From Schoolmaster to Socialite

The teenage composer Schubert begins to make a name for himself in his native Vienna

Donald Macleod explores the fascinating relationship between Franz Schubert's expanding circle of friends in Vienna, and the music he composed sometimes at their behest, and sometimes unbeknownst to them.

As a 16 year old, Schubert was faced with a dilemma: whether or not to stay in full-time education? In the event, he chose to leave academia and train as an assistant schoolmaster. He worked at his father's own establishment, with some 200 boys packed into the family's small apartment. Despite these unpromising conditions, Schubert succeeded in writing numerous works for various combinations, some of them acknowledged masterpieces.
The first piece of Schubert's to be performed in public was a setting of the Mass. His father was so delighted with his son's achievement that he promised to purchase Franz a top-of-the-range fortepiano. This performance was also the likely catalyst for another significat moment in young Schubert's life, a new love affair.

Marriage was evidently out of the question for an impoverished assistant schoolmaster. In any case, Schubert had other social interests. He was introduced to the melancholic poet Mayrhofer, and later to the man to whom many would attribute his moral and physical decline, Franz von Schober. So close did these two friends become that they even called themselves 'Schobert'. This growing circle of intellectual and artistic friends would prove an important influence on Schubert, eventually persuading him to abandon the schoolroom for the then precarious career of freelance composer.