EVGENY KISSIN Schubert Piano Sonata Bb SONGS Liszt Mephisto Waltz MIB SS New CD!

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STILL SEALED (SS); MINT IN BOX (MIB); NEW IN BOX (NIB);

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PLAY LIST : 1.-4.) Franz Schubert Sonata, D960, in B-flat, Op. posth.; Schubert Liszt; 5.) Standchen, S560 No. 7 (after Schwanengesang, D957) ; 6.) Das Wandern, S565 No. 1 (after Die schone Mullerin, D785); 7.) Wohin? S565 No. 5 (after Die schone Mullerin, D795); 8.) Aufenthalt, S560 No. 3 (after Schwanengesang, D957); 9.) Franz Liszt Mephisto Waltz No. 1 S514;

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NOTE: GENERIC PHOTO - NOT the actual item in this lot;

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HISTORICAL NOTE: "Evgeny Igorevitch Kissin (born 10 Oct. 1971) is a Russian classical pianist & former child prodigy. He has been a British citizen since 2002. He is especially known for his interpretations of the works of the Romantic repertoire, particularly Frédéric Chopin & Franz Liszt. Kissin was born in Moscow to a Jewish family. At the age of eleven months, he was reputedly able to hum along to a Bach fugue his sister Alla was playing on the piano. At the age of four years, he was able to play whole piano concertos from memory. Recognized as a child prodigy, at age six, he began piano studies at the esteemed Gnessin School of Music for Gifted Children. At the school, he became a student of Anna Kantor, who remained Kissin's only piano teacher. At the age of ten, Kissin made his debut performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor with the Ulyanovsk Symphony Orchestra. The year after that he gave his 1st recital in Moscow. Kissin's talents were revealed on the international scene in 1984, at the age of twelve, when he played & recorded both of Chopin's piano concertos with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire. Kissin’s 1st appearances outside Russia were in 1985 in Eastern Europe, followed a year later by his 1st tour of Japan. In 1987 he made his West European debut at the Berlin Festival as well as his UK debut, alongside conductor Valery Gergiev & violinists Maxim Vengerov & Vadim Repin, at The Lichfield Festival. In 1988 he toured Europe with the Moscow Virtuosi & Vladimir Spivakov & also made his London debut with the London Symphony Orchestra under Valery Gergiev. In December of the same year he played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 with Herbert von Karajan at the Berlin Philharmonic's New Year's Eve Concert which was broadcast internationally, with the performance repeated the following year at the Salzburg Easter Festival. In Sept. 1990, Kissin made his debut in North America playing Chopin's two piano concertos with the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and the 1st piano recital in Carnegie Hall's centennial season. In 1997, he gave the 1st solo piano recital in the history of The Proms in London. Kissin makes regular recital tours of Europe, America & Asia. He has performed with nearly all the leading orchestras of the world, under such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Colin Davis, Valery Gergiev, Carlo Maria Giulini, Mariss Jansons, Herbert von Karajan, James Levine, Sir Andrew Davis, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Georg Solti, Yevgeny Svetlanov & Yuri Temirkanov. Kissin has also performed chamber music with Martha Argerich, Gidon Kremer, James Levine, Mischa Maisky, Thomas Quasthoff, Isaac Stern & others, who admire Kissin's virtuosity. In addition to classical music, Kissin has given recitals of Yiddish & Russian poetry. A CD compilation of Kissin's recitals from the contemporary Yiddish poetry was issued by the Forward Association in 2010. In 2007 he became Honorary Patron of a professional chamber opera company, City Opera of Vancouver, led by conductor Charles Barber. Many musical awards & tributes from around the world have been showered upon Kissin. In 1987 he received the Crystal Prize of the Osaka Symphony Hall for the best performance of the year 1986 (his 1st performance in Japan). In 1991 he received the Musician of the Year Prize from the Chigiana Academy of Music in Siena, Italy. He was special guest at the 1992 Grammy Awards Ceremony, broadcast live to an audience estimated at over one billion, & became Musical America’s youngest Instrumentalist of the Year in 1995. In 1997 he received the prestigious Triumph Award for his outstanding contribution to Russia’s culture, one of the highest cultural honors to be awarded in the Russian Republic, & again, the youngest-ever awardee. He was the 1st pianist to be invited to give a recital at the BBC Proms (1997), &, in the 2000 season, was the 1st concerto soloist ever to be invited to play in the Proms opening concert. In May 2001 Kissin was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music by the Manhattan School of Music. In Dec. 2003 in Moscow, he received the Shostakovich Award, one of Russia’s highest musical honors. In June 2005 he was awarded an Honorary Membership of the Royal Academy of Music in London. In March 2009 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the Hong Kong University. Kissin’s piano recordings have also received numerous awards & accolades, including the Edison Klassiek in The Netherlands & the Diapason d’Or & the Grand Prix of La Nouvelle Academie du Disque in France, as well as awards from music magazines throughout the world. His recording of works by Scriabin, Medtner & Stravinsky (RCA Red Seal) won him a Grammy in 2006 for Best Instrumental Soloist &, in 2002, he was named Echo Klassik Soloist of the Year. In 2010 he was awarded the Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (With Orchestra) for his recording of Prokofiev’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3 with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy (EMI Classics). His 1st studio recording, in 1988 for RCA Red Seal, was of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Gergiev/London Symphony Orchestra, & six Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 39. Other works recorded for RCA Red Seal are two Chopin recital programs, one with the four Ballades, Barcarolle, Berceuse, & Scherzo No. 4, Op. 54, & another with the 24 Preludes Op. 28, Sonata No. 2 & Polonaise in A- flat; Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Brahms’ Variations on a Theme of Paganini, & Francks’s Prelude, Choral & Fugue; Schumann’s Fantasy, Op. 17 & five Etudes d’execution transcendante by Liszt; Schumann’s Kreisleriana & the Bach-Busoni Chaconne; Bach-Busoni Toccata, Adagio & Fugue in C major, Glinka-Balakirev The Lark & Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition; Schumann’s Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor & Carnaval; & an all-Brahms disc including Sonata No. 3 in F Minor & five Hungarian dances. A duo recital with James Levine of works by Schubert was recorded live at Carnegie Hall in 2005 & released in 2006. Other recital albums include Schubert Sonata No. 21 in B flat major & Schubert-Liszt Four Songs (BMG/RCA Victor Red Seal), Schubert Wanderer Fantasie, Brahms Seven Pieces, Op. 116, Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 (Deutsche Grammophon) & Haydn Sonata No. 30 in A major, Sonata No. 52 in E flat major, & Schubert Sonata in A minor D784 (Sony). Among his concerto recordings are the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos with Sir Colin Davis & the London Symphony Orchestra (EMI); Mozart Piano Concerto No 24 & Schumann Piano Concerto with Sir Colin Davis & the London Symphony Orchestra (EMI); Schumann Concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic & Giulini (Sony Classical); Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 5 with the Philharmonia Orchestra & Levine (Sony Classical); Prokofiev Concertos Nos. 1 & 3 with the Berlin Philharmonic & Abbado (Deutsche Grammophon) & Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3 with the Boston Symphony & Ozawa (RCA Red Seal); Mozart Concertos Nos. 12 & 20 & Rondo in D major KV. 382, Haydn Concerto in D major, Shostakovich Concerto No. 1 with the Moscow Virtuosi & Spivakov (RCA Red Seal); Beethoven Choral Fantasy with the Berlin Philharmonic & Abbado (Deutsche Grammophon); Prokofiev Concertos Nos. 2 & 3 with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Ashkenazy (EMI Classics). A recent recording with Kremerata Baltica of Mozart Concertos Nos. 20 & 27 will be a forthcoming release on EMI. Christopher Nupen’s documentary film, Evgeny Kissin: The Gift of Music, was released in 2000 on video & DVD by RCA Red Seal. The 2010-2011 music season sees engagements in major cities across Europe. He will then embark on a North American tour, featuring solo recitals, chamber recitals with Yuri Bashmet, & performances with the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, & the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.";

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HISTORICAL NOTE: "Franz Peter Schubert; Jan. 31, 1797 – Nov. 19, 1828) was an Austrian composer. Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies (including the famous "Unfinished Symphony"), liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, & a large body of chamber & solo piano music. Appreciation of his music during his lifetime was limited, but interest in Schubert's work increased dramatically in the decades following his death at the age of 31. Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms & Felix Mendelssohn, among others, discovered & championed his works in the 19th Century. Today, Schubert is admired as one of the leading exponents of the early Romantic era in music & he remains one of the most frequently performed composers. Schubert was born in Himmelpfortgrund (now a part of Alsergrund), Vienna on Jan. 31, 1797. His father, Franz Theodor Schubert, the son of a Moravian peasant, was a parish schoolmaster; his mother, Elisabeth Vietz, was the daughter of a Silesian master locksmith, & had also been a housemaid for a Viennese family prior to her marriage. Of Franz Theodor's fourteen children (one illegitimate child was born in 1783), nine died in infancy; five survived. Their father was a well-known teacher, & his school in Lichtental, a part of Vienna's 9th district, was well attended. He was not a musician of fame or with formal training, but he taught his son some elements of music. At the age of five, Schubert began receiving regular instruction from his father & a year later was enrolled at his father's school. His formal musical education also began around the same time. His father continued to teach him the basics of the violin, & his brother Ignaz gave him piano lessons. At 7, Schubert began receiving lessons from Michael Holzer, the local church organist & choirmaster. Holzer's lessons seem to have mainly consisted of conversations & expressions of admiration & the boy gained more from his acquaintance with a friendly joiner's apprentice who used to take him to a neighboring pianoforte warehouse where he had the opportunity to practice on better instruments. He also played the viola in the family string quartet, with brothers Ferdinand & Ignaz on violin & his father on the cello. Schubert wrote many of his early string quartets for this ensemble. Schubert 1st came to the attention of Antonio Salieri, then Vienna's leading musical authority, in 1804, when his vocal talent was recognized. In Oct. 1808, he became a pupil at the Stadtkonvikt (Imperial seminary) through a choir scholarship. At the Stadtkonvikt, Schubert was introduced to the overtures & symphonies of Mozart. His exposure to these pieces & various lighter compositions, combined with his occasional visits to the opera set the foundation for his greater musical knowledge. One important musical influence came from the songs of Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg, who was an important Lied composer of the time, which, his friend Joseph von Spaun reported, he "wanted to modernize". Schubert's friendship with Spaun began at the Stadtkonvikt & endured through his lifetime. In those early days, the more well-to-do Spaun furnished the impoverished Schubert with manuscript paper. Meanwhile, his genius began to show in his compositions. Schubert was occasionally permitted to lead the Stadtkonvikt's orchestra, & Salieri decided to begin training him privately in musical composition & theory in these years. It was the 1st germ of that amateur orchestra for which, in later years, many of his compositions were written. During the remainder of his stay at the Stadtkonvikt he wrote a good deal of chamber music, several songs, some miscellaneous pieces for the pianoforte &, among his more ambitious efforts, a Kyrie (D. 31) & Salve Regina (D. 27), an octet for wind instruments (D. 72/72a, said to commemorate the 1812 death of his mother), a cantata for guitar & male voices (D. 110, in honor of his father's birthday in 1813), & his 1st symphony (D. 82). At the end of 1813, he left the Stadtkonvikt, & returned home for studies at the Normalhauptschule to train as a teacher. In 1814, he entered his father's school as teacher of the youngest students. For over two years, the young man endured the drudgery of the work, which he performed with very indifferent success. There were, however, other interests to compensate. He continued to receive private lessons in composition from Salieri, who did more for Schubert’s musical training than any of his other teachers. Salieri & Schubert would part ways in 1817. In 1814, Schubert met a young soprano named Therese Grob, the daughter of a local silk manufacturer. Several of his songs (Salve Regina & Tantum Ergo) were composed for her voice, & she also performed in the premiere of his 1st Mass (D. 105) in Sept. 1814. Schubert intended to marry Grob, but was hindered by the harsh marriage consent law of 1815, which required the ability to show the means to support a family. In Nov. 1816, after failing to gain a position at Laibach, Schubert sent Grob's brother Heinrich a collection of songs, which were retained by her family into the 20th century. One of Schubert's most prolific years was 1815. He composed over 20,000 bars of music, more than half of which was for orchestra, including nine church works, a symphony, & about 140 Lieder. In that year, he was also introduced to Anselm Hüttenbrenner & Franz von Schober, who would become his lifelong friends. Another friend, Johann Mayrhofer, was introduced to him by Spaun in 1814. Some scholars, such as Maynard Solomon, have suggested that Schubert was erotically attracted to men, a thesis that has at times been heatedly debated. Significant changes happened in 1816. Schober, a student of good family & some means, invited Schubert to room with him at his mother's house. The proposal was particularly opportune, for Schubert had just made the unsuccessful application for the post of Kapellmeister at Laibach, & he had also decided not to resume teaching duties at his father's school. By the end of the year, he became a guest in Schober's lodgings. For a time, he attempted to increase the household resources by giving music lessons, but they were soon abandoned, & he devoted himself to composition. "I compose every morning, & when one piece is done, I begin another." During this year, he focused on orchestral & choral works, although he also continued to write Lieder. Much of this work was unpublished, but manuscripts & copies circulated among friends & admirers. In early 1817, Schober introduced Schubert to Johann Michael Vogl, a prominent baritone twenty years Schubert's senior. Vogl, for whom Schubert went on to write a great many songs, became one of Schubert's main proponents in Viennese musical circles. He also met Joseph Hüttenbrenner (brother to Anselm), who also played a role in promoting Schubert's music. These, & an increasing circle of friends & musicians, became responsible for promoting, collecting, &, after his death, preserving, his work. In late 1817, Schubert's father gained a new position at a school in Rossau (not far from Lichtental). Schubert rejoined his father & reluctantly took up teaching duties there. In early 1818, he was rejected for membership in the prestigious Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, something that might have furthered his musical career. However, he began to gain more notice in the press, & the 1st public performance of a secular work, an overture performed in February 1818, received praise from the press in Vienna & abroad. Schubert spent the summer of 1818 as music teacher to the family of Count Johann Karl Esterházy at their château in Zseliz (then in Hungary, now in Slovakia). His duties were relatively light (teaching piano & singing to the two daughters, Marie & Karoline), & the pay was relatively good. As a result, he happily continued to compose during this time. It may have been at this time that he wrote one of his now world-famous compositions, the Marche militaire No. 1 in D major. Marie & Karoline both being his piano students, & the original score of "Marche Militaire" being a piano duet, lend credence to this view. On his return from Zseliz, he took up residence with his friend Mayrhofer. The respite at Zseliz led to a succession of compositions for piano duet. The tight circle of friends that Schubert surrounded himself with was dealt a blow in early 1820. Schubert & four of his friends were arrested by the Austrian secret police, who were suspicious of any type of student gatherings. One of Schubert's friends, Johann Senn, was put on trial, imprisoned for over a year, & then permanently banned from Vienna. The other four, including Schubert, were "severely reprimanded", in part for "inveighing against [officials] with insulting & opprobrious language". While Schubert never saw Senn again, he did set some of his poems, "Selige Welt" & "Schwanengesang", to music. The incident may have played a role in a falling-out with Mayrhofer, with whom he was living at the time. He was nicknamed "Schwämmerl" by his friends, which Gibbs describes as translating "Tubby" or "Little Mushroom". "Schwammerl" is Austrian (& other) dialect for mushroom; the umlaut makes it a diminutive. The compositions of 1819 & 1820 show a marked advance in development & maturity of style. The unfinished oratorio "Lazarus" (D. 689) was begun in Feb.; later followed, amid a number of smaller works, by the 23rd Psalm (D. 706), the Gesang der Geister (D. 705/714), the Quartettsatz in C minor (D. 703), & the "Wanderer Fantasy" for piano (D. 760). Of most notable interest is the staging in 1820 of two of Schubert's operas: Die Zwillingsbrüder (D. 647) appeared at the Theater am Kärntnertor on June 14, & Die Zauberharfe (D. 644) appeared at the Theater an der Wien on August 21. Hitherto, his larger compositions (apart from his masses) had been restricted to the amateur orchestra at the Gundelhof, a society which grew out of the quartet-parties at his home. Now he began to assume a more prominent position, addressing a wider public. Publishers, however, remained distant, with Anton Diabelli hesitantly agreeing to print some of his works on commission. The 1st seven opus numbers (all songs) appeared on these terms; then the commission ceased, & he began to receive the meager pittances which were all that the great publishing houses ever accorded to him. The situation improved somewhat in March 1821 when Vogl sang "Der Erlkönig" at a concert that was extremely well received. That month, he composed a variation on a waltz by Anton Diabelli (D. 718), being one of the fifty composers who contributed to Vaterländischer Künstlerverein. The production of the two operas turned Schubert's attention more firmly than ever in the direction of the stage, where, for a variety of reasons, he was almost completely unsuccessful. In 1822, Alfonso & Estrella was refused, partly owing to its libretto. Fierrabras (D. 796) was rejected in the fall of 1823, but this was largely due to the popularity of Rossini & the Italian operatic style, & the failure of Carl Maria von Weber's Euryanthe. Die Verschworenen (The Conspirators, D. 787) was prohibited by the censor (apparently on the grounds of its title), & Rosamunde (D. 797) was withdrawn after two nights, owing to the poor quality of the play for which Schubert had written incidental music. Of these works, the two former are written on a scale which would make their performances exceedingly difficult (Fierrabras, for instance, contains over 1,000 pages of manuscript score), but Die Verschworenen is a bright attractive comedy, & Rosamunde contains some of the most charming music that Schubert ever composed. In 1822, he made the acquaintance of both Weber & Beethoven, but little came of it in either case. Beethoven is said to have acknowledged the younger man's gifts on a few occasions, but some of this is likely legend & in any case he could not have known the real scope of Schubert's music - especially not the instrumental works - as so little of it was printed or performed in the composer's lifetime. On his deathbed, Beethoven is said to have looked into some of the younger man's works & exclaimed, "Truly, the spark of divine genius resides in this Schubert!" but what would have come of it if he had recovered we can never know. In the autumn of 1822, Schubert embarked suddenly on a work which more decisively than almost any other in those years showed his maturing personal vision, the "Unfinished Symphony" in B minor. The reason he left it unfinished after two movements & sketches some way into a 3rd remains an enigma, & it is also remarkable that he didn't mention it to any of his friends even though, as Brian Newbould notes, he must have felt thrilled by what he was achieving here. In 1823 Schubert, in addition to Fierrabras, also wrote his 1st song cycle, Die schöne Müllerin (D. 795), setting poems by Wilhelm Müller. This series, together with the later cycle "Winterreise" (D. 911, also setting texts of Müller in 1827) is widely considered one of the pinnacles of Lieder. He also composed the song Du bist die Ruh ("You are stillness/peace") D. 776 during this year. Also in that year, symptoms of syphilis 1st appeared. In the spring of 1824 he wrote the Octet in F (D. 803), "A Sketch for a Grand Symphony"; & in the summer went back to Zseliz. There he became attracted to Hungarian musical idiom, & wrote the Divertissement à la hongroise (D. 818) for piano duet & the String Quartet in A minor (D. 804). It has been said that he held a hopeless passion for his pupil, the Countess Karoline Eszterházy, but the only work he dedicated to her was his Fantasie in F minor (D. 940) for piano duet. His friend Bauernfeld penned the following verse, which appears to reference Schubert's unrequited sentiments: In love with a Countess of youthful grace, —A pupil of Galt's; in desperate case Young Schubert surrenders himself to another, And fain would avoid such affectionate pother. Despite his preoccupation with the stage, & later with his official duties, he found time during these years for a significant amount of composition. He completed the Mass in A flat (D. 678) &, in 1822, began the "Unfinished Symphony" (Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759). Why the symphony was "unfinished" has been debated endlessly without resolution. In 1824, he wrote the variations for flute & piano on "Trockne Blumen", from the cycle Die schöne Müllerin, & several string quartets. He also wrote the Arpeggione Sonata (D. 821), at a time when there was a minor craze over that instrument. The setbacks of previous years were compensated for by the prosperity & happiness of 1825. Publication had been moving more rapidly; the stress of poverty was for a time lightened; & in the summer he had a pleasant holiday in Upper Austria, where he was welcomed with enthusiasm. It was during this tour that he produced his "Songs from Sir Walter Scott". This cycle contains Ellens dritter Gesang (D. 839), a setting of Adam Storck's German translation of Scott's hymn from The Lady of the Lake, which is widely, though mistakenly, referred to as "Schubert's Ave Maria". It opens with the greeting Ave Maria, which recurs in the refrain; the entire Scott/Storck text in Schubert's song is frequently substituted with the complete Latin text of the traditional Ave Maria prayer. In 1825, Schubert also wrote the Piano Sonata in A minor (Op. 42, D. 845), & began the "Great" C major Symphony (Symphony No. 9, D. 944), which was completed the following year. From 1826 to 1828, Schubert resided continuously in Vienna, except for a brief visit to Graz in 1827. The history of his life during these three years was relatively uneventful, & is little more than a record of his compositions. In 1826, he dedicated a symphony (D. 944, that later came to be known as the "Great") to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde & received an honorarium in return. In the spring of 1828, he gave, for the 1st & only time in his career, a public concert of his own works, which was very well received. The compositions themselves are a sufficient biography. The String Quartet in D minor (D. 810), with the variations on "Death & the Maiden", was written during the winter of 1825–1826, & 1st played on 25 Jan. 1826. Later in the year came the String Quartet in G major, (D. 887, Op. 161), the "Rondeau brillant" for piano & violin (D. 895, Op. 70), & the Piano Sonata in G (D. 894, Op. 78) (1st published under the title "Fantasia in G"). To these should be added the three Shakespearian songs, of which "Hark! Hark! the Lark" (D. 889) & "An Sylvia" (D. 891) were allegedly written on the same day, the former at a tavern where he broke his afternoon's walk, the latter on his return to his lodging in the evening. In 1827, Schubert wrote the song cycle Winterreise (D. 911), a colossal peak of the art of art song ("remarkable" was the way it was described at the Schubertiades), the Fantasia for piano & violin in C (D. 934), the Impromptus for piano, & the two piano trios (the 1st in B flat (D. 898), & the 2nd in E flat, D. 929); in 1828 the Mirjams Siegesgesang (Song of Miriam, D. 942) on a text by Franz Grillparzer, the Mass in E-flat (D. 950), the Tantum Ergo (D. 962) in the same key, the String Quintet in C (D. 956), the second Benedictus to the Mass in C, the last three piano sonatas, & the collection of songs published posthumously as Schwanengesang ("Swan-song", D. 957). This collection, while not a true song cycle, retains a unity of style amongst the individual songs, touching depths of tragedy & of the morbidly supernatural which had rarely been plumbed by any composer in the century preceding it. Six of these are set to words by Heinrich Heine, whose Buch der Lieder appeared in the autumn. The Symphony No. 9 (D. 944) is dated 1828, but Schubert scholars believe that this symphony was largely written in 1825–1826 (being referred to while he was on holiday at Gastein in 1825 - that work, once considered lost, now is generally seen as an early stage of his C major symphony) & was revised for prospective performance in 1828. This was a fairly unusual practice for Schubert, for whom publication, let alone performance, was rarely contemplated for most of his larger-scale works during his lifetime. In the last weeks of his life, he began to sketch three movements for a new Symphony in D (D. 936A). The works of his last two years reveal a composer increasingly meditating on the darker side of the human psyche & human relationships, & with a deeper sense of spiritual awareness & conception of the 'beyond'. He reaches extraordinary depths in several chillingly dark songs of this period, especially in the larger cycles. For example, the song Der Doppelgänger reaching an extraordinary climax, conveying madness at the realization of rejection & imminent death - a stark & visionary picture in sound and words that had been prefigured a year before by "Der Leiermann" (The Hurdy-Gurdy Man) at the end of Winterreise - & yet the composer is able to touch repose & communion with the infinite in the almost timeless ebb & flow of the String Quintet and his last three piano sonatas, moving between joyful, vibrant poetry & remote introspection. Even in large-scale works he was sometimes using increasingly sparse textures; Newbould compares his writing in the fragmentary Tenth Symphony (D.936A), probably the work of his very last two months) with Mahler's use of folksong-like harmonics & bare soundscapes. Schubert expressed the wish, were he to survive his final illness, to further develop his knowledge of harmony & counterpoint, & had actually made appointments for lessons with the counterpoint master Simon Sechter. In the midst of this creative activity, his health deteriorated. The cause of his death was officially diagnosed as typhoid fever, though other theories have been proposed, including the tertiary stage of syphilis. By the late 1820s Schubert's health was failing & he confided to some friends that he feared that he was near death. In the late summer of 1828, the composer saw court physician Ernst Rinna, who may have confirmed Schubert's suspicions that he was ill beyond cure & likely to die soon. Some of his symptoms matched those of mercury poisoning (mercury was then a common treatment for syphilis, again suggesting that Schubert suffered from it). At the beginning of November he again fell ill, experiencing headaches, fever, swollen joints, & vomiting. He was generally unable to retain solid food & his condition worsened. Schubert died in Vienna, at age 31, on Nov. 19, 1828, at the apartment of his brother Ferdinand. The last musical work he had wished to hear was Beethoven's String Quartet No.14 in C sharp minor, Op. 131; his friend, violinist Karl Holz, who was present at the gathering, 5 days before Schubert's death, commented: "The King of Harmony has sent the King of Song a friendly bidding to the crossing". It was next to Beethoven, whom he had admired all his life, that Schubert was buried by his own request, in the village cemetery of Währing. In 1872, a memorial to Franz Schubert was erected in Vienna's Stadtpark. In 1888, both Schubert's & Beethoven's graves were moved to the Zentralfriedhof, where they can now be found next to those of Johann Strauss II & Johannes Brahms. The cemetery in Währing was converted into a park in 1925, called the Schubert Park, & his former grave site was marked by a bust. Schubert wrote almost 1000 works in a remarkably short career. The largest number (over 600) of these are songs. He wrote seven complete symphonies, as well as the two movements of the "Unfinished" Symphony, a complete sketch (with partial orchestration) of a ninth, & arguable fragments of a 10th. There is a large body of music for solo piano, including 21 complete sonatas & many short dances, & a relatively large set of works for piano duet. There are nearly 30 chamber works, including some fragmentary works. His choral output includes six masses. He wrote only five operas, & no concertos. In July 1947 the 20th-century composer Ernst Krenek discussed Schubert's style, abashedly admitting that he at 1st "shared the wide-spread opinion that Schubert was a lucky inventor of pleasing tunes ... lacking the dramatic power & searching intelligence which distinguished such 'real' masters as Bach or Beethoven". Krenek wrote that he reached a completely different assessment after close study of Schubert's songs at the urging of friend & fellow composer Eduard Erdmann. Krenek pointed to the piano sonatas as giving "ample evidence that [Schubert] was much more than an easy-going tune-smith who did not know, & did not care, about the craft of composition." Each sonata then in print, according to Krenek, exhibited "a great wealth of technical finesse" & revealed Schubert as "far from satisfied with pouring his charming ideas into conventional molds; on the contrary he was a thinking artist with a keen appetite for experimentation." That "appetite for experimentation" manifests itself repeatedly in Schubert's output in a wide variety of forms & genres, including opera, liturgical music, chamber & solo piano music, & symphonic works. Perhaps most familiarly, his adventurousness manifests itself as a notably original sense of modulation, as in the 2nd movement of the String Quintet, where he modulates from C major, through E major, to reach the tonic key of C♯ major. It also appears in unusual choices of instrumentation, as in the Arpeggione Sonata or the unconventional scoring of the Trout Quintet. If it not infrequently led Schubert up blind alleys, resulting in fragmentary works, it also enabled him to create music unlike anything that had come before, such as his two song cycles of unprecedented scope. While he was clearly influenced by the Classical sonata forms of Beethoven & Mozart (his early works, among them notably the 5th Symphony, are particularly Mozartean), his formal structures & his developments tend to give the impression more of melodic development than of harmonic drama. This combination of Classical form & long-breathed Romantic melody sometimes lends them a discursive style: his 9th Symphony was described by Robert Schumann as running to "heavenly lengths". His harmonic innovations include movements in which the 1st section ends in the key of the subdominant rather than the dominant (as in the last movement of the Trout Quintet). Schubert's practice here was a forerunner of the common Romantic technique of relaxing, rather than raising, tension in the middle of a movement, with final resolution postponed to the very end. It was in the genre of the Lied, however, that Schubert made his most indelible mark. Plantinga remarks, "In his more than six hundred Lieder he explored & expanded the potentialities of the genre as no composer before him." Prior to Schubert's influence, Lieder tended toward a strophic, syllabic treatment of text, evoking the folksong qualities burgeoned by the stirrings of Romantic nationalism. Among Schubert's treatments of the poetry of Goethe, his settings of Gretchen am Spinnrade & Der Erlkönig are particularly striking for their dramatic content, forward-looking uses of harmony, & their use of eloquent pictorial keyboard figurations, such as the depiction of the spinning wheel & treadle in the piano in Gretchen and the furious & ceaseless gallop in Erlkönig. Also of particular note are his two song cycles on the poems of Wilhelm Müller, Die schöne Müllerin & Winterreise, which helped to establish the genre & its potential for musical, poetic, & almost operatic dramatic narrative. The Theaterzeitung, writing about Winterreise at the time, commented that it was a work that "none can sing or hear without being deeply moved". Antonín Dvořák wrote in 1894 that Schubert, whom he considered one of the truly great composers, was clearly influential on shorter works, especially Lieder & shorter piano works: "The tendency of the romantic school has been toward short forms, & although Weber helped to show the way, to Schubert belongs the chief credit of originating the short models of piano forte pieces which the romantic school has preferably cultivated. [...] Schubert created a new epoch with the Lied. [...] All other songwriters have followed in his footsteps." Schubert's compositional style progressed rapidly throughout his short life. The loss of potential masterpieces caused by his early death at 31 was perhaps best expressed in the epitaph on his large tombstone written by the poet Franz Grillparzer, "Here music has buried a treasure, but even fairer hopes." Schubert's chamber music continues to be popular. In a poll of classical music listeners announced in Oct. 2008, the ABC in Australia found that Schubert's chamber works dominated the field, with the Trout Quintet coming 1st, followed by two of his other works. The New York Times music critic, Anthony Tommasini, who ranked Schubert as the 4th greatest composer wrote, "Four? Schubert. You have to love the guy, who died at 31, ill, impoverished & neglected except by a circle of friends who were in awe of his genius. For his hundreds of songs alone — including the haunting cycle “Winterreise,” which will never release its tenacious hold on singers & audiences — Schubert is central to our concert life.... Schubert’s 1st few symphonies may be works in progress. But the “Unfinished” & especially the Ninth Symphony are astonishing. The Ninth paves the way for Bruckner & prefigures Mahler.". Some of his smaller pieces were printed shortly after his death, but the manuscripts of many of the longer works, whose existence was not widely known, remained hidden in cabinets & file boxes of Schubert's family, friends, & publishers. Even some of Schubert's friends were unaware of the full scope of what he wrote, & for many years he was primarily recognized as the "prince of song", although there was recognition of some of his larger-scale efforts. In 1838 Robert Schumann, on a visit to Vienna, found the dusty manuscript of the C major symphony (the "Great", D. 944) & took it back to Leipzig, where it was performed by Felix Mendelssohn & celebrated in the Neue Zeitschrift. The most important step towards the recovery of the neglected works was the journey to Vienna which Sir George Grove (widely known for the Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians) & Arthur Sullivan made in the autumn of 1867. The travellers rescued from oblivion seven symphonies, the Rosamunde incidental music, some of the Masses & operas, some of the chamber works, & a vast quantity of miscellaneous pieces & songs. This led to more widespread public interest in Schubert's work. From the 1830s through the 1870s, Franz Liszt transcribed & arranged a number of Schubert's works, particularly the songs. Liszt, who was a significant force in spreading Schubert's work after his death, said Schubert was "the most poetic musician who ever lived." Schubert's symphonies were of particular interest to Antonín Dvořák, with Hector Berlioz & Anton Bruckner acknowledging the influence of the "Great" Symphony. In 1897, the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel released a critical edition of Schubert's works, under the general editing of Johannes Brahms, enabling a wider dissemination of his music. In the 20th century, composers such as Benjamin Britten, Richard Strauss, & George Crumb either championed or paid homage to Schubert in their work. Britten, an accomplished pianist, accompanied many of Schubert's Lieder & performed many piano solo & duet works. Confusion arose quite early over the numbering of Schubert's symphonies, in particular the "Great" C Major Symphony. George Grove, who rediscovered many of Schubert's symphonies, assigned the following numbering after his 1867 visit to Vienna: