Schubert Works

Introduction

These pages contain details of the complete Schubert works. Of course, 'complete' is open to serious interpretation here, not the least because quite a few of these works were not completed by Schubert, and although a number of missing works are listed, we must assume that there are other works which are missing. I've included all the Deutsch numbers, but not all the minor variants. A definitive list can be found in the Deutsch Thematic Catalog, or a more up to date one in the second edition, which is still only available in German: more details of these books can be found in the bibliography. A list of works is available in a much more convenient form, and at modest cost, from the institute in an excel database, more details of which can be found by following the link.

In some cases we have links to recordings of (parts of) some of the works. Copyright issues make it awkward for an organization such as SIUK to legally post recordings, so we are very grateful to the Director of Hyperion Records Limited, Simon Perry, for permission to link to streaming audio clips from their catalogue, one of the highlights of which is, of course, The Hyperion Schubert Edition of the complete Schubert songs. Find out more about Hyperion's catalogue (which does include recordings of some other composers!) at their website. We are also grateful to Isabel Beyer and Harvey Dagul of Four Hands Music for permission to post MP3 clips from their complete edition of the piano duets of Schubert. Four Hands Music CDs are available from good record shops, or from their distributor, Discovery Records.

The information used to generate these HTML pages is maintained in an Excel spreadsheet, which is available to you from SIUK, so you may do your own analyses. For details, follow the link.

The works are divided into sections which mirror those used by the works list in Grove's dictionary, compiled by the admirable Eric Sams. The details shown for each type varies as appropriate. It is my intention to add more detail about many of the works in the supplementary pages, which are very much still in progress.

There now follows a brief description of what you may expect for each genre: just click the type of work that you are interested in, or use the contents list.

Stage Works

Most people, when pressed to recall a stage work by Schubert, will fail, or may manage to mention just Rosamunde. It comes as a suprise to many to think of him as an opera composer, but he spent considerable time and effort over many years in an unsuccesful attempt to establish himself in this genre. It was after all the most likely means for him to establish his name and earn an income in the absense of a patron, and his unsuitability for a Kappelmeister post. Indeed, on his death bed, he was still discussing opera librettos with his friends. With a little more luck with theatre management, some better librettos, and the chance to hone his skills with the revision of works during rehearsals, he would perhaps have produced works which would have remained in the repertoire. As it is, we are left with several abandoned works, 5 complete singspiele, 3 others which have been wholly or partly lost, a melodrama, the incidental music to Rosamunde and 2 complete operas. The completed works are very variable, but there is some magnificent music in them.

Sacred Works

Schubert is not much better known for his sacred works, but again he produced such works at various times during his life, the last a few months before his death. Some of the early works were performed at his local church (and indeed were written specifically for performance there), but few of the later works were performed during his lifetime. Some ran into trouble with Church authorities for inconsistencies in the word settings (he never did set the words 'I believe in one Catholic and Apostolic Church'), and as such were not authorised for performance during services. Nevertheless, there are some wonderful settings in the Masses, and the incomplete cantata 'Lazarus' was years ahead of its time.

Works for Mixed Voices; Works for Male Voices; Works for Female or unspecified Voices

Part songs seem to be very out of fashion now (there do not seem to be recordings of many of Schubert's part songs, especially those for female voices - for the men's I recommend the Singphoniker set), but when Schubert was first establishing his reputation, he was known just for his songs and part songs - his works were regularly performed at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, but until the last year or so of his life instrumental works were not represented at all. His works for men's chorus, together with those of Michael Haydn, are the cornerstone of the repertory in Germany, but few are heard these days. Many of the part songs cannot be taken too seriously (for example there are several oom-pah-pah drinking songs, Der Hochzeitbraten, D930, has animal noises and Die Advokaten, D37, on the greed of lawyers, has coins jangling in the accompaniment), but there are also very profound works such as "Gesang der Geister über den Wassern", D714. There are so many part songs, that they are sub-divided by type in these pages.

Orchestral Works

Schubert wrote sucessful works in a very wide variety of genres, with the single glaring omission of concertos. He was not a showman, or virtuoso, and so did not produce piano concertos for his own performance like Beethoven or Mozart. Given the beauty of his writings elsewhere for clarinet and 'cello, the absense of concertos for those instruments is much to be regretted. His orchestral works consist of half a dozen overtures not connected to stage works and his symphonies, with the usual (for Schubert) incomplete works. There are 7 complete symphonies, plus the most famous unfinished symphony of all (which is better described as a complete half symphony!). A much less well known unfinished symphony, D729 in E (referred to as the 7th) is completely sketched, but not fully orchestrated.

Chamber Works

Schubert excelled in chamber works, the intimate form particularly suiting his temperament. Several of these works are universally accepted as masterpieces. The string quintett is simply sublime, 'Death and the Maiden' one of the greatest string quartets ever written, and the 'Trout' quintet is one of those pieces that everybody loves.

Sonatas and other Solo Piano Works

It has taken many years of slowly growing acceptance for Schubert's solo piano works, other than the impromptus and momens musicaux to become part of the standard repertoire. More than in any other genre, we can see his struggles in the middle years from the number of incomplete works, but, just before the end, it all came together in the last 3 sonatas.

Piano Dances

A very neglected area of his output. Schubert would regularly improvise dances on the piano, and those that he particularly liked he would repeat a few times to fix in his memory, so he could write them down. Many are just 16 bars. Around 400 dances of various types; waltzes, ländler, écossaises, galopps, cotillons, deutcher and minuets have survived. Few are well known, many are delightful, and recordings are rare.

Piano Duets

Schubert produced piano duets throughout his composing career, indeed the first surviving work, D1, is a piano duet. At the time it was the accepted medium for making major works accessible to the public, with many symphonies and overtures being transcribed for duet play. As piano duets are now out of fashion, these works are not as well known as they deserve to be - although many are light, there are some substantial works here, notably the Fantasy in F minor, D940, and the 'Grand Duo' Sonata, D812, which Schumann was convinced is really a symphony, and which has been orchestrated several times, initially by Joachim, and more recently by Raymond Leppard.

Songs

The size and quality of Schubert's song output still defies belief. There are 600 or so songs, depending upon how you count them. It took me ages just to construct the works list for songs! The Hyperion complete edition takes up 37 CDs. The diversity of the songs is incredible, from early songs following the Zumsteeg model, to apparently simple strophic folk songs like Heidenröslein, 'do-it-yourself operas' (e.g. Adelwold und Emma), dramatic scenes, ballads, etc., etc.

Spurious, nicknamed and similar works

Pointers to details elsewhere, plus comments on works sometimes ascribed to Schubert, though not actually by him.