Franz Schubert (SHOE-bert) was another musical genius. He was born in Vienna, Austria, the center of the music world in the Classical Period. Like Mozart, he turned out volumes of beautiful melodies. His father was a school master who thought that Franz should follow in his footsteps. Papa Schubert was a practical man who probably believed that it was better to make a small salary as a teacher than to starve as a musician. Father Schubert played the cello and gave Franz lessons on the violin and piano, but he still thought that Franz should be a teacher! To please his father, Franz tried teaching for a while, but he was unable to keep discipline and he hated this career. His father finally agreed that Franz would be happier composing.

Schubert was so talented that one of his teachers said, "I can't teach him anything else. He's learned it all from God himself!" While he was not a virtuoso pianist like Mozart or Beethoven, he loved evenings of playing piano for his friends. These evenings became known as Schubertiads.

Schubert was born to create, to compose beautiful music, and that he did. He wrote nine symphonies, but he was best at writing small piano pieces called impromptus, moments musicals, or serenades. Schubert is especially known for his songs called Lieder (LEE-der) in German. He wrote very quickly, sometimes eight songs in a single day, and over 600 songs in the thirty-one years of his brief life. He also wrote many compositions for strings: quartets, quintets and trios.

Schubert idolized Beethoven. He was very sad when Beethoven died. Like Mozart, Schubert died very young, at 31. His dream was to be buried next to the master. He was buried as close to Beethoven "as could be arranged."

Schubert was not famous in his lifetime. After he died, Schumann found some of his manuscripts and had them published. Gradually his fame spread, and people realized that he was a great composer.