John Drummond explores critical moments in the history of Western music when things might well have turned out differently. Mixing in the wrong company would prove fatal for the great Viennese composer. But what if he hadn't died young?
Franz Schubert Photo: W A Rieder, Public Domain
Franz Schubert was a shy young man, somewhat innocent perhaps, the son of a teacher, exceptional only in his precocious musical gifts.
While training to be a teacher he was also taking twice-weekly composition lessons with Antonio Salieri, the famous Royal Kapellmeister and the most eminent musician in Vienna.
But mixing in the wrong company would prove fatal for the great Viennese composer.
Schubert died at the age of just 31, his life cut short by the consequences of a foolish friendship and an even more foolish series of escapades in the brothels of Vienna. His was a career whose cadences were seriously interrupted by something that had nothing to do with music at all. It was sex in the city that was his downfall.
What if he hadn't died young? John Drummond proposes an alternative future for Schubert.
