Schubert & Friendship

In this final work of Michael Davidson, the reader will find detailed analysis of forty-one Schubert lieder on texts of thirteen of his friends. Perhaps no composer’s life has been so intensively defined by his friendship as Schubert’s. From his boarding school years on most of his social hours were spend with friends. Among the first was Josef von Spaun who was to remain his most loyal friend. The focus of this book is with Schubert’s Viennese friends who played intimate roles in his life and, like many young men of the time, wrote poetry, much of which was beautiful. If not all of them were gifted as writers, Schubert was a loyal friend whose music always transcended any possible inadequacies of the texts.