH 305]]
* ''Mirjams Siegesgesang'', choral cantata (1828), D.942 — '''[[TH 287]]'''
* Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat major (1827), D.898 — [[TH 274]]
* String Quartet No. 13 in A minor, Op. 29 (1824, "Rosamunde"), D.804 — '''[[TH 266]]'''
* Symphony No. 8 in B minor (1822, "Unfinished"), D.759 — [[TH 288]], [[TH 300]]
* Symphony No. 9 in C major (1826, "Great"), D.944 — '''[[TH 288]]'''

==External Links==
* [[wikipedia:Franz Schubert|Wikipedia]]
* {{IMSLP|Schubert,_Franz}}

==Notes and References==
<references>
<ref name="note1">[[Herman Laroche]], «П. И. Чайковский в Петербургской консерватории» [P. I. Tchaikovsky at the [[Saint Petersburg]] Conservatory] (1897) in {{bib|1980/24|Воспоминания о П. И. Чайковском}} (1980), p. 47–60 (56); English translation in David Brown, {{bib|1993/33|Tchaikovsky Remembered}} (1993), p. 24.</ref>
<ref name="note2">Diary entry for 10/22 April 1887. See {{bib|1993/231|Дневники П. И. Чайковского, 1873–1891}} (1993), p. 138.</ref>
<ref name="note3">See {{bib|1980/24|Воспоминания о П. И. Чайковском}} (1980), p. 58.</ref>
<ref name="note4">Tchaikovsky expressed his dismay at this assertion (and also at [[Stasov]]'s dismissal of [[Gounod]]'s music as banal) in [[Letter 3246]] to [[Vladimir Stasov]], 29 April/11 May 1887. See also Marek Bobéth, {{bib|1995/13|Čajkovskij und das Mächtige Häuflein}} (1995), p. 63-86.</ref>
</references>
[[Category:People|Schubert, Franz]]
[[Category:Composers|Schubert, Franz]]

Franz Schubert - Revision history

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