Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig" , the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in...(+)
Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig" , the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, a String Quintet,
the three last piano sonatas, the opera Fierrabras, the
incidental music to the play Rosamunde, and the song
cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. He was
remarkably prolific, writing over 1,500 works in his
short career. His compositional style progressed
rapidly throughout his short life. The largest number
of his compositions are songs for solo voice and piano
(roughly 630). Schubert also composed a considerable
number of secular works for two or more voices, namely
part songs, choruses and cantatas. He completed eight
orchestral overtures and seven complete symphonies, in
addition to fragments of six others. While he composed
no concertos, he did write three concertante works for
violin and orchestra. Schubert wrote a large body of
music for solo piano, including eleven incontrovertibly
completed sonatas and at least eleven more in varying
states of completion, numerous miscellaneous works and
many short dances, in addition to producing a large set
of works for piano four hands. He also wrote over fifty
chamber works, including some fragmentary works.
Schubert's sacred output includes seven masses, one
oratorio and one requiem, among other mass movements
and numerous smaller compositions. He completed only
eleven of his twenty stage works.
"Himmelsfunken" (Sky Sparks), D.651, despite its simple
strophic form, this remarkable little song in
metaphysical mode is one of Schubert’s most potent
single-page settings. It perhaps lacks the concision
and clarity of the great Goethe miniatures from 1815
(Meeres Stille, Erster Verlust, Wandrers Nachtlied I)
but the poem is hardly the product of a great classical
mind. To match the ecstatic ramblings of Silbert,
Schubert writes a song which is half hymn and half
romantic effusion, clothed in a chromatic musical
language where longing borders on eroticism. There
could be nothing more suitable than this music—it is
as if a Bach chorale is transfigured by the Romantic
Zeitgeist—to illustrate Silbert’s claim that his
whole being is overcome ‘In wundersüssem Ach’. The
opening phrase mentions the breath of God, and we are
wafted into a world where His presence floats in the
musical ether much in the manner of the fragrance of
the beloved in Dass sie hier gewesen. With different
words, the music of Himmelsfunken could easily be a
love song, swooning for an earthly rather than a
heavenly love. Similarly, some of Schubert’s love
music (Du bist die Ruh’ for example) would not be out
of place if metaphysical poems were to be grafted in
the place of the existing texts (heaven forbid!). It is
in this border country between the sacred and the
profane where this composer is most at home, for his
natural inclination is to acknowledge the God-like in
all things beautiful. Thus it is that Schubert never
writes convincingly sexy songs unless the emotion
behind the sexual desire is touched with the awe of
worshipful devotion. It is this ambivalence which
raises the first song of Suleika to the all-embracing
masterpiece of the most mature and deep emotion that
Brahms recognized it to be. At this time in particular
it seems that Schubert (no doubt much encouraged by the
readings and discussions of the Bildung circle and the
earnest aspirations of friends like Senn, Bruchmann and
Spaun to embrace the true, good and beautiful)
attempted to reconcile distrust of religious hypocrisy
and empty ceremonial with an innate yearning to
comprehend the great issues of life, death and the
Infinite.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himmelsfunken)
Although originally composed for Voice and Piano, I
created this Interpretation of the "Himmelsfunken" (Sky
Sparks D.651) for Flute & Strings (2 Violins, Viola &
Cello).