The astonishing creative genius of Franz Schubert (1797-1828) produced an extraordinary quantity of music: song cycles, symphonies, piano and chamber works - all now recognised as masterpieces. Such acclaim did not exist in the years immediately after his death, and it was only later, when the rediscovery of Schubert's music (led by George Grove) was gathering pace, that this work, the first full-length biography of the composer, appeared in 1865. Written by Heinrich Kreissle von Hellborn (1812-69), a Viennese lawyer and member of the city's Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, the work...

The astonishing creative genius of Franz Schubert (1797-1828) produced an extraordinary quantity of music: song cycles, symphonies, piano and chamber works - all now recognised as masterpieces. Such acclaim did not exist in the years immediately after his death, and it was only later, when the rediscovery of Schubert's music (led by George Grove) was gathering pace, that this work, the first full-length biography of the composer, appeared in 1865. Written by Heinrich Kreissle von Hellborn (1812-69), a Viennese lawyer and member of the city's Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, the work...