Language like music – Peter Härtling’s sensuous and fascinating novel about the composer Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert, who only lived to be 31 years old, is, together with Mozart, the most tragic genius in the history of western music. In his novel “Schubert,” Peter Härtling, who has long devoted himself to the life, music and impact of the great Romantic composer, develops, for the first time, a modern, literary, extremely moving portrait of the life and work of this highly gifted musician. Franz Schubert: genius, quiet rebel, unhappy lover, first bourgeois composer. Who managed to earn a living from a society from which he distanced himself significantly in his music – which is also part of what makes his life so modern. With a sure eye for the essential, Peter Härtling retraces the stages of Schubert’s life, from choirboy in the Imperial-Royal chapel to celebrated star of the salons of Vienna’s pleasure-seeking society. With great intensity and a language that has become music in its own right, Härtling describes the life and work of Schubert – a life that only achieved joy in art, which is why his art conveys such joy.
