Franz Schubert was born in Vienna in 1797 and died there in 1828, aged 31. He was not a Salzburg composer in any biographical sense. But he belongs in Salzburg's story, because the culture he anchored in Vienna's private salons travelled here, and because of what may have been composed and lost near Bad Gastein.
The Story
In the summer of 1825, Schubert left Vienna for the longest journey of his life. He travelled for six months through Upper Austria and Salzburg State with his close friend Johann Michael Vogl, the court baritone who had done more than anyone to introduce his songs to Viennese audiences. They visited Steyr, Gmunden, Linz, and eventually made their way to Bad Gastein, where Vogl was seeking treatment for gout.
In Gastein, Schubert reportedly composed a large symphony. He mentioned it in letters. It was never published, never performed, and was subsequently lost. It has never been found. The so-called "Gastein Symphony" remains one of classical music's most tantalising unsolved questions.
The other connection is the Schubertiade. These were private musical evenings centred entirely on Schubert's music, performed by Vogl at the piano with Schubert himself, and held in the drawing rooms of friends in Vienna, Steyr, and wherever the two men travelled. They were intimate, unprogrammed, sociable. The form was later revived as a concert series at Hohenems in Vorarlberg and at Schwarzenberg in the Bregenzerwald, and became the model for the kind of chamber recital that Salzburg's smaller concert venues still present.
Schubert is in the permanent repertoire of the Stiftung Mozarteum. His "Unfinished" Symphony and the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise are performed here regularly.
