Spirit of Schubert

Every December, for the past decade, I have laid a red rose on Schubert’s grave in Vienna’s southern cemetery. What began as a gesture has become a custom, a way of giving thanks to the most lovable of all composers. Schubert may not be as great as Bach or Beethoven, who established the musical language of an entire culture, but no musician has touched so many hearts. Blessed Franz, holy Franz, immortal Franz: nobody, not even Mozart, has inspired such love.

The details of Schubert’s last days are well known. In March 1827 he walked behind Beethoven’s coffin and, upon repairing to a local inn to toast the memory of the older man, raised his glass ‘to the one who shall follow him’. The next 18 months brought the greatest flowering of genius in the history of music as a man under sentence of death produced a succession of masterpieces for piano, string quartet, quintet, and the human voice, as well as the ‘Great’ C major symphony. In November 1828, stricken by syphilis, he died of typhoid fever. He was 31.

It is impossible to reflect on those painful months and not wonder what remarkable feats he might have achieved had he been granted 20 more years. Instead we must make do with what he left us, and that is sufficient to sustain any life. Next week, in one of those bold declarations that have defined Roger Wright’s stewardship of Radio 3, the station clears its decks for a modern Schubertiade, called Spirit of Schubert. For eight days listeners can immerse themselves in a sea of joy; every note of every piece he wrote and, in the completion of the Unfinished Symphony, one or two he didn’t.