SCHUBERT[ToC]
f you are ever in the city of Vienna, and bend your steps to the district called the Lichtenthal, you will there find a thoroughfare, running north and south, called the Nussdorfer Strasse. This is its present name, but in former times it was known as 'Auf dem Himmelpfortgrund'—meaning 'Off the Gate of Heaven'—the 'Himmelpfortgrund' itself being a small street branching off to the west towards the fortifications. On the right-hand side of the Nussdorfer Strasse, as you face the outskirts of the city, you will come upon a house bearing the number 54 (it was formerly numbered 72), and the curious sign of 'Zum rothen Krebsen' (the Red Crab). But your attention will at once be drawn to another feature of the house—a grey marble tablet fixed above the door, with the inscription 'Franz Schubert's Geburthaus' (the house in which Franz Schubert was born), in the centre, and on the right a lyre crowned with a star, and on the left a laurel wreath encircling the date '31 January, 1797.'
Nothing more than this inscribed tablet will be needed to bring home to your mind the fact that you are actually face to face with the house in which Schubert, the composer of those beautiful songs, 'The Erl King,' 'Hark, hark, the Lark,' and 'Sylvia,' first saw the light. And as you stand before the home of the great song-writer your thoughts will revert in fancy to the time when, a century ago, there issued from that doorway the figure of a boy of eleven years of age, clad in a suit of grey so light as to be almost white, with chubby face, bright dark eyes, with a sparkle in them that the spectacles which he wore could not hide, and a head of thick, curly, black hair. That boy was Franz Schubert, setting out for his examination to be admitted as a scholar at the Imperial Convict, as the school for educating the choristers of the Chapel Royal in Vienna was called.
The son of Franz Schubert, a schoolmaster in the Lichtenthal district, whose character for uprightness and honesty, in addition to his abilities, had won him the respect and esteem of all who knew him, little Franz had from the first shown a remarkable fondness for music. The family were in poor circumstances, the father having sprung from a peasant stock, and by his own industry and a natural gift for teaching succeeded in raising himself to his present position, whilst his wife Elizabeth, in every way a perfect helpmeet for a poor man, was likewise of humble origin. Franz Schubert had nothing to depend upon but his schoolmaster's pay, and the family included, besides little Franz, three boys and a girl. Nevertheless, such encouragement as could be given to Franz in his love for music was given heartily and sympathetically, for there could not have been a more devoted family than his. At the first, however, Franz showed his independence by making friends with a joiner's apprentice, who used to take him to a certain pianoforte warehouse in the town, where, to his joy, he was permitted to play little tunes on one of the instruments. At home there was only an old, worn-out piano to practise upon, but with the aid of this and frequent visits to the warehouse the boy managed to acquire unaided a certain groundwork in music, so that when, at the age of seven, his father began to give him lessons on the violin he found that Franz had already made some headway. His elder brothers, Ignaz and Ferdinand, had been taken in hand by the father at the same age, and Ignaz, who was twelve years older than Franz, gave his little brother lessons on the pianoforte.
