An die Musik
The short, bright life of Franz Schubert · 1797–1828
He was eleven, short even for eleven, and the only boy in the courtyard wearing grey. Thirteen chapters later he is dead at thirty-one, and a drawer in his brother’s flat holds a symphony nobody has heard, a quintet nobody has played, and six hundred songs.
This is that life told as a story: the schoolroom he hated, the friends who bought his paper, the evenings that took his name, and the one concert he ever gave. Written to be read straight through, or a chapter at a time before sleep.
Contents
- 1 The Miller's Son
- 2 The Boy in Spectacles
- 3 The Year of Songs
- 4 Friends
- 5 Summer in Hungary
- 6 The Trout
- 7 Opus One
- 8 The Dark Year
- 9 The Road to the Grand Symphony
- 10 The Summer of 1825
- 11 The Torchbearer
- 12 The Concert and the Quiet
- Epilogue What the Drawer Held
On the pictures. Nine of the thirteen plates are period work by people who were in the room — Kupelwieser, Schwind, Rieder, and Schubert’s own manuscript. The other four are drawn. Sources and licences are given under each.
Deutsche und portugiesische Ausgaben sind in Vorbereitung. German and Portuguese editions are being prepared; the language control inside the reader will open them chapter by chapter as they are finished.