THE STORY OF FRANZ SCHUBERT, Part 1

Franz Schubert

The Story of the Boy Who Wrote
Beautiful Songs





One might say of Schubert that he was born with a spring of melody in his heart and a song on his lips.

Can anyone make a melody more lovely than this?

FROM SCHUBERT'S SONG "TROUT." Listen

Play it or have someone play it to you.

Is it not worth remembering all one's life?

Schubert composed many kinds of music, but his songs are most loved by everybody.

They are sung all over the world.

And just because he never let a song come from his lips that did not first come from his heart.

Is not this a jolly one?

FROM SCHUBERT'S SONG "WANDERING." Listen

Schubert's full name was FRANZ PETER SCHUBERT.

He was born in Vienna, in a very simple house that looks quite old-fashioned.

Over the doorway there is a bust of Schubert, a few inches high.

And a sign on the house says: Franz Schubert's Birthplace.

FRANZ SCHUBERT'S BIRTHPLACE.

Dates are easy to remember if we write them. So you must ask your teacher when Schubert was born and put in the date in the next sentence.

Franz Schubert was born in.........

At that time the great American authors Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, and William Cullen Bryant were all boys.

IRVING.

COOPER.

BRYANT.

You may not know so much about them now, but some day they will be quite as good friends as any you will ever make.

Even though these boys were a little older than Franz Schubert, let us always think of them together.

Then, of course, we should think of Schubert together with the composers who lived when he did.

Here are some whose names you can remember very easily.

VON WEBER.

ROSSINI.

CZERNY.

DONIZETTI.

Czerny was born in the year 1794, and wrote many studies for the piano.

How much older was he than Franz Schubert?

Von Weber wrote operas and conducted them himself. He was born eleven years before Schubert.

Rossini was an Italian composer of operas, born in 1792, five years before Schubert. Schubert's life was so short, however, that Rossini lived forty years longer than the great song writer.

Donizetti was an Italian opera composer. One of his well-known operas was Lucia di Lammermoor. He was born in 1797, just as Schubert was.

Tomorrow, we will continue our bio.