Symphonies, chamber music, operas, church music, and over 600 songs outline the magnificent yet short-lived career of Franz Peter Schubert. Born to immigrant parents on January 31, 1797, in Vienna (McKay 1), this son of a schoolmaster showed an extraordinary childhood aptitude for music studying the piano, violin, organ, and voice. At the age of seven, he began a course of regular music instruction. It soon became evident that he had anticipated and mastered the principles that his instructor proposed to teach him. At eleven years of age and gifted with a fine soprano voice, Schubert became employed as a solo singer and violinist for the choir at the local parish church (Boynick). Later he was elevated to chorister-boy at the Chapel Royal and, having acquired fair proficiency as a violin-player, became a member of the school orchestra where he executed the great Symphonies of Haydn, Mozart, and subsequently Beethoven's works. In 1810, Schubert wrote a grand fantasia for four hands - the so-called 'Corpse Fantasia'. This was followed in 1811 and 1813 by two other less ambitious fantasias.
             By early 1814, he had already written his first symphony and a three-act opera. Although family pressure dictated he teach in his father's school, Schubert continued to compose prolifically during his private time at home. Between 1814 and 1815, the composer wrote feverously resulting in more than a hundred songs, half a dozen operas and melodramas, not to mention three masses, two more symphonies, chamber music, and music for the piano. Some of the greatest works written during that period include Gretchen am Spinnrade and Erlkönig. He applied particular energy to the composition of ballads on an extended scale including Emma and Adelwold – the lengthiest vocal piece that Schubert ever wrote (McKay 39). In 1816, he wrote his Symphony in C minor, known as the Tragic Symphony, the Symphony in B-flat major, addition...