Franz Schubert was the only one of the big names to be born in Vienna and live his whole life here. In his tragically short life he wrote over 600 songs, nine symphonies, many chamber works, the sublime piano sonatas and a great deal more. He made music with his friends and entertained others in his 'Schubertiades' and lived perhaps too full a personal life. What would he have achieved if he'd lived his full span? All that remain in the city today are the house where he was born in 1797, and the house in which he died in 1828, both of them now small museums.
My No.38 tram stopped outside the Schubert Museum at Nussdorfer Strasse 54. The nicely balanced but quite plain and slightly run-down frontage conceals a super courtyard surrounded by a first-floor balcony, originally the school where Schubert's father was a badly-paid schoolmaster, and where his eleventh child Franz Schubert was born on 31 January 1897 (only five of his 14 children survived infancy). The family moved to another house nearby in 1801.
Schubert spent the last three months of his life at his brother Ferdinand's apartment in the substantial house at Kettenbrückengasse 6, in a suburb on the south side of the city centre. I was pleased to find there a facsimile of a page from his wonderful final piano sonata, D.960. He died on 19 November 1828. |
