Franz is Unwell

Donald Macleod explores music Schubert wrote in his very final weeks - a period that included some of his greatest works, including three piano sonatas and the String Quintet in C.

There are few composers whose genius is so fertile that you can make a whole week of programmes from a single year of their life. Yet even by Franz Schubert's remarkably prolific standards, his last 12 months were utterly extraordinary. As his body entered terminal decline through a mixture of alcoholism and syphilis, masterpiece upon masterpiece poured from his pen: the String Quintet in C, the delirious last three piano sonatas, his Mass in E flat, the last collection of lieder, posthumously titled "Swansong" - and many more besides. This week Donald Macleod takes us through the last year of Schubert's tragically foreshortened life and death at the age of only 31.

Donald Macleod explores the murky question of what actually killed Schubert. He also introduces music composed in the very final weeks of Schubert's short life - including two of his remarkable late trio of piano sonatas played by the acclaimed Schubert interpreter Mitsuko Uchida.

Glaube, Hoffnung und Liebe!, D955
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone
Gerald Moore, piano

Piano Sonata in C minor, D958: IV. Allegro
Mitsuko Uchida, piano

String Quintet in C, D956: III. Scherzo and Trio; IV. Allegro
Gautier Capuçon, cello
Quatuor Ebene

Piano Sonata in A, D959: II. Andantino
Mitsuko Uchida, piano

Der Atlas; Ihr Bild; Das Fischermädchen (Schwanengesang)
Robert Holl, bass-baritone
Roger Vignoles, piano.