Today I wanted to share Fantasie in F Minor by Austrian composer Franz Schubert. Schubert lived a very short life: when he was 25 he contracted syphilis, and at the time syphilis was a treacherous, painful death sentence (just like AIDS 20 years ago). He died at the tender age of 32.
Just imagine a young man age 25, his life supposedly lying ahead of him, but instead he is staring death in the face. Understandably, Schubert was depressed. You can hear this depression in his music; it is full of melancholy.
Schubert was an addict: he was addicted to composing. In the sixteen years of his creative life he wrote over a thousand songs, 9 symphonies, 22 piano sonatas, 17 operas, over a thousand works for piano, and many other works. Most composers were not able to accomplish as much in a full natural lifetime.
Schubert was a very mediocre pianist. Where Sergei Rachmaninoff or Franz Liszt were virtuoso pianists and thus their piano music was very demanding of a performer’s technical skills, for Schubert the piano was just a vessel to communicate his music and nothing more.
This Fantasie is a great example of that. It is written for a piano and four hands (or two mediocre pianists). This is speculation on my part, but if Liszt or Rachmaninoff had written this piece it would have been for two hands (or one virtuoso pianist). In this observation, I am not trying to detract anything from Schubert – quite the opposite – but I feel these small glimpses into composers’ lives help me to understand and relate better to their music.
Fantasie in F Minor, Franz Schubert – piano, Lucas & Arthur Jussen
As a bonus, Schubert’s Impromptu Op. 90 No. 4
[…] not a good pianist – the piano was just another instrument to him, a means to his music. His “Fantasia in F minor” is written for four hands (two pianists). If Liszt had composed the piece, he undoubtably would […]
This is the most beautiful performance of the F minor Fantasy I have ever heard. No mediocre pianist could handle it.
If this is a mediocre pianist then I definitely am not worthy!! I have been playing piano and organ for over 55 years including for church and could never play like this. Even my son is better than me now. Seems we like alot of the same classical artists. I was also a mobile dj for over 25 years so all types of music are a huge part of my life. Thanks for this!
Thank you for the trouble you have gone to to entertain and inform. The schubert Fantasie in E minor is wonderful . Surprised to learn that he was not a great pianist.
I loved the Thursday morning gift of music
Thank you for this performance very informative.
I’m really enjoying these selections as a newcomer.
Thank you very much for the selections you send me
Many thanks for your inspired letters. I also nurture a passion for both classical music and investments and find the blend you spread as highly appropriate to both my soul and mind. Without the right educational background in the world of investing, am adhering willy-nilly to the momentum approach rather than to the value approach advocated by you.
Ironically, the Fantasie in F minor specifically was not published during his lifetime because publishers felt it was a “too difficult” for the typical 4-hand piano audience, generally middle-class families who could afford pianos and had at least two people in the household who could play. Truly “mediocre” pianists would destroy this. I just don’t know if the Fantasie should be used as the example of most 4-hand pieces (meant for instruction and practice) when this was actually an outlier, and is still played by world-class pianists on the concert stage today!
Who is the name of the artist that made this beautiful painting?
Thank you, Vitaliy, for this lovely piece of music. It’s one of my favourites and I hadn’t heard it for while. I first became really interested in classical music when I switched on the BBC to watch a major new documentary series The Human Animal. The opening scenes were accompanied by a few bars of a piece of music that captured my attention and I needed to know what it was. This was before wifi and mobile phones but I eventually found it was the adagio of Schubert’s String Quintet in C. I loved it! Rather like when I read a book I’ve enjoyed I want to read everything by that author, I wanted to listen to everything that Schubert had written. As you say, he wrote a large body of music, so obviously I haven’t heard it all. The quote you mention is ironic as he didn’t marry. The friend I learned so much about classical music from, told me that he fell in love with a teacher but wasn’t allowed to marry her, being a lowly musician with little money. Hence his tragic early end. I believe the Quintet in C was written in his last year, as was several of his most beautiful pieces. My knowledgeable friend also liked Schubert but her real favourite was Mahler. Me – not so much.