The life, times, and music of Franz SchubertDuring his short lifetime, Franz Schubert (1797-1828) contributed to a wide variety of musical genres, from intimate songs and dances to ambitious chamber pieces, symphonies, and operas. The essays and translated documents in Franz Schubert and His World examine his compositions and ties to the Viennese cultural context, revealing surprising and overlooked aspects of his music.Contributors explore Schubert's youthful participation in the Nonsense Society, his circle of friends, and changing views about the composer during his life and in the century after his death. New insights are offered about the connections between Schubert's music and the popular theater of the day, his strategies for circumventing censorship, the musical and narrative relationships linking his song settings of poems by Gotthard Ludwig Kosegarten, and musical tributes he composed to commemorate the death of Beethoven just twenty months before his own. The book also includes translations of excerpts from a literary journal produced by Schubert's classmates and of Franz Liszt's essay on the opera Alfonso und Estrella. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Leon Botstein, Lisa Feurzeig, John Gingerich, Kristina Muxfeldt, and Rita Steblin.

Preface and Acknowledgments viiPermissions and Credits xviiSchubert: The Nonsense Society Revisited 1RITA STEBLINExcerpts from Beyträge zur Bildung für Jünglinge, 1817-1818 39ANTON VON SPAUN AND JOHANN MAYRHOFERTRANSLATED, INTRODUCED, AND ANNOTATED BY DAVID GRAMIT"Those of us who found our life in art": The Second-Generation 67Romanticism of the Schubert-Schober Circle, 1820-1825JOHN M. GINGERICHSchubert's Kosegarten Settings of 1815: A Forgotten Liederspiel 115MORTEN SOLVIKThe Queen of Golconda, the Ashman, and the Shepherd on a Rock: Schubert and the Vienna Volkstheater 157LISA FEURZEIGLiszt on Schubert's Alfonso und Estrella 183INTRODUCED AND TRANSLATED BY ALLAN KEILERSchubert's Freedom of Song, If Not Speech 201KRISTINA MUXFELDTSchubert's Tombeau de Beethoven: Decrypting the Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 100 241CHRISTOPHER H. GIBBSSchubert in History 299LEON BOTSTEINIndex 349Notes on Contributors 363