I’ve been reading Schubert’s biography these last few weeks.  Originally, I just wanted to learn more about the ‘Death and the Maiden’ string quartet and any information surrounding it. But in the end, I just ended up reading the whole thing.  I’ve come to the conclusion that I just really like to read musician biographies…I don’t know why I don’t read more of them (laziness…).

Anyway, there’s a lot of hoopla about Schubert’s final years and how his disease (most people agree he had syphillis…pretty much a terminal disease back then) affected his music.  The Quartet is a perfect example of this, not only because of the title and any sad and depressing qualities it may have, but also because it was written about a year or two after he found out he was sick.

But I’m generally skeptical about finding autobiographical qualities in a composer’s work, and this is no exception.  Schubert’s music almost always had an underlying nostalgia and sadness to it, and he was a master of switching in and out of it without one even noticing it.  This, in my opinion, is what makes his music so special and unique…well, one of the things.

That being said, Schubert did seem to be pretty down during this time.  Here’s a quote from a letter he wrote to one of his friends, written the same year as the ‘Maiden’ quartet:

“In a word, I feel myself the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world.  Imagine a man whose health will never be right again, and who in sheer despair over this ever makes things worse and worse, instead of better; imagine a man, I say, whose most brilliant hopes have perished, to whom the happiness of love and friendship have nothing to offer but pain, at best, whose enthusiasm (at least of the stimulating kind) for all things beautiful threatens to disappear, and I ask you, is he not a miserable, unhappy being?”

Woah. It’s hard to argue that those kinds of feelings didn’t affect his work in some way, at least indirectly.  I would imagine that finding out he was sick made him rethink his priorities, and that it’s no coincidence that his final years are filled with his most amazing and powerful works.

Oh yeah, the book I’m reading is called “The Life of Schubert” by Christopher Gibbs.  I would imagine there are more extensive biographies, but this one is well written and gets to the point…qualities I like in a book.

After a lot of careful consideration on what the best method for selling mp3’s on my site was, and actually setting one up and almost announcing it, I discovered Bandcamp, which basically does all the dirty work for me.

Even better, it offers the downloads in various formats, including FLAC and Apple Lossless. All payments are handled by Paypal and go directly to me.

But the real good news is that you can now stream the entire EP on my Bandcamp page! (or right here on the music page). So go and have a listen. I’ll be adding the rest of the tracks to Myspace and other places as well.