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Schubert's Early Education

Franz Schubert had developed a beautiful soprano voice as a boy, and was first taken into the choir of the Lichtenthal, the parish where his family lived. When he turned eleven years old, he was advanced to a school called the Convict, where boys were educated for the choir of the Imperial Court chapel in Vienna. In the Convict, his musical abilities were greatly advanced. Besides singing, the boys had a regular little orchestra in the school, which was good enough to play some simple symphonies that were popular in those days. Franz entered the orchestra on violin, and his previous training gave him a real advantage over the other students. At the time when he entered, there was another little boy named Spaun, who was the concertmaster of the orchestra, and the top violin player in the school. Spaun was nine years older than Schubert, but they both were on equal ground as far as violin playing goes. Instead of struggling with each other, the two boys became the best of friends. Franz was always very poor, and Spaun was rather well off, and did not hesitate to share his money with Franz. It was during this time that Schubert first became interested in trying his hand at composition, however manuscript paper was hard to come by. Spaun helped him in this respect, and when he found what Franz’s talents were, he took good care they should not be wasted due to lack of paper.

As time passed, Franz rose to be quite an important student in the Convict. He eventually rose to the first violin seat in the boy’s orchestra, and his schoolmates admired his compositions. The only problem was that he had no one to direct him or advise him in composition. Most of his early works were wild and irregular attempts to express himself, with no better guidance than his own instincts, and the models he followed from the performances in his orchestra.

The life he lived at the Convict seems to have been a rather difficult one, especially for a boy as poor as Franz was. A letter he wrote the year before he left gives a good description of his absence of any sort on enervating luxury:

"I have been thinking a good long time about my position, and find that it’s well enough on the whole, but might be improved in some respects; you know that one can enjoy eating a roll and an apple or two, and all the more when one must wait eight hours and a half after a poor dinner for a meagre supper. The wish has haunted me so often and so perseveringly that I must make a change. The few groschen my father gave me are all gone to the devil; what am I to do for the rest of the time?

So thought I. Suppose you advance me a few kreuzers monthly. You would never miss it, whilst I should shut myself up in my cell and be quite happy. As I said, I rely on the words of the Apostle Matthew, who says: ‘Let him that hath two coats give one to the poor.’ Meanwhile I trust you will listen to the voice, which appeals to you to remember your loving, hoping, poverty-stricken-- and once again I repeat poverty-stricken--brother, Franz."

Besides poverty, the boys suffered bitterly in the winter from living and working in unheated rooms, so altogether the picture is a very harsh one to think about; but, nevertheless, the school afforded some advantages to Schubert, for there he had a good deal of experience of solid music, and plenty of sympathy from the other boys; and there also he made some excellent friends who were faithful to him all through life.

When he got home he found a great change, for his mother had died the year before, in 1812. But there is little evidence of the impact it had on Franz himself, or upon the way of living in his home. Before long, his father was married again, and his new wife did not come up to the traditional reputation of a stepmother, but treated Franz well, and appears to have been regarded by him with affection.