Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In his short, tumultuous life, Franz Schubert (1797-1828) produced an astonishing amount of music. Symphonies, chamber music, opera, church music, and songs (more than 600 of them) poured forth in profusion. His "Trout" Quintet, his "Unfinished" Symphony, the last three piano sonatas, and above all his song cycles Die Schone Mullerin and Winterreise have come to be universally regarded as belonging to the very greatest works of music? Who was the man who composed this amazing succession of masterpieces, so many of which were either entirely ignored or regarded as failures during his lifetime? In this new biography, Elizabeth McKay paints a vivid portrait of Schubert and his world. She explores his family background, his education and musical upbringing, his friendships, and his brushes and flirtations with the repressive authorities of Church and State. She discusses his experience of the arts, literature, and theater, and his relations with the professional and amateur musical world of his day. She traces the way Schubert's manic-depression became an increasingly significant influence in his life, responsible at least in part for social inadequacies, professional ineptitude, and idiosyncrasies in his music. And she examines Schubert's decline after he contracted syphilis, looking at its effect on his music and emotional life.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 Song of Immigrants (1797-1808)
• 2 School Days (1808-1813)
• 3 Student and School-teacher (1814-1816)
• 4 Opportunities (1817-1819)
• 5 La Dolce Vita (1820-1822)
• 6 Two Natures
• 7 Fight against Illness (1823-1824)
• 8 An Expanding World (1825-1826, Part I)
• 9 Friends, Publishers, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (1825-1826, Part II)
• 10 Gloom and Creativity (1827)
• 11 Success and Sickness (1828)
• 12 The Final Illness
• 13 Burial and Memorials
• Select Bibliography
• Music Index
• General Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Franz Schubert produced an enormous body of work in his short lifetime, including chamber music, symphonies, choral works, and music for solo piano. He is best known, however, for his contribution to German lieder‘he composed more than 600 songs‘many using texts by great literary figures like Goethe and Schiller. McKay, formerly a visiting professor at the Birmingham Conservatoire and author of several publications on the music of Schubert, far exceeds her modest objective to "enhance the reader's pleasure in and understanding of, Schubert's music." Arriving in time for the bicentennial of his birth, her new biography examines the composer's personal life, his education, his friends and supporters, his struggles for recognition, and the unfortunate choices that led to his death at the age of 31. The author offers a detailed look into the cultural and political life of Vienna in the early 19th century and paints an unforgettable picture of a genius who was painfully human. Highly recommended for both academic and public libraries.‘Kate McCaffrey, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

One of the great German Romantic composers, Schubert has recently been the center of a scholarly debate over whether or not he was gay, and how that might have affected work from his String Quintet to his song cycles Die schöne Müllerin to Winterreise. Sadly, this new biography adds nothing new to available data and still manages to confuse the picture. McKay, a piano teacher from England who has also written some articles and a technical book about Schubert's piano music, mentions the words "manic," "depressive" and "syphilis" on nearly every page of this ponderous yet superficial study, but she cops out on Schubert's sexuality by saying the subject has been "exhaustively debated" elsewhere. Schubert's works are dealt with in very summary fashion (with no musical examples), and his life becomes a mass of clichés, apart from the idea that Schubert smoked opium before writing his famous account of a dream (Mein Traum). Although she admits that this silly idea is based almost entirely on the singular pipe in "smoked our pipe," she is still so attached to it that she includes Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater to an otherwise scanty bibliography. It's hard to say why a reader should spend the time on this biography when Otto Deutsch's documentary biography or Maurice Brown's critical one are available. If another biography is called for, it would have made more sense to translate Brigitte Massin's fine synthesis of Schubert's life and works from the French, a recent and worthy addition to the list of books on Schubert, who "dreaded the commonplace and boring" and probably would have dreaded this book as well. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

During this bicentennial year of Schubert's birth, a new biography of the composer is almost an expected event. However, in light of the flurry of new research and spirited controversies in this field since 1980, a reassessment was needed. McKay's evenhanded and fair-minded biography presents all sides of such sensitive issues as the possibility of Schubert's homosexuality, his manic-depressive cycles, opium use, etc., and she provides more up-to-date, enriched accounts of his relations with particular reading and musical circles as well as musical institutions in Vienna. The new biography dispels most of the Biedermeier glow and coziness so carefully constructed by 19th-century biographers. McKay's intentional avoidance of footnoting all but the most crucial documentary evidence makes the critical reconstruction of most research issues difficult, but the biography finally makes accessible in English the latest Austrian publications, and includes references to the new documentary collections of Schubert's contemporaries and articles from Die Brille, the journal of the International Schubert Institute in Vienna. All collections. A. M. Hanson St. Olaf College

Booklist Review

Schubert (1797-1828) grew up in a musical family. A prodigy, at 11 he was accepted into the Austrian emperor's court chapel choir and selected to attend on scholarship the Stadtkonvikt academy and study music with Salieri (Mozart's supposed rival). He completed his first symphony there in October 1813. He depended on commissions, teaching, concertizing, and publication of his music for his subsequent livelihood. Besides several of his chamber works and nine symphonies, Schubert is best known for his lieder or art songs--a form he extended into new realms of musical interest. His closest friends were musicians and poets, whose verses he used for many of his lieder. Syphilis contracted in 1822, after completing his so-called Unfinished Symphony, filled Schubert's last five years with pain and suffering; his output decreased significantly. McKay draws on the limited sources of information about the composer to construct a biography that balances the recording of his accomplishments with analysis of his manic-depressiveness and his social life--and all in time to honor the bicentennial of his birth. --Alan Hirsch

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Elizabeth Norman McKay was formally Tutor in Piano and Visiting Professor at the Birmingham Conservatoire, and is the author of several publications on Franz Schubert and his music.