Saturday Morning Car Tunes: Franz Schubert

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Howdy, howdy, howdy! I’m Solomon Reynolds, and this is: Saturday Morning Car Tunes! This morning, we’re playing follow-the-Lieder… Born in Vienna in 1797, Franz Schubert is one of the greatest melodists in Classical music. He wrote with the grace of Haydn and Mozart and the emotion of Beethoven. More than any composer before him, and few after, he elevated German art songs, or Lieder, into high art. Schubert wrote over 600 songs in his career and had a lifelong passion for poetry. Almost no other composer in history blended music and verse as well as he did. His first major breakthrough as a composer was “Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel,” set to poetry by Goethe. Schubert combined virtuosic piano playing with epic storytelling, like in the “Elfking,” another Goethe poem. The story follows a boy and his father riding through the forest during the night. Can you hear the horse galloping?

Schubert had a knack for writing infectiously joyful melodies…

…right next to hauntingly moving ones.

Beyond melody, Schubert expanded how composers used harmony. A key feature of his style was the flat sixth chord, which he used to create achingly beautiful lines. A flat sixth chord is unexpected and mysterious, like here in his song “Consolation.” Did you hear it?

Thanks to Schubert, the flat sixth shows up everywhere, even in Beatles songs… right here!

Beethoven wrote the first song cycle, or a collection of songs that tell a story and share a theme. But Schubert was the first to perfect the form. This is the opening song from the cycle The Fair Maid of the Mill, called “Wandering.”

Another Schubert masterpiece is the song cycle Winter Journey. This is the last song from that set, “The Hurdy-Gurdy Man.”

Schubert’s rhythms, melodies, harmonies, blending of music and poetry, and storytelling laid the foundation for American musical theatre. Maybe that’s why Barbra Streisand sings his setting of the Shakespearean text “Who is Sylvia?”

Schubert songs are more than just classical music—they’re the building blocks of musical education. Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, before becoming a global star, attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston. That may be where she first fell in love with Schubert, as she honors his famous “Ave Maria!”

I’m Solomon Reynolds. I write and produce Saturday Morning Car Tunes, with research assistant Carolina Correa and audio engineer Stephen Page, only on Classical California. Tune in—or out of your car—next Saturday morning!