Franz Schubert’s Illness: The Melancholy of an Autumnal Sunset
by Desiree Ho October 7th, 2011 “I am the most unhappy and miserable person in this world… my health will never improve, and in such despair, things will only become worse instead of better…” – Franz Schubert Austrian Composer Franz Schubert (1797-1828) is enshrined as the pillar of Romantic Western Classical Music who follows after Beethoven *. He had completed a tremendous collection of hundreds of lieder , symphonies , operas , and a large body of chamber and piano music that adds up to over 1000 works during his career. This was prolific for a man who only lived for 31 years. Franz Liszt described him as “the most poetic musician who ever lived.” On his deathbed, Beethoven is said to have looked into some of the younger man’s works and exclaimed, “Truly, the spark of divine genius resides in this Schubert!” Yet, a number of Schubert’s musical works such as ‘Winter Journey’ , ‘the Unfinished...