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.
"Wiegenlied: Schlafe, schlafe, holder süßer Knabe"
(Lullaby: Sleep, sleep, sweet, sweet boy) D.498 Op. 98
No. 2 is a lullaby composed in November 1816. The song
is also known as "Mille cherubini in coro" after an
Italian language arrangement for voice and orchestra by
Alois Melichar. This beautiful little melody seems the
most quintessential, the most fragile, the most
heartfelt Schubert, and yet on paper it is hardly more
than an oscillation between tonic and dominant. Richard
Strauss borrowed it to quote in Ariadne auf Naxos, and
who can blame him; when Schubert's music is on this
plane it has an inevitability and economy which every
single composer since must have envied. Apart from the
fact that the composer thought that Claudius was the
poet, although it now seems that he was not, there is
one perplexing factor. This is the mystery of the
middle verse, which is either a Romantic-poetic way of
describing a cradle as a sweet grave (peaceful and
comfortable), or something which actüally relates to a
child's death. John Reed believes that Schubert was
thinking mainly of the first verse when he wrote his
music: 'The shadow of the grave, which obtrudes here as
in so many early Romantic pieces on this subject, finds
no place in Schubert's music'. Infant mortality was an
everyday occurrence at this time; indeed only a few
months after the supposed date of this song's
composition (for it is not dated in the composer's
hand, only entered as November 1816 in the
Witticzek-Spaun collection), the composer's little half
brother Theodor Kajetan Anton, only a few months old,
died. Is it possible that this song dates from a short
time later and is related to this family bereavement?
If not, it is still hauntingly prophetic. I hear in
this song not the comfortable baby-sitting of happy
parenthood, but music of the greatest consolation and
tenderness, a feeling of almost holy gratitude for
life, however short. And then there is his use of the
major key: a heart-breaking braveness and lack of
self-pity combined with that unobtrusive melancholy
that only Schubert can handle poignantly and
unmawkishly.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiegenlied,_D_498_(Schub
ert))
Although originally composed for Voice and Piano, I
created this Interpretation of "Wiegenlied: Schlafe,
schlafe, holder süßer Knabe" (Lullaby: Sleep, sleep,
sweet, sweet boy D.498 Op. 98 No. 2) for Flute &
Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).