Wednesday, January 31, 2007 marks the 210th anniversary of the birth of Franz Schubert. His lifelong passion for poetry led him to a prolific career as a composer of songs or lieder. His affinity for words and an innate grasp of the poet's intentions aided him in setting the poems of Goethe, Hölty, Körner, Kosegarten, Muller, and Schiller.
His first masterpiece was Goethe's Gretchen am Spinnrade. With this, he raised the level of lied from a minor, inconsequential musical genre to a stellar form of art. Schubert elevated the piano accompaniment to embody the words and create a psychological mood to the piece. As his expressive range developed, the integration of poetry and music into different layers of meaning and stylistic interpretations became flawless. His music not only reflects the physical scenes and settings of a spinning wheel, the undulations of a brook, or carefree perambulations but reveals an empathetic representation of feelings and musings. His extraordinary ability to fuse the words and emotions with the melody and harmony demonstrate his unique gift and genius.
For further exploration of the composer and his music, the library has Gerald Abraham's The Music of Schubert, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's Schubert's Songs: A Biographical Study, George R. Marek's Schubert, and Charles Osborne's Schubert and his Vienna. His songs are performed on compact disc by Elly Ameling in An Die Musik: Songs, Janet Baker Complete Songs, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau Winterreise, Matthias Goerne, Die Schone Mullerin, Jessye Norman Lieder, and Thomas Quasthoff Goethe-Lieder.