Oh! Mozart, Mozart Immortal

“Excerpt from Franz Schubert’s Personal Diary”

1816 was a very busy year for Franz Schubert. That year he wrote about 200 compositions: a mass, choral works, an overture, two string quartets, violin and piano sonatas, numerous dances, dozens of songs and his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies at just 19 years old.

Despite dropping out of school at 16 to pursue music, Schubert kept friends. Friends who would provide him with firm material and emotional support throughout his short life. They appreciated his wonderful talent and were the only ones to hear many of his compositions during his lifetime, including his Symphony No. 5.

The Symphony no. 5 of Schubert is imbued with the spirit of Mozart as the composer himself wrote in his diary, months before finishing it:

From afar, the magical notes of Mozart’s music still gently haunt me… [ ]
Oh Mozart, immortal Mozart, how many, oh how infinite comforting perceptions
of a better and brighter life you have brought our souls!

Schubert’s 5th Symphony was not premiered until 1841 (thirteen years after his death) and has since become one of his most cherished and beloved works.

Portrait of a young Franz Schubert (Josef Abel 1814). Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien