Franz Schubert: Leben und Werk

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

• Schubert's position in music history is primarily defined by his work in the field of song, chamber music, and the piano sonata.
• His symphonic work is also significant.
• His first five symphonies are strongly influenced by the Viennese Classical period.
• His different sensibility to harmony and tone color gives the works a romantic character.
• The orchestral scoring is still within the framework of the classical symphony.
• The horn is used as a melodic solo instrument.
• From the 6th symphony onwards, written at the age of 21, his personal stylistic characteristics become more prominent.
• The lyrical themes are juxtaposed, and there is no dramatic confrontation.
• Schubert is a composer who must be understood mainly from the emotional grasp of the music; he is a truly romantic artist in this sense.
• There is a strong expansion in the harmonic field.
• He also likes to fluctuate between major and minor, often coupled with surprising harmonic shifts.
• His last two symphonies, the Unfinished and the Great C major Symphony, are masterpieces of extremely personal design.
• The dimensions are greatly expanded, with Robert Schumann speaking of the heavenly length of the C major Symphony.

Schubert and his Circle of Friends

• Schubert's world is a circle of friends consisting of artists, poets, singers, and officials from the middle class or the lower nobility.
• The core of this circle could be described as a men's association, which remained loyal for years.
• Women were also present in this society which stayed together for so long because of the spiritual impulse of poetry and music in reading evenings and Schubertiades that took precedence over social gatherings.
• From 1823 onwards they begin to complain about trivialization, which, according to the diaries of Franz von Hartmann and others, gives way to a new deepening after 1825.
• Considering that such an important poet as Grillparzer and such a well-known painter as Schwind belonged to the circle, that its members not only carried the works of Schubert known to them, but also were understanding admirers of Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn, and that gifted lyricists determined the literary taste in its midst and provided Schubert with texts, one is tempted to speak of a Viennese Camerata.
• The Schubert circle was unparalleled in Europe at this time.

Anton Bruckner (1824–1896)

• Bruckner is the most important symphonist of the second half of the 19th century.
• His 9 symphonies are solemn sound architectures, the form of which is enhanced to the monumental.
• The mystical number 3 plays an important role in the formal structure of his works.
• Great tensions are achieved through the principle of augmentation and contrast.
• In the Scherzi, native folk melodies and dance rhythms sound.
• The finales are radiant climaxes with a solemn brass chorale that often concludes them.
• The grouping of instruments according to sound groups (strings, woodwinds, brass) is typical of his instrumentation.

Anton Bruckner, "4th Symphony in E flat major" ("Romantic")

• Bruckner himself called this symphony Romantic.
• According to some notes in the score, he was particularly thinking of the "Waldromantik" (forest romanticism).
• Above all, the first movement is full of natural moods with the call of the horn sounding right at the beginning and with the "Zizibe-Schlag" of the wood warbler following in the second theme group.
• The third thematic construct, consisting of three fortissimo passages, reveals the augmentation technique typical of Bruckner.

Peculiarities of the sonata form in Anton Bruckner

• In contrast to the classical sonata form, which is characterized by two themes, Bruckner's movements, which are enhanced to the monumental (in connection with his deep religiosity), have three themes.
• These are expanded to form self-contained and clearly separated thematic complexes.
• (The traditional closing group forms an independent, third thematic complex.)
• The exposition is not repeated in Bruckner.
• The development gains strong weight becoming almost central.
• The themes are worked out in counterpoint, and the principle of augmentation (dynamic effects) plays a special role.
• The recapitulation brings deviations of various kinds; in some cases, new episodes of a developmental nature appear.
• A solemn conclusion - corresponding to the religious attitude of his works - forms the coda.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

• Tchaikovsky succeeded in combining Russian national music with Beethoven's symphony of ideas.
• Of his six symphonies, the last three are the most important, they are works of world renown.
• The personal power to reformulate Beethoven's idea of fate is as impressive and overwhelming as the convincing formal structure.
• The 6th Symphony - subtitled "Pathetique" - is, in Tchaikovsky's own words, the culmination of his work.
• The passionate struggle with the powers of fate does not lead to a victory of the will to live in the Pathetique, as in the 4th and 5th symphonies, but to resignation.
• Tchaikovsky completed the 6th symphony shortly before his death and brought it to performance.
• The last movement, the Adagio lamentoso, symbolizes the extinction of earthly life and the mourning over the farewell.