"Unvollendete"

1797 to 1828 was all he had. Franz Schubert died young. A student of Antonio Salieri, Schubert became obsessed with music at a young age. Days were long doing little but composing. When he started teaching piano, he was known to stop composing music only to discipline a student who interrupted him.

A typical romantic-bohemian, borrowing money, living in other people's homes, he sold his music cheap and spent any earnings drinking and reciting poetry with friends who loved and performed his music ("Schubertians").

Schubert's Symphony No. 8 is known as his "Unvollendete" (Unfinished), as he started the piece in 1822 and only completed the first two movements. As a joke, young music students penned lyrics to the melody found in the cello and echoed by the violins after the first minute or so,

"This is the symphony that Schubert wrote but didn't finish; 
this is the symphony that Schubert wrote but didn't finish, 
th' unfinished symphony . . . "



We don't know why the piece sat untouched for six years before his death. One wonders if he was interrupted and lost the muse, like Coleridge when writing "Kubla Khan" or if syphilis kept him too ill to concentrate. To deepen the mystery, why did his friends, the "Schubertians," keep the piece hidden for 37 more years after his death?

Regardless, it makes one think about life and the zero guarantee that one will see another five minutes. What will one accomplish? What will be left "Unvollendete"? Live as if each day were the last, do what you are able and do it well. Let people know you love them while you can, but be ready to go (or let them go) at any time.