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.
Franz Schubert composed his lied "An die Musik" (German
for "To Music") in March 1817 for solo voice and piano,
with text from a poem by his friend Franz von Schober.
In the Deutsch catalog of Schubert's works it is number
D547. The original key is D major. It was published in
1827 as Opus 88, No. 4, by Thaddäus Weigl . Schubert
dedicated the song to the Viennese piano virtuoso
Albert Sowinsky on April 24, 1827, a decade after he
composed it. A hymn to the art of music, it is one of
the best-known songs by Schubert. Its greatness and
popularity are generally attributed to its harmonic
simplicity, sweeping melody, and a strong bass line
that effectively underpins the vocal line. At the end
of Gerald Moore's farewell concert in London's Royal
Festival Hall in 1967, in which he accompanied Dietrich
Fischer-Dieskau, Victoria de los Ángeles and Elisabeth
Schwarzkopf, he came out onto the stage alone and
played his piano-solo arrangement of "An die Musik" as
his parting gift.
The poem was not included in the collected editions of
Schober's poems, but there is a handwritten copy of it
in Vienna. It resembles the second canto of Ernst
Schulze's poem "Die bezauberte Rose" (The Enchanted
Rose), a poem also known to Schubert as a possible
basis for an opera; however, it was published in 1818,
so it is unlikely that there was any connection between
them for the composer.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_die_Musik)
Although originally composed for Voice and Piano, I
created this Interpretation of "An die Musik" (To the
Music D.547 Op.88 No. 4) for Flute & Strings (2
Violins, Viola & Cello).