Franz Schubert

[ I walk into the center of a stage, it is blank and only me and my interviewee are on the stage, with 2 chairs and a C-D player ,my newly reanimated friend and I make salutations and then get down to business]

X: So Mr. Schubert, as a musician, I wann’a know, what got you into music?

F: Please call me Franz! Ah now that is an interesting story. My father you see, vas a schoolmaster. My mother was a housemaid! So how does a son of these 2 people become a music master? It’s simple. My father taught me vhat music he could, very little you see, but none the less a good amount. He taught me violin, my first instrument. My brother also taught me piano, How I love piano… When I got older I got lessons from a local church organist and choir teacher. A mister….Michael Holzer. He was a crazy man but taught me good skills.

I vas on the vay of learning well! I soon could play well! I then became friends with my next door neighbor who worked at a warehouse which housed good instruments for me to use to practice. It vas great! About that time my family formed a string quartet .I played viola, and my two brothers played violin. And cello was played by my father. It vas there I composed many of my first songs.

X: Interesting, Did you have any other mentors?

F: Yes, besides my father and brothers. There was Holzer as I told you about who helped me sing. But there vas a man named Antonio Salieri. He had noticed my singing and really liked it! And I got a chior scholarship and learned more about singing. It vas great it really helped broadend my skills. I vas at the Stadtkonvikt , a great school . I really took a liking to Mozart there , and it vas there I met my great friend Joseph von Spaun . He wanted to modernize music (Gibbs 2000) he was a great friend for a life time.

That school vas great I loved it there. I learned so much. I actully got to conduct the main orchestra sometimes, a great honor. A trully amazing….it was there I wrote many of my first good compositions. If anything was a mentor it was this school. (sarcasm) HaHA!

X: Was there anything intersting about music when you were around?

F: Not that much that you probably don’t know about, same old mozart being the best, and bach being good. The music vas getting good and everyone knew Mozart. So much vas happening. It was amazing. And to think I changed music so much for my time. Its unbeleivable! Really! It is! Ah to think back…..Its so weird. And now! Seeing how much the industrys changed! These electronic instruments! And the recordings!

[He motioned towards the C-D player on the table]

Trully amazing. I vish we could have had this in my time. Hmm most of the music is good, this pop and hip-hop? Is that how its called?

[I nod]

Eh , most of it is not good….ah well not all music can be right?

[We laugh]

X: How did the economy and polotics affect you in music at the time?

F: Not so much. The economy vas really fine, so I had sales in everyway. Politics fortunately had no effect with my music. It vas great, I had read about the government bumping into peoples music…..Nasty bit of business, making them write stuff for there purposes, and ideas, and fortunately the economy vas good.

X: What were some of your major accomplishments?

F: Well I don’t mean to brag but, a certain Beethoven once said "Truly, the spark of divine genius resides in this Schubert!” When I heard that!i jumped up! One of the big three composers! (Mozart Beethoven Bach) I just wish he could have lived longer to hear more of my music….and now im considered one of the big four? That’s amazing! And to still see people playing our music so many years later? That is a accomplishment.

But out of all my songs I thing my most accomplished , and famous is the Unfinished symphony. You see I wrote this song for many years, I never seemed to finish it; just adding parts and parts and parts….it was great. And it, finally, got finished! We can listen to it if you want?

X: Sure.

[ I put a C-D into the C-D player next to us as we listen to a song, after a few measures I pause it.]

F: Great huh?

X: Marvalus . What were some key points in your life?

F: The question is what wasn’t a turning point HA! But seriously I think my father teaching me was….and meybay my first mentor teaching me, Holzer. And then getting noticed by Antonio Salieri, then going to the music school. Pretty much everything can be accounted for as a turning point, all times when my life was changed.

Allmost everytime I wrote a song it was a turning point. I got more praise, and more , well , stuff! I wrote a song all most everyday and as soon as I was done I started again. A fun life don’t you think?

X: I really do, were there any personal choices you made to be sucsesfull?

F: Well definatly! Every choice I made vas a personal one, look at my young life! I chose to be a musician, and I chose to go to school and all that stuff. I chose to write music. I chose to conduct. The only choice I didn’t choose was to die! HaHa!

[We laugh for a few seconds then he continues]

F: Yes every choice vas personal, every single one, because everything in your life is personal if it involves you. Because it is your life no one elses.

X: What kind of hardships did you face, if any?

F:Honestly not really any, besides the ones that are normal for life, mother dieng ,father dieing, that sort of stuff… nothing really though.

[we share a long pause]

F: Its really weird being alive again.

X: Its weird for me too. Now, what type if limitatons did you run into?

F: Well now seeing this new time, I see so many limitations, but back then…I know one good one was spreading music around. It vas so hard to show music without having a full orchestra, It vas basicly imposible! We had to have a concert and even then it was so hard to describe a song. That’s the only thing we could do, sell songs and tickets.

That’s a reason I think these new generations have it easer, they can just sell thier song on this internet I hear of. Its all so easy and simpl, it makes me wish I had it. HA! ahwell it just proves we are good musicans for our time. Not to say you musican arent, you are doing amazing stuff, but you have more tools for it.

X: I understand, shoot were allmost out of time, were there any storys that illistrate how you became sucsessfull in the arts?

F: Let me tell you this, my whole life illistrates it. Since I was 5 I have been learning about music, and I have been performing. It is my life story, it is what I will continue doing. It is my,no.. our life, as you are a musican too. It is our story, it is how we became what we are, you go to a art school and that is a story on its own. That’s how musicans work, we have storys of our life and put it into music.

It is what makes us tink, we write music to express ourselfs and our storys, in my life I traveled allot from my home in vianna, and expreesed my music, my story from school to my perfomences each is a story, they all affected my music making. And that’s the truth. Well my friend ill let you go.

[we stand up and shake hands]

F:keep music alive, never let it die, it is the best form of expession.

X: I promise I will, but what will you do?

F: hmm ithink ill compose more music and listen to the new artists…and what was the band you suggested again? Cold somthin?

X:uh um Cold…play….yeah…

F: well ill take your suggestion.

F: Aufwieder sehen!

[he walks out of the theatre and i pack up and leave]

Franz Schubert

Friday, April 15, 2011

Similarities

Differences

Judging

Monday, April 11, 2011

Interview

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

"Franz schubert"

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

serenade

Me! Again .