Schubert set many texts by his Viennese friends and acquaintances, including Johann Mayrhofer, with whom he shared a room for two years and whose forty-six poems he set to music.
Compositional Technique
Schubert's lieder are characterized by novel and bold harmony, using sudden modulations and unexpected harmonic twists, especially the opposition of major and minor, to express the text's meaning.
Composer Biography
Schubert collaborated closely with singer Johann Michael Vogl, stating that their performances felt like they became a single, unprecedented being.
Compositional Technique
In Schubert's songs, the piano is an equal partner to the singer, making a decisive contribution to the musical interpretation of the text, often using a single musical motif to convey the poem's basic mood.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Two fundamental themes in Schubert's lieder are the wanderer, symbolizing homelessness and solitude, and a preoccupation with death, reflecting his personal struggles with loneliness and illness.
Composer Biography
Franz Schubert, with around six hundred lieder, was the first to elevate the song with piano accompaniment to the same status as the symphony, opera, and chamber music.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Schubert's lieder often transformed a poem into an artistic statement through his musical setting, creating a new type of song and becoming the creator of the Romantic lied.
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