Franz Peter Schubert.
Born Vienna, 31 January 1797.
Died Vienna, 19 November 1828.
Austrian composer.
Schubert is remembered for hundreds of wonderful songs and some glorious works for solo piano and for chamber groups. His larger scale works, symphonies and operas, were not generally performed in his lifetime, and the quality of the symphonies produced in those circumstances is miraculously good. It is tragic that he had little opportunity to hear his stage works in performance, since his sense of drama was not lacking, but he needed more practical experience. His two completed full-length operas, Alfonso und Estrella and Fierrabras, remained unperformed in his lifetime. Several of his operatic works, and his oratorio Lazarus, were unfinished. Even his singspiel Die Freunde von Salamanka has no surviving dialogue, and the plot is not entirely clear, in spite of superb music. His early trifle Der vierjährige Posten, translated as The Faithful Warrior, is, as yet, the only one of his operas to have been staged in Scotland.
Operas, oratorios and choral works performed in Scotland are shown in bold:
Der Spiegelritter, D11 (1812 unfin; Munich 1975) (Kotzebue)
Des Teufels Lustschloss, D84 (1814) (Kotzebue)
Der Vierjährige Posten, D190 (1815; prod Dresden 1896) (Körner)
Fernando, D220 (1815; prod 1918) (Stadler)
Claudine von Villa Bella, D239 (1815 unfin; Act I prod Vienna 1913) (Goethe)
Die Freunde von Salamanka, D326 (1815; prod Halle 1928) (Mayrhofer)
Die Bürgschaft (1816 unfin; prod Vienna 1908) (anon)
Die Zwillingsbrüder, D647 (Vienna 1820) (Hofmann)
Lazarus, oder Die Feier der Auferstehung (1820 unfin; comp Denisov 1996) (Niemeyer)
Alfonso und Estrella, D732 (1822; prod Weimar 1854) (Schober)
Die Verschworenen, oder Der häusliche Krieg, D787 (1823; prod Vienna 1861) (Castelli)
Fierrabras, D796 (1823; prod Vienna 1835) (Kupelwieser)
Mass no6 in E flat major, D950 (1828) (Liturgy)
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